From dawn until dusk, Kennedy Park serves as a gathering spot for all sorts of village people and their pets. Toddlers and teenagers, athletes and influencers, fitness buffs and tree-huggers – all have found their place in Kennedy Park.
The day begins in David T. Kennedy Park just before 7 a.m. as the sun transforms the sky over Biscayne Bay into a wash of orange and pink, and casts a glow over the 20-acre waterfront park – one of Coconut Grove’s great melting pots.
There to welcome the sunrise is Francisco Baños.
“Oh, God, beautiful. Every day is different, but beautiful,” he says.
Baños, 84, is usually the first person in the park.
He arrives each day at 4 a.m. to get in his six-hour workout routine – two hours of walking, a bit of biking and the remainder of his time spent bouncing between equipment at the park’s outdoor gym.
“I like to be alone and do my exercise alone,” he said.
But his solitude is short-lived. As the sun climbs in the sky, the park becomes one of the best places to watch – and meet – other people in Coconut Grove.
The rest of the early morning crew — most of them over 60 — begin to trickle in, greeting Baños, who they’ve nicknamed the “Mayor of Kennedy Park,” before beginning their own workout routines.
Among them is Tony Godoy. He arrives with a smile on his face. After tying his 17-year-old dog, Celestino, to a tree and making his rounds of hellos, he proceeds to take his place at the pull-up bar where he swings himself back and forth.
“There is no other park better than this in the whole world,” he said. “You have the ocean here with the beautiful seaside, and you have the sunlight and beautiful people.”
By 8:30 a.m. the park’s walking path is filled with dog-walkers and joggers making the most of the morning before the work day begins.
That’s when you’ll find Carl Trivieri and his one-and-a-half-year-old son, Luca, strolling along the boardwalk. “We come every day. Always in the morning,” Trivieri says. “He [Luca] learned to run here.”
Running at a much faster clip, marathoner Luis Batista – with notably defined calves and a hoodie cinched around his face – passes the father and son duo.
Batista has been running in Kennedy Park since before it was formally designated as Dinner Key Expansion Park in 1973. The park was renamed the following year for former Miami City Commissioner and public park advocate David T. Kennedy.
Since then, it’s become common ground for those seeking an outdoor workout.
“It’s a scientific fact that if you spend time getting exercise in nature, it not only helps you physically, but mentally,” Walter Robinson says.
On mornings when he can, Robinson makes the 20-minute walk from his house to the park, spends another 20 minutes working out, then walks back home.
In 1985, the Miami Herald ran a feature story on the park, calling it “a natural temple” and “home to those who pay homage to their bodies.”
Today, the park’s workout equipment and rubberized track – a runner’s dream – continue to attract the athletically-inclined.
That includes Lee Finkel – a liveaboard who docks his boat behind Monty’s Raw Bar. He comes ashore most days to use the park’s gym equipment or to perfect his headstand before logging onto his computer to work.
As popular as the park is for fitness, though, there are other people who find solace among the trees. For some, Kennedy Park is a constant, a refuge from the frenzied pace of development elsewhere in the Grove.
“I’ve been coming here since I was 15. Nothing has changed,” Jorge Dominguez says, his dog Bella roaming alongside him.
“It’s nice to be surrounded by familiar places and people that you know, because there are so many people moving in and out these days,” Victoria Dominguez says as she walks in place on the elliptical machine.
For those new to the neighborhood, Kennedy Park is a place to find community.
“It’s the one place I’ve met people,” Chrissy Murray, who moved from London two years ago, said, her dog Georgie jumping at her feet.
The morning workout crews help to foster that sense of connection. “When I see somebody new, I make it my business to make the person feel welcome,” Batista says.
The park’s relaxed vibe also contributes to its overall appeal.
On any given day, you might find a couple quietly fishing along the canal, a pop-up yoga class taught by Kawehi Medeiros, or Loredana Meza standing barefoot, eyes closed, arms wrapped around the trunk of a tree.
“When I close my eyes I can see things in a different way,” she says, after spending a few minutes in a meditative state.
As the day slips into afternoon, the after-school and after-work crowd brings a more youthful vibe into the park.
A mom gives her toddler a steadying push as they wobble forward on a bike without training wheels — only to tip over moments later in slow motion.
Nearby, young adults throw frisbees to their eager dogs, and the whiff of weed rises from a huddle of teenagers on picnic blankets near the mangroves.
“I love going to Kennedy Park in the afternoons,” Coconut Grove resident and Instagrammer @TheGroveInsider Emily Miller says. “It’s my people watching spot.”
Miller typically lays out her picnic blanket, settles down with a book and an orange, and scans the mangroves for yellow-crowned night herons.
And then, every so often, the park delivers one of those memorable moments – a trapeze artist dangling from rings suspended beneath a tree; a man playing a flute as he walks laps around the park pathway; or a nearly nude meditator sprawled out on the grass starfish style with his face pointed towards the sun.
“It feels really wholesome and real,” Miller says. “People doing their own thing.”
If the morning belongs to the workout crew, the late afternoon is claimed by the customers of A.C.’s Icees.
Read more: Sunday in the Park with A.C.’s Icees
“It’s not even called Kennedy Park. It’s called A.C.’s Icees park. That’s how people identify it sometimes,” Josh D’Alemberte, the founder of Phoenix Volleyball, says.
D’Alemberte has just arrived in the park – a ten-minute walk from his home – for his usual game of late-day volleyball.
He’s been playing at these beach volleyball courts since 1999. It’s where he’s made several friends and what inspired him to start his own volleyball club 10 years ago.
“I bought my house because it was close to David Kennedy Park,” he said.
He thinks of Kennedy Park in two phases – before and after the city installed lights around the volleyball courts in 2019. It’s a change he said transformed the space.
Now, instead of being pushed out at dusk, particularly painful during the winter months, the volleyball players continue to play long after nightfall.
“It’s a great model for doing other parks well,” he said. “People show up from all over. People drive from Broward County to go to Kennedy Park.”
For the next several hours, Kennedy Park echoes with shouts of “mine” as local high schoolers dive headfirst to save a ball and longtime players spike it over the net – giving a competitive edge to the park’s otherwise easygoing nature.
At 10 p.m., the lights flicker off and all that remains is the glow of the moon and beam of passing cars. The players brush off the sand from their hands and head to their cars.
Another day at Kennedy Park has come to an end.
