Spotlight 66-250107 Water Quality Strut

Coconut Grove has a front row view of the perils facing Biscayne Bay’s waters.   Today’s Spotlight examines how the Bay’s beauty belies the mounting problems beneath the surface.  Experts detail the evidence and proscribe action.

On land the energy and creativity of the 41st King Mango Strut Parade is captured in Spotlight photos, as next week other photographers are invited to explore Little Bahamas for the Library of Congress.


Like the rest of Biscayne Bay, Coconut Grove’s marine ecosystem faces mounting challenges from pollution, outdated infrastructure, and the false belief that all is well beneath the surface.

By Jenny Jacoby

At Bayshore Landing marina where Aviation Avenue meets Biscayne Bay, the presence of green algae at low tide signals an unhealthy overabundance of nutrient-rich runoff. (David Villano for the Spotlight)

Kenny Broad remembers when Biscayne Bay’s shallow waters teemed with fish, lobsters scurried across the seafloor, and simple flat-bottom skiffs were the vessel of choice.

“It was sort of a peaceful place of refuge,” says Broad, a North Grove resident who moved to the area in the late 1960s. “A place to get away from the city.”

But the Biscayne Bay of today, says Broad, head of the Ecosystem Science and Policy Department at the University of Miami and a former National Geographic Explorer of the Year is, in many ways, unrecognizable from the paradise of his youth.

Fish populations are plummeting, seagrass beds are dying, and sewage and other pollutants are often so high within coastal waters that swimming is unsafe.

“I call it an ecological crisis that is unfolding in the bay” says Audrey Siu, the policy director of Miami Waterkeeper, a marine-focused environmental advocacy group. “I think we’re at a tipping point where if we don’t take drastic and sustained action our bay is going to be forever changed.” 


The 2025 edition of Coconut Grove’s favorite parade was just as crazy as you’d want it to be.
Photo by Donald Randle for the Spotlight

The 41st edition of the King Mango Strut rocked downtown Coconut Grove on Sunday with jugglers and Junkanoo, Samba and satire, bad art and good vibes. Nothing was sacred, no one was spared, and everyone who loves a parade (and wants to be in one) got to march. An estimated 6,000 to 7,000 people turned out for the main event, and then stuck around for the after party on Fuller Street and Commodore Plaza. University of Miami photojournalism student Donny Randle captured the moment for the Spotlight (ICYMI). Enjoy.


Amateur photographers are invited to participate in a four-hour workshop and photo shoot in Coconut Grove on Sunday, January 12 to capture images the Grove’s Little Bahamas neighborhood for a permanent digital collection maintained by the Library of Congress. The workshop is being organized by Aarti Mehta-Kroll, assistant director of the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab at Florida International University, as part of the Documenting Goombay and Little Bahamas, a project funded by the Library of Congress American Folklife Center. During the one-day event at the Sanctuary of the Arts, 136 Frow Avenue, photographers Alon Skuy and C.W. Griffin will conduct a photo workshop from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Participants will then have two hours to photograph Little Bahamas, after which everyone will reconvene for a final hour to share and discuss the day’s photos. The event is free but advance registration is required.


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