Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul Crucet and Nick McCrea.

Paul and Nick, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.

It got its start after we found ourselves talking about how nobody (at least, nobody our age) seemed to know or talk about Miami’s history. For us, Miami history started in the 80s, with criminal drug traffickers and fast boats and yachts that were popularized by the likes of Scarface and Miami Vice, and it seemed like that period had become Miami’s entire legacy during our time. We wondered what happened before all that, what led to this crazy, wonderful, complex city existing in the first place. When we started diving into Miami’s history, we found that not only did it suddenly explain a great deal about modern Miami, but it was really cool and interesting in its own right, full of incredible stories.

This project came together with the idea of creating a history podcast as a vehicle to share the interesting things we were learning in an easily-consumable format, and after talking about it for a few days, we realized we really liked the idea and decided to go for it!

Nick: More personally, for me, this also helped me come to terms with Miami. Despite being born and raised here, I always felt very disconnected from my community and I never felt like Miami belonged to me. I felt like it belonged to the people with the fast boats and the yachts, the people who valued image over genuine value, the so-called “hustlers” and, frankly, the criminals and those who proudly glorify fraud. I found that when I started learning the history of this place, it was incredibly empowering, and kind of for the first time gave me a feeling of ownership of my home and of common identity with my neighbors. I now know that there are many Miamians who have felt similarly alienated, and I feel that if we can share that sense of ownership with other Miamians, it would go a long way towards building a stronger community for the future. I think all Miamians, whether native or transplants, should feel like this place belongs to them, and feel proud to carry on the story because I think Miami has the potential to be the greatest city on Earth.

Paul: I’ve always been enamored with Miami, but my love for the city also created some significant blind spots. I’ve had to confront many of the problems that Miami faces, not least of which is the seeming detachment many Miamians have from the place itself as well as each other. 305 pride is a very real, powerful, feeling shared by many. But there is something seemingly missing, something that ties us all together and roots us. I realized as I learned more about how this young city was carved out of the unforgiving wilderness, that Miami is constantly reinventing itself, almost always looking ahead to the next big thing. But I think we’ve reached a point where we need to take a breather every now and then and take a look back. As we continue to grow and evolve, it’s vital that we learn to appreciate how amazing our history is, because it can teach us a great deal about ourselves, and help us to keep building a stronger sense of community. We’ve got some pretty big challenges on the horizon, and I think we’re poised to be able to meet them head-on — but only if we take ownership of Miami and come together as Miamians. I think that starts by understanding our place in this incredible story.

Has it been a smooth road?

Paul: To be able to tell what we feel is a fair and accurate story, it is critical that we do a great deal of research before we even put pen to paper. Our format also requires a large amount of planning to make sure that episodes, seasons, and the entire story itself has a cohesive and logical flow. This isn’t a “sit around the campfire” type podcast, so we can’t just shoot from the hip. Between research, planning, writing, recording, editing, and the inevitable worry about whether we’ve created something people will enjoy, it can be a bit stressful at times. However, being able to share this wonderful story with the community once all the work is done is truly a great feeling that makes it all worth it.

Nick: Ha, I would not exactly call it smooth. It is a lot of work. We both have full-time careers that have nothing to do with history, so we do this in our spare time, and we have found that producing this podcast to our standards requires much more time and energy than I think we expected. But it has been extremely rewarding, so we are planning to see it through!

Please tell us more about your work. What do you guys do? What do you specialize in? What sets you apart from competition?

Nick: Well, the podcast itself is a serial that will tell the entire history of Miami from the very beginning. It is a passion project and is free for everyone to listen to. We are currently airing our second season, which will complete the “prehistory” of Miami – everything that happened here that led up to the founding of the City of Miami in 1896. Future seasons will chronicle the growth of the city itself through hurricanes, land booms, sports championships, and many other legendary tales.

My professional work is in computer engineering. I am currently studying neural networks, a branch of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Miami is lagging far behind in the tech industry and it is not an attractive market for highly skilled engineers. I hope to help push Miami tech-forward because I think there is an enormous opportunity to create a tech capital here, particularly in the areas of urban development and resiliency, green tech, and space travel.

Paul: Nick pretty much covered the nuts and bolts of the podcast. I’ll just add that I’m incredibly excited about the feedback we’ve been getting. Whenever someone tells me that they will never look at Miami the same way again, or that they were blown away by some piece of history that was hiding in plain sight their whole lives, it fills me with a great sense of pride in both our project and our city.

If you had to start over, what would you have done differently?

Nick: I would have adjusted my expectations for the amount of work this would be! Other than that, I don’t think I would change a thing.

Paul: I would have tried to get either The Rock or Pitbull to narrate the episodes.

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Story of Miami

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