MIAMI — Three decades ago, the notion of a book fair in this city seemed wildly implausible.

Viewed as a town that had squandered its natural advantages, Miami was reeling and recovering in the early 1980s. The Mariel boatlift from Cuba had churned up its streets, and the 1980 riots were a recent memory. The Art Deco revival was years away, and the television series “Miami Vice,” a paean to South Beach style, was yet to make its mark. “Paradise Lost?” Time magazine had asked on its cover in 1981.

So in 1984, when Eduardo J. Padrón, the president of Miami Dade College, asked Mitchell Kaplan, owner of the fledgling Books & Books shop in Coral Gables, to help him start a book fair in Miami’s downtown area, the preferred ZIP code for prostitutes and vagrants, quixotic was a polite term for their vision.

Book fairs were scarce around the country. Only two major ones existed; one sold books, and the other held readings. Dr. Padrón and Mr. Kaplan proposed doing both and set their sights on at least one big name. They lured James Baldwin to the first one.

“Downtown was de miedo,” Dr. Padrón said in a recent interview, meaning a scary place. “But we had close to 25,000 people show up, and that gave us real impetus.” The next year Allen Ginsberg and Jerzy Kosinski arrived, followed by Joseph Heller and Maya Angelou in 1986.