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Boca Raton, Florida

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City of Boca Raton
Official seal of City of Boca Raton
Seal
Nickname: 
A City for All Seasons
CountryUnited States
StateFlorida
CountyPalm Beach
Founded1925
Government
 • TypeCommission-Manager
 • MayorSteven L. Abrams
Population
 (2005)
 • Total86,629
Time zoneUTC-5 (Eastern (EST))
 • Summer (DST)UTC-4 (EDT)
Websitehttp://www.ci.boca-raton.fl.us/

Boca Raton (Pronounced "BOH-ca Ruh-TONE") is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida and was incorporated in May 1925. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 74,764; the 2004 population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 78,069.[1] About 120,000 people live in unincorporated areas near the city, so that the population with a postal address of Boca Raton is about 200,000.[2] Boca Raton is the largest city between West Palm Beach and Pompano Beach. On November 2, 2004, the voters of the Via Verde Association, Waterside, Deerhurst Association (Boca South), Marina Del Mar Association, Rio Del Mar Association, and Heatherwood of Boca Raton Condominium Association approved annexation into the Boca Raton city limits, increasing the city land area to 29.6 square miles. According to the U.S. Census estimates of 2005, the city had a population of 86,629.[3]

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 75.4 km² (29.1 mi²). 70.4 km² (27.2 mi²) of it is land and 5.0 km² (1.9 mi²) of it (6.63%) is water. Boca Raton is a 'principal city' (as defined by the Census Bureau) of the South Florida metropolitan area.

History

Listed on early maps as "Boca Ratones," many people wrongly assume the name is simply translated to "Rat’s Mouth." The Spanish word boca (or mouth) was often used to describe an inlet, while ratón (literally mouse) was used by Spanish sailors to describe rocks that gnawed at a ship's cable, or as a term for a cowardly thief.[4][5] The name Boca Ratones originally appeared on eighteenth century maps associated with an inlet in the Biscayne Bay area of Miami. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the term was mistakenly moved north on most maps and applied to Lake Boca Raton, whose inlet was closed at the time. Although the local pronunciation for "Raton" resembles the Spanish pronunciation ("Boca Raton" rhymes with "tone" and "alone" not with "baton") the name is actually of an indigenous derivation.

The city's early history was as the site of Addison Mizner's Boca Raton Hotel. The "pink hotel" today is visible from miles away as a towering building on the Intracoastal Waterway. The Pearl City neighborhood of Boca Raton was established to originally house the service personnel for the hotel. Japanese farmers of the Yamato Colony converted the land west of the city into pineapple plantations beginning in 1904. During World War II much of their land w<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Lupin/navpop.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css&dontcountme=s">as confiscated and used as the site of a major training facility for B-29 bomber crews. Much of the airbase was later donated to become the grounds of Florida Atlantic University, many of whose parking lots are former runways of the airbase, while part of the airbase is now used as Boca Raton Airport. The Japanese heritage of the Yamato Colony survives in the name of Yamato Road (NW 51st Street) just north of the airport and at the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens northwest of the city.

File:Boca Raton Resort & Club Tower.jpg
The Boca Raton Resort & Club Tower stands 300 ft (91m), has 28 floors, and was completed in 1969. It's the tallest building in Boca Raton.[6]

Boca Raton was the site of two now vanished amusement parks, Africa U.S.A. (1953-1961) and Ancient America (1953-1959). Africa U.S.A. was a wild animal park in which the tourists rode a "Jeep Safari Train" through the park. There were no fences separating the animals from the tourists on the "Jeep Safari Train".[7] It is now the Camino Gardens subdivision one mile (1.6 km) west of the Boca Raton Hotel. Ancient America was built surrounding a real Calusa Indian burial mound. Today, the mound is still visible within the Sanctuary neighborhood on U.S. Route 1 near Yamato Road.[8]

In the late 1960s, Boca Raton became the southern home to the International Business Machines Corporation. In 1965, well before the extension of I-95 into Southern Florida, IBM purchased several hundred acres of real estate just west of the CSX rail line, just northwest of Florida Atlantic University. Construction of IBM's main complex began in earnest in 1967, and the mammoth manufacturing and office complex was dedicated in March 1970. The campus was designed with self-sufficiency in mind, and to that end sported its own electrical substation, water pumping station, and rail-spur. Among other very noteworthy IT accomplishments, such as the mass manufacture of the System/360 and development of the Series/1 mainframe computers, IBM's main complex was the birthplace of the IBM PC, which later evolved into the IBM Personal System/2. In 1987, IBM relocated their manufacturing for what became the IBM PC Company to Research Triangle Park in Raleigh, North Carolina, and converted the cavernous manufacturing facilities into offices and laboratories, later producing ground-breaking products such as the OS/2 operating system and VoiceType Dictation, known today as ViaVoice voice-recognition software.

T-REX Corporate Center was originally one of IBM's research labs where the IBM PC was created. It is located on Yamato Rd (NW 51st St), and stands next to the Boca Raton Tri Rail Station.

IBM maintained its facilities at Boca Raton until 1996, when the facility was closed and was sold to Blue Lake Real Estate, who in turn sold it to the T-REX Management Consortium. Today, T-REX has revitalized the facility and its surrounding real estate into a highly-successful and landscaped business/research park. What used to be IBM's Building 051, an annex separated from the former main IBM campus by Spanish River Boulevard was donated to the Palm Beach County School District and converted into Don Estridge High Tech Middle School. It is named for the late Don Estridge, whose team was responsible for developing the IBM PC. IBM later returned in 2001 opening the current software development laboratory off Congress Avenue in July of that year.

In the 1980s, because of an explosion of development to the west of the historical center of the city, some eastern areas began to decay, including the downtown area. For instance, the old Boca Raton Mall, a shopping mall in the downtown area was beginning to experience higher vacancy, and occupancy by marginal tenants, due to the opening of Town Center at Boca Raton in a western area in 1979.

However, in the late-1980s, the city came up with a master plan to revitalize the downtown area which included a new downtown development district, infrastructure improvements, mass landscaping, expansion of the downtown park, Sanborn Square, restoration of the old city hall to become a museum (the city council completely moved out in the late 1980s), and a large mixed-use project, Mizner Park to replace the dead Boca Raton one.[citation needed]

File:Mitzner Park.jpg
Mizner Park is a downtown attraction in Boca Raton's financial district. It is the furthest north part of Boca's 'downtown' area, and home to Mizner Park Amphitheater.

In 1991, the new downtown outdoor shopping center, Mizner Park, was completed over the site of the older Boca Raton Mall. It has since become a cultural center for the city. Featuring a landscaped central park between the two main roads (collectively called Plaza Real) with stores only on the outside of the roads, Mizner Park resembles a Mediterranean suburban "town center" with a more contemporary look. It features many restaurants and is home to the Boca Raton Museum of Art which opened in 2001.[citation needed] In 2002, a new amphitheater was built replacing a smaller one, providing a large-capacity outdoor venue.[9]

Mizner Park has significantly aided downtown revitalization. Many new 8-10 story mixed-use buildings have been constructed, are under-construction or are proposed for the downtown area. The surrounding areas to the downtown have benefited from the downtown redevelopment.

The National Cartoon Museum (formally: the International Museum of Cartoon Art) built a 25,000 square foot facility on the edge of Mizner Park in 1996. Open for 6 years, the museum closed in 2002, the space has been empty since. The Museum has since relocated to its original home in New York City.

As development continued to focus to the west of the city in the 1980s and 1990s, the mall area, Town Center at Boca Raton, became the geographic center of what is referred to as Boca Raton, though this mall was not actually annexed into the city until 2004. The area referred to as Boca Raton, including the unincorporated area west of the city (and discussed below), is now almost entirely built out.

In 1999, Simon Property Group bought Town Center at Boca Raton and renovated it and expanded it with a new wing. Nordstrom is the anchor department store of this new wing. The finished product was unveiled in late 2000 with over twenty-five new stores to shop in. Neiman Marcus is the newest department store tenant as of 2006. In late 2006, Simon began the construction stage of an outdoor lifestyle center near the new wing. Town Center Mall has become a tourist attraction and the largest indoor mall in Palm Beach County.[10] Boca Raton has a strict development code, including the size and types of commercial buildings, building signs and advertisements which may be erected within the city limits. No car dealerships are allowed in the city limits, according to the city zoning code. Additionally, no billboards are permitted in the city. The only billboard was grandfathered-in during recent annexation. Some say the city at one time banned the development of multi-family housing[citation needed]. Corporations such as McDonald's have subdued their Golden Arches due to the code. The unincorporated areas still contain restaurants with the classic arches, but the heights of the signs have been reduced. Many buildings in the Boca Raton area have Mediterrean and Spanish architectural themes, initially inspired in the area by Addison Mizner. The strict development code has resulted in several major thoroughfares without large signs or advertisements in the traveler's view; significant landscaping is in its place.

Politics

The city council, including Mayor Steven L. Abrams, is nonpartisan, although all of its members are registered Republicans. As of 2007, Robert Wexler and Ron Klein, who represent different parts of the city in the United States Congress, are Democrats.

Demographics

As of the censusTemplate:GR of 2000, there were 74,764 people, 31,848 households, and 20,000 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,061.7/km² (2,749.8/mi²). There were 37,547 housing units at an average density of 533.2/km² (1,381.0/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 90.75% White, 3.76% African American, 0.16% Native American, 1.99% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 1.39% from other races, and 1.90% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 8.51% of the population. There were 31,848 households out of which 24.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.1% were married couples living together, 7.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 37.2% were non-families. 29.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.26 and the average family size was 2.81.

In the city, the population was spread out with 18.9% under the age of 18, 8.1% from 18 to 24, 26.4% from 25 to 44, 26.7% from 45 to 64, and 19.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 43 years. For every 100 females there were 95.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.8 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $60,248, and the median income for a family was $77,861. Males had a median income of $52,287 versus $33,347 for females. The per capita income for the city was $45,628. About 4.1% of families and 6.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 6.0% of those under age 18 and 4.9% of those age 65 or over.

Boca Raton has a large transplanted Northerner population due to an influx of retirees, snowbirds (who may cause problems with the city statistics as they are not considered residents of the city), and people who have flocked to South Florida from the Northeast, especially from New York City.[citation needed]

According to Forbes, Boca Raton has 3 of the 10 most expensive gated communities in the U.S. The Royal Palm Yacht and Country Club holds the #1 spot, The Sanctuary takes #6, and Le Lac takes the #8 spot.[11]

Areas west of Boca Raton

A large unincorporated area to the west of the city is included in the Boca Raton mailing address and local telephone calling area. There are many large planned developments in the area, including gated communities, and a number of golf courses. This is a result in the later start of development in these areas, and the availability of large tracts of land. Several of the communities are large enough to be designated as census-designated places, including Boca Del Mar, Boca Pointe, Hamptons at Boca Raton, Mission Bay, Sandalfoot Cove, and Whisper Walk. The area also has other large neighborhoods such as Avalon at Boca Raton, Boca West, and The Polo Club Boca Raton. "West Boca" is a common designator for the area west of Florida's Turnpike.

Notable residents, past and present

Education

Public education is provided and managed by The School District of Palm Beach County. Boca Raton is also home to several notable private and religious schools, like St. Paul Lutheran School and Church.

Boca Raton is served by four public high schools. Within the city's limits, Boca Raton Community High School serves the eastern part of the city. Spanish River Community High School serves the western part of the city limits and parts of unincorporated Boca Raton. Olympic Heights Community High School serves the west-central unincorporated areas. Finally, West Boca Raton Community High School serves the far-west areas. The four high schools also draw some students from parts of Delray Beach and other parts of South Florida through magnet programs and demographic balancing.

File:IBM PC 5150 Image.jpg
The original IBM PC now resides at Don Estridge High Tech Middle School, only a few blocks away from T-REX Corporate Center, its birthplace.

The area is served by five public middle schools: Boca Raton Community Middle, Don Estridge High Tech Middle School (a technology magnet school that is named for Don Estridge, the leader of a small group of engineers who developed the IBM Personal Computer in Boca Raton.[12]), Eagles Landing Middle, Loggers Run Community Middle, and Omni Middle.

The area is served by twelve public elementary schools: Addison Mizner Elementary (Founded in 1968. It is named after Addison Mizner, a famous architect who shaped and had enormous influence on Boca's architecture.), Boca Raton Elementary, Calusa Elementary, Coral Sunset Elementary, Del Prado Elementary, Hammock Pointe Elementary, J.C. Mitchell Elementary, Sandpiper Shores Elementary, Sunrise Park Elementary, Verde Elementary, Waters Edge Elementary, and Whispering Pines Elementary.

There is another alternative to the Palm Beach County Public Schools in Boca Raton. The Alexander D. Henderson University School is located on the Florida Atlantic University campus. A. D. Henderson University School (ADHUS) is organized as a unique and separate school district; it is not part of the Palm Beach County School System. Henderson School is recognized as Florida Atlantic University School District # 72, under the College of Education’s administrative oversight.

University schools in Florida are authorized to provide excellent instruction for grades K-12 and University students, support University research efforts, and test educational reforms for Florida schools. ADHUS is a public school and thus does not charge tuition. It is open to children who reside in Palm Beach County or Broward County and admission is by lottery. Student characteristics of gender, race, family income and student ability are used to match the student population profile to that of the state.[13]

It was in Boca Raton where the Episcopal School Foundation chartered the preparatory school, Saint Andrew's School in 1961. The Rev. Hunter Wyatt-Brown, Jr. (Headmaster from 1962-63) and Eugene Curtis, Jr. (Headmaster from 1964-71) led the effort to secure the land and funds necessary to build the school. Many in the community came forward to support the project, most notably Lucy and Alexander Henderson, who gave the majority of the funds needed to start the school.

Pine Crest School, based in Fort Lauderdale, has a campus in Boca Raton.

Pope John Paul II High School provides traditional Catholic secondary schooling, while St. Joan of Arc Elementary, St. Jude Elementary, and St. Jude Preschool provide Catholic schooling for children aged PreK 2 through Grade 8.

Claremont Montessori School is one of the last elementary through high school Montessori schools in the United States until September 2007, when it will only go up to eighth grade. It was founded in 1985 by Harvey Hallenberg and Nancy Hallenberg.

Palm Beach Community College has had a Boca Raton campus, adjacent to Florida Atlantic University, since 1971.

Florida Atlantic University, founded in 1961, held its first classes in Boca Raton in 1964. FAU is a member of the State University System of Florida.

Lynn University (originally founded as Marymount College, then renamed the College of Boca Raton in 1974, and finally Lynn University in 1991) is a four year co-educational institution re-named to honor the Lynn (Eugene & Christine) family who continue to be generous benefactors of the university.

Digital Media Arts College, founded in 2001, offers bachelors and masters degrees in computer animation and graphic design.

The Boca Raton Public Library serves city of Boca Raton residents. A second municipal library is being built on Spanish River Boulevard west of I-95.

The Southwest County Regional Library serves Boca Raton residents who live outside the city limits. A second county library on State Road 7 and Yamato Road is planned for 2008. County library card holders may use any of the fourteen branches in the Palm Beach County Library System.[14]

Controversies and crime

In 2001, Boca Raton was the site of the first anthrax attack in the United States when two employees at the American Media building were stricken by the agent. Robert "Bob" Stevens, photo editor of the Sun, a supermarket tabloid published by American Media, died of inhalation anthrax while Ernesto Blanco, a 73-year old mail room employee, fell ill and later recovered. American Media moved their headquarters to the nearby T-REX Corporate Center. The American Media building remained sealed until the summer of 2004, when it became the last of the afflicted buildings to be decontaminated, through the use of chlorine dioxide gas. See Time-line of the 2001 anthrax attacks in Florida.

According to MessageLabs (an email security vendor), Boca Raton is the "spam capital of the world", being the source of a surprisingly high fraction of all spam generated worldwide, which is not surprising given the area's appeal, the personal fortunes of typical spammers, and the area's notorious past as a favorite of organized crime. According to the Miami Herald, the city has a long history of involvement in confidence tricks. Richard C. Breeden, former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, once called the city "the only coastal city in Florida where there are more sharks on land than in the water." In the keynote address to a computer security conference on June 8, 2004, Bruce Sterling described the city as the "Capone-Chicago of cyber fraud." According to a number of US Federal indictments, as of June, 2004, the Gambino family continues to operate in Boca Raton.

On July 22, 2004, Boca Raton resident Scott Levine was charged with the largest computer crime indictment in United States history. Federal prosecutors allege that Levine unlawfully accessed Acxiom, a database of consumer data aggregator, to steal detailed personal information about millions of persons.

Boca Raton also achieved a degree of notoriety in conjunction with the Tyco scandal. Ex-CEO Dennis Kozlowski's wife Karen owned a now-defunct restaurant, Zemi's, in Boca. And until he was sentenced and sent to prison, ex-CFO Mark Swartz could be frequently spotted on Boca's jogging trails.

Transportation

Air

Highways

  • U.S. Highway 1 passes through the city’s downtown, commercial, and industrial districts.
  • U.S. Highway 441 passes through other commercial districts and diminishing agricultural areas.
  • Interstate 95 bisects the city from north to south with four interchanges serving Boca Raton.
  • Florida's Turnpike passes through unincorporated Boca Raton with one interchange at Glades Road (State Highway 808).

Rail

Boca has been mentioned in many movies, including Cats & Dogs, Music and Lyrics,Wag the Dog, A Perfect Murder, and Mr. 3000, and in many TV shows, such as Histeria!, American Dragon: Jake Long, American Dad!, Nip/Tuck, The Sopranos, Lizzie McGuire, [[The Golden Girls], The Nanny and MADtv. These references usually have something to do with Florida's reputation as either its resorts, or high concentration of condominiums, or alternately, especially in the case of Seinfeld, numerous references to Boca Raton as "God's waiting room" . There is also a reference in rapper Young Dro's song Shoulder Lean, in which he says "ice comes from Boca Raton", among numerous other songs. Additionally, in rapper Trick Daddy's smash hit Shut up he says "But all my Boca (Raton) Boys they know dough, that's fo' sho' doe". Boca Raton has grown a reputation for having an abundance of attractive middle-aged women as residents.[citation needed] There is a reference to this in rapper Cam'Ron's intro track to his 2002 album, "Come Home With Me", where the rapper says "I be in Boca Raton, bonin' your moms".

Boca Raton has also been the stage and background for many movies filmed on location in Boca Raton, including Paper Lion (1968), Paper Moon (1973), Caddyshack (1980), Where the Boys Are '84 (1984), Stella (1990), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) and The Inside Job (2005) - (partial listing) According to Thumb Wrestling Federation, Senator Skull was born there.

References

  1. ^ http://www.census.gov/popest/cities/tables/SUB-EST2004-04-12.xls
  2. ^ http://www.bocahistory.org/boca_history/br_history.asp
  3. ^ http://www.census.gov/popest/cities/tables/SUB-EST2005-04-12.csv
  4. ^ A.Word.A.Day Archives--disembogue - retrieved July 14 2006
  5. ^ Coastal History - retrieved July 14 2006
  6. ^ http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=bocaratonclubtower-bocaraton-fl-usa
  7. ^ Virtual Tour of Arica U.S.A. - URL retrieved August 27, 2006
  8. ^ Ancient America: one of Florida's lost tourist attractions - URL retrieved August 27, 2006
  9. ^ http://www.miznerparkamp.com/
  10. ^ Town Center at Boca Raton
  11. ^ http://www.forbes.com/realestate/2004/11/19/cx_sc_1119home.html
  12. ^ http://www.hightechmiddle.com/aboutus.htm
  13. ^ http://www.adhus.fau.edu
  14. ^ http://www.pbclibrary.org
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