Florida officials gut rainbow crosswalk in South Beach amid statewide crackdown

Grethel Aguila and Amanda Rosa, Miami Herald on Oct 5, 2025

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The Florida Department of Transportation on Sunday evening began removing the pride-themed crosswalk on Ocean Drive in Miami Beach.

The Herald observed workers removing the rainbow pavers from the LGBTQ+ crosswalk at the intersection of Ocean Drive and 12th Street shortly after 6 p.m. The crew was seen operating an excavator, and slamming what appeared to be a sledgehammer, to pull out the colorful sidewalk pavers.

A crowd of onlookers — beachgoers, residents and drag queens — formed as the workers removed the crosswalk.

“Put a mask on so nobody sees who you are! You’re ashamed!” one man shouted. “You feel good about this?”

Part of 12th Street before the crosswalk was closed to traffic.

The crosswalk’s removal comes after FDOT ordered local governments, including Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Key West, to remove pavement art “associated with social, political, or ideological messages” — or risk losing state funding.

The rainbow crosswalk is steps away from Twist, a famous gay bar nearby on South Beach.

FDOT didn’t respond to the Miami Herald’s request for comment as of Sunday evening.

‘Why waste so many resources?’

CC Glitzer, Akasha O’Hara Lords and TP Lords were getting ready for a show at Palace Bar & Restaurant, a bar on Ocean Drive that hosts drag performances, when they heard about the crosswalk.

“It’s very emotional to see that our people and our pride is getting erased just like that. It’s very painful,” said CC Glitzer, who moved to Miami Beach from Germany. “This is where we perform, where we live, where we show our craft and our art.”

As the trio chanted “Miami Beach Forever Proud,” they waved signs with the same slogan.

“They can erase the colors out of the street, but they can never remove the colors out of people,” CC Glitzer said.

Miami Beach will forever be a proud and inclusive community – despite the state’s efforts to “chip away at [those values] one brick at a time,” Commissioner Alex Fernandez said.

Fernandez added the city didn’t get notice that the “army of workers and heavy machinery” would be on Ocean Drive on Sunday.

“Why waste so many resources, so much taxpayer dollars to remove something that is safe, that is beautiful, that is iconic, that is embraced by everyone…?” the commissioner.

Angelo Lanza, 65, said he feels appalled that the state was removing the crosswalk without residents being informed. Lanza said he found out the decorative crosswalk was being removed as he was walking by.

“It’s a [beautiful] addition to Ocean Drive,” said Lanza, who has lived in Miami Beach for 30 years. “It’s an Art Deco fixture... It’s very upsetting for us that live here.”

John RZasa, 45, was returning from a day lounging on the beach when he and a friend noticed the decorative crosswalk was being removed.

“This is the reason I moved to this neighborhood… I saw a rainbow flag. I saw the rainbow sidewalk,” said RZasa, who moved to South Beach during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I felt comfortable. I felt at home.”

RZasa added he plans on returning Monday to repaint the crosswalk rainbow.

“There’s nobody here that wants it gone. Everyone wants it to stay,” he said. “This feels like an attack on the gay community right now.”

In August, FDOT painted over the rainbow sidewalk located near the site of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub mass shooting in Orlando. The sidewalk was a memorial to the 49 people killed in the mass shooting at the gay nightclub.

In a response days later, hundreds of Miami Beach residents and supporters protested the removal of the pride-themed sidewalks across the state. The “Forever Proud March” was organized by Miami Beach Commissioner Alex Fernandez and the Greater Miami LGBT Chamber of Commerce.