What to See in Fort Lauderdale - Top Sights and Attractions

Thoroughfare in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Las Olas Boulevard is a major east-west thoroughfare in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States that runs from SW 1st Avenue in the Central Business District to Florida State Road A1A in Fort Lauderdale Beach. The name "Las Olas" means "The Waves" in Spanish. The road once carried the designations of State Road A1A Alt. and State Road 842.

The easternmost section begins on a barrier island and crosses the intracoastal waterway. The road then enters the residential neighborhoods of Seven Isles and Hendricks and Venice Isles. West of SE 17th Avenue, the road enters a commercial shopping district, which is itself colloquially called "Las Olas". This portion of the road is lined with low and mid-rise bars, nightclubs, bridal stores, shops, boutiques, art galleries, and restaurants. The road passes over the Henry E. Kinney Tunnel and enters the city's financial district. The westernmost part of the street is predominately lined by high-rises.^[1]

Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The Museum of Discovery and Science is a museum located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is one of the largest museums of its kind in Florida, and has the most visitors of any museum in the state. The museum features its own AutoNation IMAX theater, and shows 3-D IMAX films in which viewers wear special glasses and headsets. The museum also features a number of "ecoscapes", as well as a simulated ride to Mars, a simulated airboat ride in the Everglades and a MaxFlight airplane flight simulator. Among the more popular aspects of the museum are the quantity and variety of Floridian animal species on display. The public are allowed to get quite close to the animal life such as otters, baby alligators, snakes, tortoises, rabbits, bats, tarantulas, scorpions, geckos, cockroaches, centipedes, hermit crabs, freshwater fish, freshwater stingrays, black pacus, frogs, tadpoles, alligator snapping turtle, turtles, sharks, saltwater fish, horseshoe crabs and a sea turtle, and the museum frequently has organized animal-centered demonstrations, or more informal meet-and-greets with native and exotic Florida fauna.

Other than the animals on display, the Museum of Discovery and Science currently features a Discovery Center for ages 7 and under, Go Green exhibit, Runways to Rockets including airplane simulators and information about space, Powerful You! exhibit, minerals and rocks on display, prehistoric fish and dinosaur eggs and fossils on display, games, puzzles, the Explore Store, food concessions, and a moving exhibit.

The Museum of Discovery and Science moved to its current location in downtown Fort Lauderdale in 1992. The "Great Gravity Clock" in front of the entrance is one of the main features of the museum and is one of only three in the world. The other two are in Japan and Mexico. The museum plays host to birthday parties, (sea) turtle walks and camp-ins, and has its own summer camp.

The Museum of Discovery and Science also funds a volunteer program that allows children and adults alike to give back to the community.

The IMAX theater offers IMAX with Laser and features a 4980 square foot screen, playing both 2-D and 3-D movies. The five-story-high screen is the largest in South Florida.

The museum also hosts many special event activities such as the annual "Food and Wine Gala" to raise money.^[5]

Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The Bienes Museum of the Modern Book, previously known as the Bienes Center for the Literary Arts, is the rare book department located on the 6th floor of Broward County's Main Library in Fort Lauderdale, Florida United States. The Broward County Libraries Division's Bienes Museum of the Modern Book opened to the public on December 5, 1996, with James A. Findlay as the first Museum Librarian. The Bienes Museum is home to special collections totaling more than 15,000 items, including rare books, artifacts, manuscripts, and reference materials. The Museum was started with the help of philanthropists Diane and Michael Bienes' donation of $1 million. Support for the start of the Bienes Museum of the Modern Books was also provided by a grant from the Broward Public Library Foundation. Additional funding was also received from the Florida Department of State Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Arts Council. The Bienes' also donated many books and artifacts from their personal collection in order to add to the collection of items housed by the Museum. The Bienes Museum is housed in an 8,300 square foot facility that was designed by architect Donald Singer. The Museum has a curved wood ceiling above slatted wood walls with a combination of glass, granite, and ceramic tiles. The Museum has a 25-seat conference room and a 60-seat Ceremonial Room available for lectures and programs.

The Bienes Museum houses important collections including the Jean Fitzgerald WPA Federal Writers' Project; WPA Museum Extension Project; WPA and other New Deal agencies, 1932–1942; the Paulette and Robert Greene Collection of Books about Books and Florida Fine Press publications; Floridiana; Florida Artists' Book Collection; J.D. MacDonald Collection; Siers Collection of Big Little Books; Deicke Collection of Books on Rare Tropical Fruits and Vegetables; Nyr Indictor Collection of ABC Books and Related Materials; and Vojtech Kubasta pop-up and other books.^[7]

Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale is an art museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Originating in 1958 as the Fort Lauderdale Art Center, the museum is now located in an 83,000-square-foot modernist building designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes. The current building was constructed in 1986, with a 10,000-square-foot wing added in 2001. The main exhibition area comprises 21,000 square feet; a sculpture terrace on the second floor adds an additional 2,800 square feet of space. The museum, unlike major museums in nearby Miami, Florida and Palm Beach, Florida, emphasizes contemporary projects, although the collection includes works from the 19th through to the 21st century.

Among its collection of more than 7,500 pieces are a large collection of ceramics and prints by Pablo Picasso, a collection of Latin American and Cuban art representing the contributions of more than 125 artists promised to the museum by Stanley and Pearl Goodman, and North America's largest exhibition of work from the Northern European CoBrA avant-garde movement. Also included in the permanent collection is a significant amount of African and Oceanic Tribal Arts and art of the Americas. The museum's collections are strong in the cultures of South Florida and the Caribbean.

The museum partnered with Nova Southeastern University in 2008.^[9]

Stadium. Lockhart Stadium was a stadium used mostly for soccer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States. It was used in a variety of sports, particularly soccer and American football.

Originally designed in 1959 for high school sports, the stadium's long-standing soccer connection began in 1977 when it became the home venue for the original Fort Lauderdale Strikers of the original North American Soccer League (NASL). In 1998, it was refitted for soccer to house the Miami Fusion in Major League Soccer, but the team folded in 2002. It was also the home stadium of the Florida Atlantic Owls football team from 2002 to 2010. Later it was the home of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers of the second iteration of NASL from 2011 to 2016.

The stadium site was redeveloped in 2019 and 2020 with the construction of DRV PNK Stadium for Major League Soccer club Inter Miami CF.^[10]

War Memorial Auditorium is a 2,110-seat multi-purpose arena and convention center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S.

The venue hosted professional wrestling cards from the Championship Wrestling from Florida promotion between 1951 and 1987. It was later home to television tapings for Ladies Major League Wrestling in 1990 and UWF Fury Hour in 1991.

It was also host to ECW Hardcore Heaven in 1997, MLW WarGames in 2003, ROH Showdown in the Sun in 2012, and MLW WarGames in 2018.

The venue has hosted professional boxing cards since 1950, including the professional debut of Mickey Rourke in 1991.

The Florida Panthers, who play at FLA Live Arena in nearby Sunrise, Florida, began leasing the venue in 2019 with plans to renovate it for community use.^[11]

Port authority in Hollywood, Florida. Port Everglades is a seaport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, located in Broward County. Port Everglades is one of South Florida's foremost economic engines, as it is the gateway for both international trade and cruise vacations. In 2019, Port Everglades was ranked the third-busiest cruise homeport in the world, accommodating more than 3.89 million passengers. It was also one of the busiest container ports in Florida and ranked among the top 20 busiest in the United States, moving more than 1 million TEUs annually.

The port is also South Florida's main seaport for petroleum products including gasoline, jet fuel, and alternative fuels. The port serves as the primary storage and distribution seaport for refined petroleum products. Port Everglades distributes fuel to 12 Florida counties and supplies jet fuel to four international airports. Port Everglades is also recognized as a favorite United States Navy liberty port. With a depth of 43 feet (13 m) (at mean low water), Port Everglades is currently the deepest port in the United States (Atlantic Ocean) south of Norfolk, Virginia.

The Port Everglades Department is a self-supporting enterprise fund of the Broward County government, with operating revenues of approximately $170.7 million in fiscal year 2019. The port does not rely on local property taxes for operations. The total value of economic activity at Port Everglades is approximately $32 billion annually. Approximately 219,000 statewide jobs are impacted by the port, including more than 13,000 people who work for companies that provide direct services to Port Everglades.

Port Everglades is the #1 seaport in Florida by revenue as well as one of the top container ports in the state. Port Everglades is consistently ranked among the top three multi-day cruise homeports in the world with 902 ship calls and 3.89 million passengers in fiscal year 2019, and the #2 petroleum port in Florida with 526 ship calls and 125.8 million barrels.^[12]

The Parker Playhouse is a 1,191-seat theatre in southern Florida.

The Playhouse was established by Dr. Louis Parker. The curtain rose for the first time on February 6, 1967 as E.G. Marshall and Dennis O'Keefe starred in Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. Parker teamed with Broadway impresario Zev Buffman, who was also producing shows in Miami at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, to offer productions featuring many of the top theater artists of the day. Parker Playhouse has produced continuously for nearly 40 years with community arts organizations joining Broadway headliners in shows that made South Florida theater history.

Today, (2006) the Parker Playhouse is controlled by the Performing Arts Center Authority ("PACA") – the governing body that oversees the Broward Center for the Performing Arts which manages the theater and provides the programming on its stage.

Although much has changed since it first opened its doors, Parker Playhouse is poised to once again take center stage and play an important role in the community.^[13]

Presbyterian church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church is a Christian megachurch within the Presbyterian Church in America located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was founded in 1960 by D. James Kennedy, who served as the church's senior pastor until shortly before his death. The present church building, which seats 2,300 persons, was dedicated on February 3, 1974 by evangelist Billy Graham. It became affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America denomination on May 16, 1978. Coral Ridge was originally a member congregation of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, the so-called "Southern" church before 1983.

Beginning in 1978 under pastor D. James Kennedy, the church's weekly services were televised as the Coral Ridge Hour, eventually reaching a nationwide audience of more than 3 million. While the production of new broadcasts from the church was discontinued in 2007 after Kennedy's death, his media ministry D. James Kennedy Ministries now airs excerpts of his sermons, along with current news segments, on its nationwide weekly half-hour TV program Truths That Transform.

The Westminster Academy and Knox Theological Seminary, also in Fort Lauderdale, are educational ministries of the church. W. Tullian Tchividjian, a grandson of Billy Graham, succeeded Kennedy as senior pastor of the church, serving from April 2009 to June 2015. In June 2016, Rob Pacienza officially assumed the role of senior pastor.^[15]

Skyscraper in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Las Olas River House is a 42-story residential skyscraper located in downtown Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It stood as the tallest building in Ft. Lauderdale, until The Icon on Las Olas overtook it in late 2017. The structure is a complex created by three adjoining buildings; two duplicate 42-story towers, and one 34-story tower.

The building has 285 residential units, made up of one, two and three bedroom condominiums, and also includes a 10,000-square-foot (930 m2) glass walled fitness center that overlooks the New River which is only for the exclusive use of residents, and a 60,000-square-foot (5,600 m2) rooftop garden on the sixth floor. Las Olas River House condo includes a sixth-floor cocktail bistro lounge, separate quiet library area, private meeting room, poolside cabanas and a major conference area for meetings and conducting business. Las Olas River House also contains "Smart" building features that allow all its residents to access all the building's amenities at a touch of a button.

The building is part of a highrise boom in the downtown area, along with other condominiums and residential towers such as Las Olas Grand.^[17]