They grew up in Miami and never knew its history. So, they decided to tell it on podcast

Miami is full of 305 pride, but how many people truly know the city they live in?

Paul Crucet and Nick McCrea, two Miami natives and longtime friends, are on a mission to change that. They created the Story of Miami podcast to chronicle the city’s history and forge a more united community.

“Our podcast is a serial of Miami’s history. It goes in chronological order through basically all the events that have ever happened on and around Biscayne Bay,” McCrea said. “By the end of the project, we’ll have told pretty much everything up to today.”

It all started with a personal desire to better understand their hometown.

They met in high school in South Miami and set off to the University of Florida together. After graduating, Crucet settled in Nashville where he attended law school at Vanderbilt University.. McCrea became a computer engineer and moved to Chicago.

In 2015, they reconnected back in Miami and discovered a mutual interest in podcasts and history. They realized they knew more about the places they had been than the place where they grew up.

“We were both born and raised here and yet we didn’t know much about Miami,” Crucet said. “We knew there was a guy named Henry Flagler and that Julia Tuttle did something like a hundred years ago and then all of a sudden in the ‘80s a bunch of cocaine rushed into Miami and completely changed this place. But we had no idea how that fit into the story of what made Miami what it is today.”

The more they researched, the more Miami began to make sense. They believe that understanding is key to bringing the community together and inspiring a sense of belonging and ownership in their city.

“Miami has a history of change,” McCrea said. “The entire population of Miami has had massive turnover multiple times and each time that happens it’s difficult for everybody to hang onto and remember what happened before them or before their family ever came here.”

They launched the Story of Miami in 2018. Season one began with the supercontinent Pangea breaking apart more than 300 million years ago and led listeners on a journey through the New World, Miami’s first natives, the Seminole wars, rapids on the Miami River, and more up to the 1820s. Now in its second season, the podcast will cover the 80 years that came after.

Producing a podcast proved to be more difficult than they anticipated and neither had prior experience. The biggest challenge is making time for all the work that goes into it.

They devote hours of research to each episode, which are released every two weeks. They meet at the main public library in downtown to collaborate and often refer to “Miami, the Magic City,” written by Miami historian Arva Moore Parks, for reference and inspiration.

McCrea does all the writing and Crucet narrates and records the podcasts in his downtown apartment’s spare bedroom. Whether illustrating prehistoric Biscayne Bay or Coconut Grove in the days of Ralph Munroe, the vivid storytelling, sometimes enhanced with sound effects, pulls listeners in.

The positive feedback, mostly from older Miamians, keeps them motivated to continue the project. Lately, even millennials are taking notice.

They consider themselves part of a new generation of Miami-born residents who are trying to elevate Miami and give it an identity, whether it’s with a new startup, a coffee shop or social club.

“Our hope is that we can help provide a thread that everybody who comes later and is part of future changes can refer to in an easily consumable format.”

The podcast has also transformed them on a personal level.

Growing up, they had opposite views of Miami. Crucet said he’s always been in love with Miami, while McCrea felt disconnected.

“Through this project, I think what we did was show each other the grain of truth in each of our perspectives,” Crucet said. “I had to open up to the fact that Miami is an imperfect city and he had to see the things that make Miami a truly unique city on a global scale.”

Listen to the Story of Miami podcast on iTunes, your favorite podcast app or at www.storyofmiami.com. Follow on Instagram @storyofmiami.

This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 6:00 AM.