Bay of Pigs Monument

A small, open-air memorial to the Brigade 2506 veterans of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, on SW 13th Avenue just off Calle Ocho.

Verificato ottobre 2026

Worth ten quiet minutes if you're walking Little Havana and want the history behind the neighborhood. It's a monument on a median, not a museum, so don't plan a whole outing around it.

What you're looking at

This is the memorial to Brigade 2506, the Cuban exiles who landed at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961 and were defeated within days. For a lot of Miami's Cuban families, it's personal: fathers, uncles and grandfathers who fought or never came home. The monument sits on SW 13th Avenue, the stretch locals call Cuban Memorial Boulevard, a block from Calle Ocho. It's small, and the street traffic doesn't stop for it. Read the names and inscriptions, and give it the respect you'd give any war memorial.

Fitting it into a walk

It's open 24 hours and free, so it slots easily into a Little Havana loop. Most people pair it with Calle Ocho itself: domino players, cafecito windows, cigar shops and the rest of the boulevard's memorials within a few minutes on foot. Ten to fifteen minutes here is plenty unless you're reading every plaque. Daytime is the better call. You'll see more detail, and the neighborhood around it is livelier. It holds 4.5 from about 220 Google reviews, which mostly reflects people who knew what they came to see.

Mind the manners

This isn't a photo prop. People leave flowers, and on anniversaries of the invasion in April, veterans and families still gather here. If you show up during something like that, keep your distance and your voice down. Otherwise, snap your photo, read a little, and move on. There's no staff, no gift shop and no restroom, so handle those on Calle Ocho before or after. Watch the traffic when crossing to the median, since cars on 13th Avenue don't always slow down.

Da sapere

There are no facilities at the monument, so use a café on Calle Ocho for restrooms and water.

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