BEST EYECATCHING GOVERNMENT BUILDING 2002 | Aventura Government Center | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Miami | Miami New Times
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BEST EYECATCHING GOVERNMENT BUILDING

Aventura Government Center

It's an enormous inverted salad bowl. Or maybe it's headquarters of the Justice League of America, where superheroes Aquaman, Superman, and Wonder Woman gather to hatch world-saving strategies. Actually the distinctive building that distracted you so much you nearly veered off the road is the Aventura Government Center. Dreamed up by Michael A. Schiff & Associates and Arquitectonica, the striking contemporary structure swathed in glass and Indiana limestone features a spectacular sloped rotunda, where elected officials meet to make city policy. Since it opened in May 2001, the 72,000-square-foot marvel, housing all government operations (including the police department) has become what its creators had hoped: a one-stop shop for dealing with city business. And quite the looker as well.

BEST FM RADIO PERSONALITY

Lita

Power 96 (WPOW-FM 96.5)

And girlfriend, we do mean personality. Although Mark Moseley did a decent job for years pretending to be queer, Lita lit up the airwaves with tough-as-nails humor only a real big queen could hammer home. Whether dispensing no-nonsense fashion sense to Hialeah hootchies or dishing the dirt on that tacky J-Lo, Lita told it like it is. We don't care if she did write a column for that other weekly. In these sensitive post 9/11 times, who else dared go where Lita went, beyond bad taste to the cavities where the vulgar becomes sublime? Who else could shut up the whole morning crew with tales of playing hide-the-bin-laden in a boyfriend's deep dark caves? We'll miss Lita so.

BEST PARTY OF THE YEAR

Halloween on Lincoln Road

Like all truly great annual traditions, Lincoln Road's Halloween parade just sort of happened. There is no sponsor, no formal organization, no one in charge. It's simply an outgrowth of the Road's late-Nineties transformation from a deserted strip into one of South Florida's prime people-watching spots. For locals who hardly need a holiday as an excuse to pose for a closeup, showing up in their Halloween costumes has become a no-brainer. Consequently veteran attendees know to stake out a sidewalk café seat early. Order dinner and a few drinks -- by nightfall the pedestrian mall is engulfed with dead Elvises, vampires, and every drag queen within a 50-mile radius -- all strutting their stuff for an appreciative audience. Never has the phrase freak show been so apropos, or so enjoyable.

BEST HERO

Angela Gittens

A lot of South Floridians quietly cheered this past November when Gittens, less than a year into her tenure as Miami-Dade County's aviation director, lambasted the county commission as "lobby heaven," and accused a lobbyist of lying during a presentation. (Carl Hiaasen described MIA at the time Gittens took over in March 2001 as "operating with all the charm and efficiency of a hillside brothel during an earthquake.") Gittens had a history of successfully fighting corruption in her previous job as director of Atlanta's sprawling Hartsfield International Airport. And even though Miami-Dade County Manager Steve Shiver called her on the carpet for her lobbyist outburst, Gittens hasn't stopped telling it like it is at MIA, or working hard for a more equitable and efficient system of awarding contracts.

BEST SPANISH-LANGUAGE RADIO PERSONALITY

Ninoska Perez Castellon

Ninoska a la una

WQBA-AM (1140)

Ninoska isn't for everyone, but unlike most of her peers in the anti-Castro radio business, she's not a megalomaniac and she isn't using her high-profile platform as much for her own career advancement as for communicating her passionately held beliefs about her homeland. Ninoska is in fact a good communicator and her shows have more flavor than the endless other exile call-in programs, simply because she makes an effort to be in touch with real Cubans, both on and off the island. These days she doesn't do as much of what made her famous -- those often hilarious crank phone calls to Cuba meant to expose the foibles of self-important Communist Party officials and of the system they uphold. But Ninoska, despite a predictably Evil Fidel spin on everything, still manages to be more on top of Cuba-related events and trends than just about any other exile talk-show host anywhere.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Ilona Somogyi

Red Herring

Florida Stage

Somogyi gets the nod for her droll, inventive Fifties design scheme, in itself a hilarious social critique. From nightmarish polka dots and pony skirts to her big-shouldered suits for the men, the New York designer brought Red Herring an added level of comedy and social commentary. Somogyi has tailored her craft to this era before. She was the one who dressed up Kathleen Turner as Tallulah Bankhead at the Coconut Grove Playhouse and sent us back, through ball gowns, to Forties post-war America.

BEST PLACE TO PEOPLE-WATCH

Club Rancho Grande

For anyone not familiar with the local "rancho" phenomenon, Rancho Grande is a revelation. It really is a ranch of sorts, complete with horses and the occasional whiff of barnyard, way out in what passes for the countryside. But it's a club of sorts too. Tables and chairs are spread around a dance floor, all open to the breeze but sheltered from rain by a patchwork roof. You can drop by any weekend (not open weekdays) dressed like a guajiro or a prom queen or a yachtsman and lounge around drinking beer, sampling the excellent Cuban cooking (while it lasts), and watching. Infants and grandparents, fat, thin, black, white, tall, short, hairless, hirsute. The main reason to drop by is to dance to the DJ music (all Latin varieties), and that's another revelation: On any given Saturday night there's the lone exhibitionist, seemingly a different man each week, stepping and turning for hours in extended experimental theater. There are the couples with amazing vibrating butts. The salseros. The bachateros. The vendors of flowers, toys, chains and watches, snapshots of you, and "African art." Sooner or later almost everyone joins the parade at Rancho Grande.

BEST SOUTH BEACH OASIS

Miami Beach Botanical Garden

Photo courtesy of Miami Beach Botanical Garden
There's nothing quite like surrounding oneself in bromeliads to ease the troubled mind. This lush little enclave has 150 different kinds. "Bromeliads are cherished for their lovely variations of color, spectacular bloom shoots, and their important role supporting animal life via rainwater collected in their rosettes of leaves," notes the garden's Website. From time to time a greedy subspecies of urban wildlife has been known to sneak in and run off with a few orchids from the Arthur Laufferberger Memorial Orchidaria, another feature of this sanctum. But you can relax. That security problem has been addressed, according to the nonprofit Beach Garden Conservancy, which manages this refuge from the sands and sidewalks of South Beach. The Japanese Garden is an oasis within an oasis. A number of tables and benches scattered throughout the grounds provide perches for those who may enter to slake their thirst or hunger with a little food or drink. The gardens are open every day from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is free.

BEST STAGE DESIGN

Victor Becker

Black Sheep

Florida Stage

Using an all white-set and a series of mobile screens, Becker created an ever-shifting fun house of mobile space, a perfect setting for Lee Blessing's elusive, dreamlike comedy that offered director Michael Bigelow Dixon plenty of staging opportunities. The space allowed the play itself to expand into the marvelous production that it was. If you wanted to see how it's done, this was the perfect learning ground.

BEST SPEED TRAP

Don Shula Expressway

Kendall

It's a bright and sunny weekend morning. You're headed down to the Keys for some R&R. You think you're pretty smart to use the Shula (SR 874) because it isn't heavily traveled at this hour and it's the quickest way to join up with the southbound turnpike. As you approach the exit for SW 107th Avenue you become aware of a change in your surroundings. Everything seems to open up -- wider lanes, broad grassy median, a smooth ribbon of highway beckoning to you. Is this the turnpike already? Just as you're about to pass under the bridge some involuntary reflex causes you to floor it. You begin to smile. So does the state trooper standing on the bridge, radar gun aimed right at you. Then a quick radio call to one of several FHP cars poised at the on-ramp. You're doomed and don't even know it.

Best Of Miami®

Best Of Miami®

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