Bullets make you braver, as do too many drinks, and both can make a smart man stupid,” wrote Miami Herald wunderkind sports columnist Dan Le Batard in a July 30 column about the proliferation of gun-toting athletes. “Doesn’t help that many athletes already feel invincible.” Of course, athletes aren’t the…
The University of Miami had plenty to be embarrassed about a year ago, when their oceanographic research vessel, the Columbus Iselin, smashed into a fragile reef in the Florida Keys. The accident severely damaged four of the federally protected reef’s delicate spur-and-groove formations, fingerlike coral structures that have taken centuries…
Miami environmental activist Barbara Lange recalls the first time she laid eyes on George Barley. It was several years ago and the man was holding forth at a meeting of Florida environmentalists, individuals who, to a person, had dedicated a significant amount of their lives to protecting the natural ecosystem…
In 1925 a group of little old ladies got it into their bonneted heads that there was something special about an abandoned building near the mouth of the Miami River, something worth saving. Built nearly a century earlier by plantation owner William English, the single-story limestone-and-wood structure had served as…
Once, the two-mile-long stretch of scenic bayfront property along Brickell Avenue was lined with dozens of estates, mansions set in a lush subtropical setting. Jeweler Louis C. Tiffany lived on the street that came to be called Millionaire’s Row; so did lawyer and politician William Jennings Bryan and Miami Beach…
Local preservationists are a persistent lot with a higher frustration threshold than most. For every small triumph — a stay of demolition here, a historic designation there — they suffer several losses, usually delivered by a wrecking ball. Besides widespread apathy toward their cause, they must cope with constraints of…
Since moving here just over a year ago, Sylvester Stallone has endeavored to become Miami’s nouveau civic icon. He made his debut by plunking down eight million dollars on a bayfront mansion next to Villa Vizcaya, then wasted no time in casting himself as a patron of the arts and…
If buildings were cats, the Priscilla Apartments in downtown Miami surely would be an abused stray. Hunched at the corner of Nineteenth Street and Biscayne Boulevard, the mangy three-story structure is pocked with holes. Its windows are broken out, the entranceways boarded up. The walls are plastered with tattered promotional…
Never a body to shy away from imposing its moral will on the citizenry, the Coral Gables City Commission has tentatively approved regulations that prohibit more than two unrelated people from living together under the same roof. Were they to call the City Beautiful home, the Golden Girls of TV…
The two young moguls perched over mozzarella cheese sticks and iced teas at a Hallandale Denny’s are trying to explain why their business idea is going to sell to South Florida, perhaps the entire state, maybe even beyond. Their product: beer. By definition a festive beverage. On the other side…
When you’re standing on the South Beach sand amid the sounds of the tumbling surf and frolicking tourists and the cacophonous blend of music wafting from the bars along Ocean Drive, it’s easy to forget that two and a half years ago a not-so-little storm blew into Dade County and…
Scant empirical documentation remains of the February 27 brawl between police and students at Coral Gables High School. The blood that spilled on the ground from the forehead of Ofcr. Peter Cuervo has since dried and washed away. Cuervo’s injury, which required eight stitches, has nearly healed, as have the…
Healthy Males Needed For Research Study,” beckons the tiny announcement in the Miami Herald classifieds. “Ages 18-45; 5 days confinement; 18 clinic visits.” Then, in slightly larger type: “We Pay You $1100.” A call to the listed phone number yields a curt female receptionist and an address on NW 22nd…
There’s a whole lot of back-slapping going on among hurricane-recovery officials these days. On February 24, two and a half years after Hurricane Andrew displaced about 250,000 South Floridians, the last residents of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) mobile homes moved out of the Coral Roc Mobile Home Park…
As silently as lead seeps into drinking water, warning signs have appeared all over Miami International Airport in recent weeks. Their caution: Don’t drink the water. Lead contamination. Posted above each of the airport’s water fountains is a notice that reads, in part: “SOME BUILDINGS IN THIS COMMUNITY HAVE ELEVATED…
Perhaps you heard a chorus of whoops emanating from the City of Miami Beach’s finance department late last month. That was the sound of giddy bean counters celebrating a milestone in the annals of local taxation. For the first time ever, city officials broke the $900,000 barrier in their monthly…
This isn’t the way it was supposed to turn out. The vast space on NW 54th Street in Liberty City once teemed with colorful merchandise that stretched from the clothing and shoe departments on one side, through sporting goods and electronics, to housewares, toys, and health-and-beauty aids half a city…
A new real estate developer comes to a town already congested with new developers and wants to make a name for himself. So what does he do? He throws a party. A really big party, under a lavishly decorated 15,000-square-foot tent shipped in from Tennessee. He invites more than 1000…
Playground banter about Hank Aaron’s batting average and Joe Namath’s pass-completion stats could soon be a thing of the past, replaced by talk of Claudia Schiffer’s bust size and the career implications of an appearance on the cover of Vogue. At least it could if Penelope Friedland has her way…
On Tuesday, February 7, Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department director Anthony Clemente will stand before the Dade County Commission and present this good news: County negotiators have settled the nineteen-month-old federal lawsuit concerning Dade’s decrepit sewer system. But before the commissioners leap up, join arms, and dance merrily, they may…
If you lived where she lives, you might think the government was all wet, too.
Perhaps more than any other Metro politician, County Commissioner James Burke could probably use the new year’s restorative psychological boost. True, he won re-election this past fall after running unopposed, but that victory was overcast by the gloom of political and personal miseries. During the summer, a New Times investigation…
