Like many people looking for money, Maria Elena Duran turned to the City of Miami. She headed a parents’ support group at Shenandoah Middle School and wondered if the city might sponsor the school’s gifted-student program. Her letter asking for help arrived on the desk of Commissioner Willy Gort in…

At the corner of NW 10th Avenue and 23rd Street in Allapattah, chips of orange- and cream-color paint litter the base of America’s Finest Baseball Park, flecking the detritus that rots there. Shards from bottles and from the broken stadium office windows glisten among the wet clothing, pigeon carcasses, and…

The Boston Market people can’t decide which booth they want,” says Ann Sterling as she surveys a large blueprint of Miami’s Bayfront Park. Dozens of small rectangles cover the blueprint, each representing a stand where a food vendor will sell arepas or hot dogs or, in this case, roast chicken…

Now that a special election has been announced to fill the Miami mayor’s seat, a searchlight scans the terrain for leaders who are able and willing to lead the city. Many names have been bandied about, but so far the only people who have actually stepped forward are losers from…

Like most residents of the Roads neighborhood in Miami, northwest of Brickell Avenue and the Rickenbacker Causeway, Lorraine Albury didn’t take to the high-rise idea. When developers proposed a nine-story apartment tower on a tiny swatch of property four blocks from the house where she has spent the past 56…

Uwe Krupp’s slap shot slid between the pads of goalie John Vanbiesbrouck early Tuesday morning, putting an end to an extraordinary triple-overtime game, claiming the 1996 Stanley Cup for the Colorado Avalanche, and etching a big pout on the puss of Florida Panthers fans all over Miami. Then giddy Denverites…

Lorenzo Simmons can be forgiven the confidence with which he strode into the Miami City Commission chambers on July 26, 1994. The president of the Tacolcy Economic Development Corp. was a man with a plan to revitalize a key corridor of Liberty City, one of Miami’s poorest neighborhoods, to replace…

Hypothetical situation: You live in Opa-locka. On a cool Sunday evening, your neighbor drops by to return the hacksaw he borrowed a week ago. During his visit, as he stands on the front porch drinking some of your lemonade, he casually reveals his plans to kill you. What do you…

The City of Miami’s purchase of the Riverside Center office building was, by all accounts, a heckuva deal. Florida Power & Light surrendered the brand-new marble structure for only $16 million A $7 million less than FPL wanted and almost half as much as it would cost to build the…

Cries of “Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay!” bellowed from tuxedoed revelers crammed inside a replica of Henry Flagler’s luxurious Royal Palm Hotel. Jazz music wafted from one stage, Latin music from a second, rock from a third. Partiers stuffed with cote de boeuf bourguignon slammed champagne while they admired the turn-of-the-century costumes worn by…

The hugs were a good sign. So were the back slaps and handshakes that followed Michael Goldstein’s presentation to the Miami City Commission last July. In ten short minutes on that summer morning, the environmental lawyer and activist had solved a twelve-year legal puzzle. Thanks to his work, it looked…

American presidential candidates have it easy. When Bob Dole and Bill Clinton want to raise cash, they never need to leave the country. A growing subset of self-funded politicos, such as Steve Forbes and Ross Perot, has so much money that they never need to leave their houses to pay…

The denizens of a vacant lot in Overtown, as is their style, pulled up an old couch and a few milk crates, popped open some cold ones, and warmed their chilling digits over a fire that smoldered in a soot-stained trash barrel. Timothy Young of the Miami Police Department, as…

Ooooh yes. Oh yes. Yes. Yes,” moaned a voice deep inside Miami City Hall. No, it wasn’t Mayor Steve Clark having his back scratched (or scratching someone else’s). Nor was it Commissioner Miller Dawkins on the phone with deposed Haitian strongman Raoul Cedras. The aural display of orgasmic pleasure emanated…

It’s good to manage the City of Miami. The pay, for one thing, is topnotch at $117,000 per year. The benefits are also stellar, including a splendid pension and a brand-new, top-of-the-line Jeep Cherokee with leather interior. Free gas. Free insurance. A generous expense account. There’s even the occasional trip…

At the spot where the Miami River meets Dupont Plaza, Miami Vice Mayor Willy Gort grasps a large pair of scissors, slices a fuchsia ribbon, opens the Brickell Avenue bridge, and fuels rampant rumors that Mayor Steve Clark faces imminent death. The moment seems morbidly appropriate: Clark’s political image, after…

Miami City Manager Cesar Odio’s firing of Frank Casta*eda and Ivey Kearson two weeks ago prompted a broad-based protest. Not only are city staffers stunned by the ouster of the two veteran employees, but a wide spectrum of activist groups has also voiced opposition to the dismissals. Angel Gonzalez, vice-chairman…

If a certain paranoid movie director were to swing through Coconut Grove, he would discover enough conspiracy theories to make the assassination of JFK seem like an open-and-shut case. Compared to the charges of corruption and cronyism that swirl through the Grove, the dubious conclusions of the Warren Commission make…

With the return of “crazy” Joe Carollo to the Miami City Commission returns the call to abolish the city government altogether. Rather than relive one more episode from Miami’s dark and comical political history (Carollo and Jorge Mas Canosa nearly dueling over the development of Watson Island, for instance), some…

Of all the turkeys Fred Rosenberg ever ate, none tasted better than the one he carved on Thanksgiving Day, 1993. It certainly surpassed the bird he was expecting to be served in the Broward County jail, where, just hours earlier, he had been locked up, facing the prospect of a…

Like any right-thinking municipal bureaucracy, Miami tries to be fair to minority-owned companies when handing out city contracts. In fact, an ordinance enacted a decade ago (and amended four years later) requires that at least 51 percent of all city business go to firms owned by women or ethnic minorities…

Nine years ago a part-time letter carrier in Edmond, Oklahoma, killed fourteen people before turning a .45-caliber pistol on himself. In 1991 a postal worker in Royal Oak, Michigan, killed four of his supervisors before shooting himself with a sawed-off .22-caliber carbine. Earlier this year a staffer at a postal…