A month ago Chicken Kitchen owner Christian de Berdouare stirred controversy by applying to demolish the North Bay Road home where he lives and where the Beatles were once famously photographed. Last Thursday he made bigger real estate news: For nearly $10 million, he bought the coral-pink waterfront mansion once…
For a half-century the imposing Miami Herald building stood like a sentinel on Biscayne Bay. Massive, bulky, and featuring the tan and canary-yellow color scheme of your grandmother’s first apartment, the building wasn’t exactly an architectural gem. OK, let’s just say it: It was ugly. Like Soviet-military-barracks ugly. But through…
On a recent Friday afternoon, Orvil Delisson sat on a crate in front of his family’s small ranch house in Little River. He looked relaxed in an unbuttoned Hawaiian-style shirt, white shorts, and sandals. A few feet away, a pink-and-purple girls’ bicycle lay toppled on its side. Then Delisson lifted…
An officer on patrol in suburban Virginia Gardens last week noticed “the distinct and unique odor of unburnt cannabis” coming from a parked 2000 Mercury Grand Marquis. Like any good weed-smelling cop, he stopped to investigate. In the driver’s seat, he found 23-year-old Luke Bray, a redshirt senior on the…
On a recent Friday afternoon, Orvil Delisson sat on a crate in front of his family’s small ranch house in Little River. He looked relaxed in an unbuttoned Hawaiian-style shirt, white shorts, and sandals; a few feet away, a pink-and-purple girls’ bicycle lay toppled on its side. Then Delisson lifted…
More than 100 days and 5,000 miles after they departed from Morocco, a South African couple are about to become the first people ever to row — yes, row, using their arms and all — from mainland Africa to the mainland United States when they land in Miami this Monday…
In February 1964, the Beatles had invaded Miami Beach, and they needed somewhere quiet to escape the mobs of screaming fans for a Life magazine shoot. Through an Ed Sullivan Show connection, the mop-topped British sensations were pulled away from the swarmed Deauville Hotel and spirited away to 5750 North…
Last week a local 21-year-old made international headlines for snagging a 13-foot hammerhead while fishing off the pier at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. After his friend’s line bent hard and the huge fish was pulled in closer, Ryan Bolash dragged the shark onto a beach full of stunned onlookers. “It was flailing around,…
With little fanfare, demolition began this morning at One Herald Plaza along Biscayne Bay. The iconic Miami Herald building, which served as the newspaper’s headquarters from 1963 until last May, when the paper relocated to Doral, was bought in 2011 by the Malaysian casino giant Genting Group. The company originally…
In February 1964 the Beatles had invaded Miami Beach, and they needed somewhere quiet to escape the mobs of screaming fans for a Life magazine shoot. Through an Ed Sullivan Show connection, the mop-topped British sensations were pulled away from the swarmed Deauville Hotel and spirited to 5750 North Bay…
Today is the last Friday of April. Which means it’s National Arbor Day — you know, that one special day a year when you wake up early and rush out to plant a tree in a silent and unnoticed but deeply symbolic demonstration of your commitment to reversing centuries of…
Vico Confino is a husky 81-year-old hell-raiser with a thick Brooklyn accent and an outsized presence — slicked-back thin white hair, piercing blue eyes, leathery South Florida skin — that seem cut straight from a Sopranos casting. Confino tosses F-bombs at waiters over bad service. He wears four fake teeth…
Vico Confino is a husky 81-year-old hell-raiser with a thick Brooklyn accent and an outsized presence — slicked-back thin white hair, piercing blue eyes, leathery South Florida skin — that seem cut straight from a Sopranos casting. Confino tosses F-bombs at waiters over bad service. He wears four fake teeth…
Let the library funding wars begin. At 9:30 this morning, the Miami-Dade County Finance Committee will meet for a first discussion on budgets for the upcoming fiscal year — chief among them the county’s beleaguered library system, which is facing a further $20 million cut without new taxes. Activists and…
In 47 states, beer drinkers can happily purchase and imbibe from 64-ounce growlers, the glass jugs commonly sold at smaller or craft breweries. In Florida, Prohibition-era laws have kept the size illegal, prompting a years-long effort by Sunshine State craft brewers and supporters to join the rest of the nation…
Looking for a nice stuffed baby alligator posed so it looks like it’s waving hello for your living room or bedside table? Better act fast. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission proposed a new set of alligator-related rules Thursday, and, in addition to suggesting changes like a new 24-hour…
Miami Beach became one of the Jewish capitals of America thanks in part to the mass immigration fleeing anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe under the Nazis. So it’s no surprise that when news broke earlier today about fliers circulating in eastern Ukraine demanding that Jewish residents “register” with the government, switchboards…
Before he was tapped to serve as a bodyguard for then Miami Beach mayoral candidate Philip Levine in 2013, Eric Kolbinsky was a longtime police detective and special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration. He was based in Atlanta, according to an online bio, and led a team “that traveled…
Like most librarians in Miami-Dade County, Julio Granda Jr. was worried about the financial future of his institution. Under County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, the system had lost $30 million in funding over several years and, in the summer of 2013, was staring down an additional $20 million cut. But when…
For more than two decades on the tip of Virginia Key, Rickenbacker Marina has run its business providing boat storage, a rare longtime Miami operator during a period marked by rapid development and soaring property values. But now the marina is claiming the city is pushing it out to make…
Like most librarians in Miami-Dade County, Julio Granda Jr. was worried about the financial future of his institution. Under County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, the system had lost $30 million in funding over several years and, in the summer of 2013, was staring down an additional $20 million cut. But when…
Apparently, Golden Beach — that little hamlet north of Sunny Isles Beach full of ridiculously wealthy people where Shaquille O’Neal was famously sworn in as a police officer — is experiencing a rash of drunk driving incidents. And tonight they’re taking a stand. According to a news release issued earlier…
