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BEST PASSPORT OFFICE

Miami City Hall

Renewing a passport can be a pain. You have to call for an appointment, then you have to wait two weeks or so, then you have to go downtown, then you have to wait, and then -- well, like we said, it's definitely a hassle. Not so at Miami City Hall. The extremely professional city clerk's office offers a painless way to apply for or renew a passport. The whole thing takes eight minutes, tops, and you don't even need an appointment. Just drop by the clerk's office window on Dinner Key, fill out a short form, hand over a small check, then walk over to the camera. Smile. After the photo develops, blush at how good-looking you are, then leave. Your passport will arrive in the mail in a matter of days. If you pay an expediting fee, you can have it even sooner. It's that easy.

BEST HOTEL

Biltmore Hotel

Before you enter this 76-year-old landmark, you already know you're close to paradise. The magnificent Giralda Tower, languorously and glamorously lit against the blue-black Florida night sky, is one clue. But as you walk from parking lot to pool area, the smell of jasmine is so heavy you lose your bearings. Where are you? In a world of which you can only dream? Or Miami-Dade's most elegant province? That's right, this is not simply a hotel. This is another universe. You walk through archways and courtyards, click across elaborate tile floors, sit against carved wood and detailed tapestries, and know you are not in Miami anymore. You swim in one of the world's greatest pools. You eat among brilliant pinks and purples of bougainvillea and verdant banana leaves, treated like a member of the old raj. Speaking of colonial treatment, you take high tea indoors in the fabulous lobby, with choices of tea and finger sandwiches that embarrass Harrods. You sit on your private balcony and take in the tropical landscape cleverly disguised as a golf course. Good theater next door at GableStage, spa in the basement. Nooooo, you're not going anywhere.

BEST LOBBY

Radisson Deauville Resort

The lobby of architect Melvin Grossman's classic Fifties hotel is a monument to space-age design, space-age glamour, and just plain space. Think MiMo (Miami Modernism) meets Grand Central Station. Massive decorative columns hold up an imposing plaster canopy in the center of the room. Underneath it five separate islands of couches and chairs float on a sea of vintage marble tile. A full-size hotel bar runs along one wall. Overlooking the bar is a landing big enough to be its own lobby. And if that's not enough to convey the sense of limitless optimism that fueled the Fifties: Large, curved window walls look out over the enormous pool area and onto Collins Avenue, giving the illusion of even more space. Whoever said bigger isn't always better never set foot in here.

BEST CAR WASH

Joel Alfonso's mobile wash

The thing is, he'll come to you on those weekends when the bird doo-doo has piled up on your hood from trying to park under trees to avoid the sun, and when you just don't feel like negotiating the traffic to get to the cheapo deals along NE Second Avenue or the expensive sloshings in the parking garages of Brickell high-rises. Joel is a great big guy with an obsession for getting things right (he used to be a plant-maintenance specialist). He'll wash your car for just ten bucks. Vans and SUVs are $20, trucks are $45, RVs are $60, and boats are a little cheaper at $55. ("I like boats," he explains.) He arrives with a truck and all his own equipment, including a pressure washer with a 100-gallon tank so he doesn't have to hook up to your spigots, and he has his own generator and super-vacuum, which he applies to those areas you don't see, like under the seat. "I guess I'm a perfectionist," Alfonso says modestly. And before you know it, even your old Sentra looks swell again. Open seven days, Monday through Sunday, 9:00 to 5:00.

BEST HIDDEN NEIGHBORHOOD

Bel Mar Estates

Sailboats and small pleasure craft float in front of historic Twenties and Thirties homes. Neighbors enjoy leisurely sunset walks along the water. One of South Florida's myriad gated communities? Try again. An affluent, private residential island sandwiched between Miami Beach and the mainland? Nope. Would you believe unincorporated Miami-Dade County? It's true. This eight-square-block area, located between NE 87th and 91st streets, NE Tenth Avenue and Biscayne Bay, offers a unique twist on waterfront living. Instead of facing the bay, homes sit on "Lake Bel Mar," which according to folks in the area is the only canal in Miami-Dade County located in front of a row of homes. The place is so charming, secluded, and quiet that residents begged us not to tell people about it. Sorry.

BEST CURE FOR AIDS ISOLATION

The Center for Positive Connections

Positive Connections was unique seven years ago and remains one of the nation's few comprehensive support centers for HIV-positive heterosexuals. In 1995 Sheri Kaplan, newly diagnosed with HIV and feeling out of place at existing resource centers mainly catering to gay men, decided to start her own support group. Today Positive Connections, with the help of grants and donations, has grown into a one-stop hub that anyone with HIV or AIDS can benefit from. Whether your concern is finding a physician, a financial planner, or a dog groomer, Positive Connections can steer you in the right direction. The center itself offers a diversity of free classes and workshops covering everything from Reiki and acupuncture to past-life regression and art therapy. There are regular heterosexual support groups for English-, Spanish-, and Creole-speaking men, women, and their families and friends. Also a group for gay men recently started.

BEST BUREAUCRAT

Merrett Stierheim

In a town where far too many public servants graduated from the school of corruption and incompetence, Merrett Stierheim stands out as a beacon in the darkness. Since 1959, when he began his career as an assistant manager with the City of Miami, Stierheim has kept an able hand on the tiller of our biggest and most complex governments, often called up on deck just as the ship was about to hit the rocks. By dint of his reputation as a fixer of big problems, he has become an almost mythic figure in his own lifetime. In 1967 he left for Florida's west coast but returned in 1976 to become Dade County's manager during a most difficult period (the Mariel boatlift, riots, cocaine cowboys) until his retirement in 1986. In the early Nineties Stierheim became Miami's chief cheerleader as president and CEO of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. Then in 1996, as the City of Miami faced a financial meltdown amid political scandal, Stierheim was coaxed out of his second retirement to become the pro bono city manager. In no time he discovered a $68 million shortfall in the city's general fund and led the beginning of a long recovery effort. In 1998 he was again tapped to become county manager as Miami-Dade reeled from scandals and corruption at the airport and the Port of Miami. He retired in early 2001 when it became clear Mayor Alex Penelas wanted a less independent and forceful manager. Stierheim kept himself busy through the spring and summer by becoming interim manager of newly incorporated Miami Lakes and leading another emergency recovery team through Homestead's shaky finances. In October 2001 Stierheim took on what is arguably his most challenging and important job yet -- superintendent of Miami-Dade County's mammoth public-school system. The school district is a magnified version of the bureaucracies Stierheim had wrestled with earlier: unwieldy, riddled with corruption, and filled with a demoralized workforce. But with the future of 370,000 children in his hands, the stakes are much higher. Stierheim has already begun to heal an ailing bureaucratic culture. Only time will tell whether he can successfully complete the job.

BEST BUREAUCRAT TO LEAVE TOWN

Steve Spratt

In Miami-Dade County, Steve Spratt was always a little shocking. Low-key, competent, respected -- what could be more shocking in a county employee? Spratt was not only thoroughly informed but able to relay that information without lying, obfuscating, or double-talking. He was a budget expert who wasn't afraid to call a scheme a scam. Surely it was too much to ask someone like Spratt to stick around forever. But he did last a remarkable 25 years at county hall before departing in December 2001 to become the Pinellas County administrator (their version of county manager). Now 47 years old, Spratt began his government career in 1976 as a lowly complaint-taker in the Dade County manager's office, eventually moving to budget director and finally to assistant county manager. Known for his directness and impartiality, Spratt did what he had to do, even if it meant recommending the suspension in 1999 of parks director Bill Cutie, who was later indicted in the famous "missing trees" caper, in which the county paid $1.6 million for 4200 palm trees that were never accounted for.

BEST BUREAUCRAT TO STAY IN TOWN

L. Douglas Yoder

When Doug Yoder went to work for the county in February 1971 he was fresh out of Cornell University and full of youthful idealism. At the age of 24 he sincerely believed in the notion of public service. And guess what? Thirty-one years later he still does. Yoder has been with DERM since July 1977. In that time he has seen county managers and agency chiefs come and go, but he's still there, worrying about air pollution, water quality, and dump-site contamination while fielding citizen queries and complaints and serving on several national boards, including the Urban Consortium Environmental Task Force. Yoder is beginning to think about retirement in the next few years, but that does not mean he's slacking off. He returns phone calls, brown-bags his lunch, pays attention at boring budgetary meetings and hearings on airborne particulates, and recognizes that he is a servant of the taxpayers. Good man.

BEST PLACE TO MEET SINGLE MEN

Miami International Boat Show

Annually in February

While many locals complain about the snarled traffic and incessant bridge openings, single women should know otherwise. Not all of the close to 150,000 people who descend on Miami are men, and not all are rich. But lots are. And they're here to let loose, have some fun, and spend some money. Stroll the marinas and convention center and oooh and ahhh at the gleaming vessels and the exorbitantly priced stuff that fills them. Your giddy, grinning neighbor is sure to fill you in on what he thinks about objets d'ark. And just about anything else -- silence is not socially acceptable here. Now you tell him where to go for a drink afterward. Or he'll tell you: "Hey, we found this great place on the water where you can watch more boats," and you'll pretend that Monty's is indeed a hidden gem. All you have to do now is move with the flow. Easy.

Best Of Miami®

Best Of Miami®

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