On a Thursday night in the exact middle of nowhere — the Graham student center at Florida International University’s West Miami-Dade campus — a group of b-boys practiced spinning on their heads to the sound of beats and breaks from an old boom box. A herd of posh sorority girls…
It was an uncharacteristically gloomy afternoon last week when I visited county Commissioner Barbara Carey-Shuler at her office on the second floor of the government center. The sky was an unyielding mass of gray, releasing a steady downpour. If that sodden day wasn’t enough to dampen her spirits, the State…
The French flamenco ensemble Gipsy Kings is best known in this country for its unlikely 1988 hit Bamboleo. But the group is more than a one-hit wonder; its most recent album, 2004’s Roots, was one of the best received albums of its career. See the new and improved Gipsy Kings…
People say the rusty stain near the bottom of the door is Slob’s blood, where he leaned as he faded out. The door, which was lying in the yard of a new home being built in Overtown by Habitat for Humanity, is covered in farewell messages, like an oversized page…
The Miami-Dade Police Department’s Task 5 tape, recorded on the morning of August 24, 2004, became evidence in the recent trial of suspended Miami City Commissioner Arthur Teele. That morning Teele, a former U.S. Army Ranger, discovered someone in a silver SUV was following his wife. The commissioner, who was…
Patrick Dorneval was unwinding at Fat Tuesday’s, a touristy theme bar on the second level of Cocowalk, one night this past December. He got into an argument with two men on the dance floor who kept bumping into him. Words were exchanged. Just before 1:30 a.m. on December 29, Dorneval…
If Guns N’ Roses and Stone Temple Pilots consummated their mutual passion for authentic rock and roll, the result would be the bastard love child known as Velvet Revolver. The supergroup joins Hoobastank at the Sound Advice Amphitheater at 8:00 p.m. Wednesday, May 25. Tickets range from $24 to $54.50…
Donald David Diener believes he is a messenger of God. The 67-year-old former Los Angelino is here to unite his Christian brothers and sisters across the world for the Second Coming of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. “I was called to wake up the Christian community,” Diener explained in…
Homestead’s Main Street is an encomium to the ideal of the small town, an open invitation to tourists more interested in quaint Americana than South Beach glamour. But by early afternoon on any given weekend day, the street becomes populated by a crew of leering, shirtless drunks and a few…
Can things get any worse at the Miami-Dade Transit Agency? In early February county Mayor Carlos Alvarez killed a bailout plan that would have used $143 million from the half-penny transit tax to cover a decade’s worth of operating deficits and looming shortfalls at the beleaguered agency. That came after…
After construction delays postponed its re-opening party two weeks ago, PS 14 is coming back with a bang. Now a bar and restaurant that will complement the neighboring I/O, this modest-sized pizzeria will undoubtedly swell to capacity when Counterflow Recordings brings back its weekly jam Paid Attention (remember when it…
As of this writing, Nocturnal doesn’t resemble the lushly opulent and high-tech superclub that is scheduled to debut on March 19, two days before this year’s Winter Music Conference begins. Just weeks before the grand opening, construction crews are still working around the clock. On a recent weekday, they were…
Because the artwork of Romero Britto makes him smile, developer Jeffrey Berkowitz says the City of Miami Beach has but two choices for the future of the northeast corner of Fifth Street and Alton Road: 1) three huge sculptures by Romero Britto, a shopping mall, and a public parking garage;…
Earlier this month the Miami Herald welcomed to town a young baseball player named Danny Almonte, the pitcher who threw a perfect game in the 2001 Little League World Series. That victory was tarnished when it was revealed Almonte’s father had falsified the boy’s birth certificate, making him appear to…
Last week Miami-Dade’s Christian Family Coalition launched a campaign to put a referendum on the November 2006 ballot that would define marriage as between one man and one woman. “This will prevent rogue judges … from striking down the Defense of Marriage Act,” the group’s campaign announcement read. In response,…
If you plan on becoming a rock star one day, you need a few things: tattoos, a drug history, and whatever happens, get rid of the clarinet. Northern Cali quartet Papa Roach did all of the above, and the outcome was a multiplatinum career. Roach clips will be plentiful when…
Miami-Dade’s southwest suburbs could belong to Anywhere, U.S.A. Trade the royal palms for dogwoods and the Peruvian bakeries for Vietnamese diners, and you could mistake Kendall and the Hammocks for suburban D.C. or Chicago or LA. The same SUVs pull into the same strip malls anchored by the same chains…
The City of North Miami has yet to conclude its search for a new city attorney, but word on the street says Hans Ottinot, deputy city attorney for Sunny Isles Beach, has a lock on the job. Developer Michael Swerdlow and lobbyist Ron Book are allegedly pressuring Mayor Joe Celestin,…
The City of Miami Beach has a hot new tourist attraction. Nothing to rival the Grand Canyon or even the Liberace Museum, but this natural wonder does involve something of an imposing edifice. Several times each hour people of all ages approach the wooden stairs that normally serve as the…
This year marks two milestones for Seaquarium. Virginia Key’s landmark marine theme park has been a Miami fixture for 50 years, coasting on its storied past as the setting for the Flipper television series in the early Sixties. It is also an anniversary date associated with another intelligent sea mammal:…
On Wednesday, February 2, the City of Miami Beach hosted a prosaic little event, a groundbreaking ceremony for a new fire station and the renovation of an old one. A blue tent was set up in a dusty lot while fire trucks and paving equipment rumbled nearby. Yet more than…
Imagine an eternal source of pure drinking water. A source from which the crystal-clear liquid would flow endlessly. A simple, portable source that would, on demand, produce life-giving water any time, virtually anywhere. A miracle. It would be an answer to the prayers of millions worldwide who suffer and die…
