He was South Florida’s most prominent environmental advocate. As executive director of Friends of the Everglades, Joe Podgor was the voice of Marjory Stoneman Douglas in her final years, a passionate spokesman for his mentor in warning of the dangers posed by Big Sugar, developers, and polluters. On issues such…
But, thank God, they are not as intelligent as we who kill them; although they are more noble and more able. — Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea When Dan Miller and Grant Robertson come ashore at Haulover Park Marina, they are pumped with excitement. Less than an…
The ending sounded like a beginning: “We will do it again, and we will not cease.” That was the way Antonio Zamora closed the Miami premiere of a production titled “The Time Is Now to Reassess U.S. Policy Toward Cuba.” It was a lengthy title for a one-day conference that…
It must have felt more like open season than opening night for the Florida Marlins’ new top brass this past Monday at Pro Player Stadium. Indeed so cold was the reception from the media and fans that new owner Jeffrey Loria and team president David Samson might have thought they…
The melodrama surrounding one of the world’s most famous photographs does not a pretty picture make. “Heroic Guerrilla,” the 1960 shot that portrays a 32-year-old, beret-topped, long-haired Ernesto “Che” Guevara gazing sternly into the distance, has served the Cuban Revolution’s image-makers like no other. It has helped to keep a…
Shortly before 8:00 a.m., he descends from the spacious lobby of the Radisson Deauville Resort, at 67th Street and Collins Avenue, to the underground network of shops that now principally serves as an access route to the hotel’s pool area. Reaching the door of his barbershop, the one he has…
Even in Miami, where Cuba conspiracy theories grow tall and thick like sugar cane at harvest time, some of Salvador Lew’s Miami listeners were surprised when he warned of Fidel Castro’s latest subversive campaign. Lew, director of the United States government’s Radio and TV Martí, appeared on Radio Mambí (WAQI-AM…
The U.S. government is prohibited by law from beaming its programs to its own citizens. But this World War II-era safeguard, designed to protect the nation from propaganda, has been made irrelevant by technology. Picking up Radio Martí on its 1180-AM frequency or its various short-wave bands is a hit-and-miss…
In Miami irony is as much a part of the landscape as gridlocked traffic and palm trees. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Knight Ridder, the media conglomerate that fled downtown Miami in 1998 for new digs in California after 24 years on Biscayne Bay, is now engaged…
On a typically sweltering subtropical day in October, two pale-faced men just shy of 40 years old step off a plane at an eerily empty Miami International Airport. They note this to each other in a language unusual even in this crossroads of the world as they stroll ever so…
Seven members of the University of Miami’s faculty senate are investigating the controversial cheating case of a star football player whose penalty was later altered in a way that will allow him to play this fall, as the Hurricanes defend their national championship. “I have asked the athletics committee [of…
Heading south on Red Road, the houses get farther and farther apart until they become easy to count, and then I know I’m almost there: Parrot Jungle. The surrounding village of Pinecrest, an affluent, tree-lined community carved out of unincorporated Miami-Dade County five years ago, has kept a lid on…
For a firefighter who craves action, there is no better assignment than Station 2. The firehouse at 6460 NW 27th Ave. in the heart of Liberty City is not only the busiest in Miami-Dade County, but it is believed to be one of the busiest in the nation. During an…
FOR SALE: Castle, 6 BR, 11 BA on Biscayne Bay, sauna, gym, wine cellar, billiard room, pool, 5 wet bars, tower guest house, gargoyles and statuary, drawbridge, saltwater moat, and 14 sharks. $6 million or best offer. More than three years after Hurricane Mitch claimed his four-masted schooner Fantome and…
The University of Miami’s superstar wide receiver Andre Johnson, a big factor in this year’s Rose Bowl win, was hammered February 19 by a post-season gang tackle. A group of his fellow students, sitting as the Undergraduate Honor Council, voted to suspend him for two semesters beginning this fall. That…
Around three o’clock Sunday afternoon, March 11, 2001, Manny Rojas savors a glass of Scotch and a cigar. He has been at work since 10:00 the night before — setting up stages and police stands, checking sound systems and visiting vendors. He expects to remain on the job until the…
The Pitch Minivans and SUVs line SW 64th Street, the quiet lane that runs past Snapper Creek Elementary School and into the heart of Kendall. The early evening is softly descending as several dozen parents shuffle in and sit at long rows of fold-up tables with attached benches in the…
The ceiling in Iris Pollack’s apartment, just inside her front door, appears to be falling down. The petite redhead apologizes for the mess, embarrassed but also outraged by the peeling plaster and the water stains around the living room. “Every time it rains, the ceiling leaks,” she sighs. “I have…
Bruce and Rick Rutsky are at their table in Rose’s section at Denny’s by 8:00 a.m., clamoring for their bowls of oatmeal and bananas. The two huge, grizzled and grimy men look like tractor-trailer drivers who just rolled off the turnpike, briefly injecting color into the usual bland crowd. But…
Miami Beach riddle: What’s held together with string, can turn an eight-square-mile island into a private home, and has civil libertarians tied in knots? Give up? The eruv. To the casual observer, the eruv (pronounced A-roove) in Miami Beach looks like little more than long sections of string tied to…
The thieves showed agility and good taste. To get in they had to scale two seven-foot metal picket fences, pass the loot carefully to accomplices, and then climb back out. And their timing was perfect. Almost everything they took was in bloom. “It was sort of sad,” says master gardener…
Inside his spacious, secluded office on the Barry University campus, vice president Timothy Czerniec plots the future. Literally. Standing over a map on a large conference table in the middle of the room, Czerniec guides a visitor through an aerial view of the roughly 120-acre tract Barry owns in North…
