When Michael Greene, president and CEO of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, announced on April 4 that the Latin Grammys would be coming here in September, Miami’s civic boosters crowed with self-congratulatory acclaim. Mayors, tourism officials, and the Miami Herald trumpeted the economic boon the awards show…
With five performance stages that featured salsa, hip-hop, jazz, and rock musicians; a gourmet restaurant; an art gallery; and an outdoor film space, Power Studios, in the heart of the city’s fledgling Design District, aimed to be an all-encompassing party place — which is saying something in Miami. The ambitious…
Two weeks ago the Miami-Dade County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust met in a closed-door session to hear evidence that Hialeah Police Chief Rolando Bolaños lied under oath when he claimed he was not aware that his own son had a criminal record before hiring the boy as a…
When Sonnfred Baptiste emptied a round of bullets into the playground of an Upper Eastside charter school in January 2000, he opened more than just a hole in fourteen-year-old Antonio Hill’s leg. Those shots were the first to pierce the fragile bubble of a dream that had spawned the high…
On a Tuesday night in January, a Coral Gables police officer stopped his patrol car at the corner of Douglas Road and SW Eighth Street, just at the edge of the Gables city limits. The back door of his car opened and a middle-age man with matted hair and grubby…
It was, according to observers, reminiscent of a scene out of a Frank Capra movie. On May 3, the next-to-last day of this year’s state legislative session, freshman Rep. Rene Garcia argued passionately for an amendment that would have extended for another two years Hialeah Park’s exclusive rights to the…
Air traffic is at record levels the world over. Miami International is running at full capacity. So stressful is a rather understated way to describe the job of guiding thousands of planes filled with hundreds of thousands of lives. And directing those who do all the directing adds another level…
Sometimes it’s the job itself that puts it into the category of stressful. Sometimes it’s the grueling hours. If you are a paramedic firefighter for Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, as Shanti Hall is, it’s both the job and the hours that add up to high stress. What does a paramedic firefighter…
It’s about that time of year to begin worrying about the perennial threat to our homeland: the hurricane. If you are one of six hurricane specialists (or forecasters) at the National Hurricane Center, like James L. Franklin is, that worry is a full-time occupation. The specialists are responsible for all…
Imagine spending all day looking at the face of a criminal, a missing child, or a murder victim — all day, every day of the working week. That’s what you’d do as a forensic artist for the Miami-Dade Police Department. Like Samantha Steinberg, you’d study the faces of the dead,…
The business of business means that tight deadlines, prompt delivery, and strict adherence to the bottom line are not mere concepts. They are essentials: You lose sight of them, you lose the store. Oh, and if you are an exporter of laboratory instruments and equipment to Latin America, like Ignacio…
Taking care of sick children, injured children — there’s probably no other career on earth that is both as rewarding and as heartbreaking. And there are few that are so intense, as Gwenn McLaughlin, associate professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of Miami, can attest. She is a pediatric…
So maybe we’re not the most objective source, but a reporter’s life is anything but relaxing — the anxiety level falls on the other end of the spectrum from that of, say, a yoga instructor. Daily journalism in particular, with its constant deadlines, can be considered wear-and-tear duty, as news…
For the past thirteen years he’s worked in the public-corruption unit of the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, the last six of them as its chief. Joe Centorino has seen his office grow from a part-time operation to a staff of nine attorneys who do nothing but investigate and prosecute public…
The early morning dropoff at Belén Jesuit Preparatory School unfolds with almost military precision. Young uniformed boys, backpacks in hand, one by one jump out of late-model SUVs and minivans. The vehicles, many displaying “Belen Wolverines” license plates, linger momentarily at the school’s entrance before lurching back into west Miami-Dade…
On a stormy Saturday night at the Big Five Club in west Miami-Dade, the Democracy Movement (Movimiento Democracia) revealed its plan for the newest and biggest weapon yet in the war against Fidel Castro. Many distinguished members of el exilio had gathered to lend their moral and financial support. Among…
THURSDAY, MAY 10 Dave Valentin, Sammy Figueroa, Don Wilner, Barry Reis, and Mike Orta at the Van Dyke Café. “Cuban Jam Session” with José Fajado, Alfredo “Chocolate” Armenteros, Felix “Pupi” Legarretta, Walfredo De Los Reyes, Sr., Carlos Averhoff, Carlos Infante, Feliciano Gomez, Rafael Sanchez, and Rigoberto Herrera at Café Nostalgia…
At 7:00 p.m. on April 10, a crowd of well-heeled residents gathered in the Key Biscayne Village Hall. Impeccably tanned women and men in pressed chinos nibbled on crudités staffers laid out, while sipping complimentary sodas. The atmosphere was more cocktail hour than monthly village council meeting. The pressing issue…
A black dotted line cuts into the official planning map of Miami-Dade, separating what the county was from what it has become. Inside the line, bright colors represent a sprawl of subdivisions, shopping malls, and traffic jams. Outside the line are swaths of green, what’s left of the wetlands and…
The April 14 party to launch Alix Desulme’s campaign for a seat on the North Miami City Council had a small-town, familiar feeling, not unlike most political events in this municipality of almost 60,000. Desulme’s kickoff, just three weeks before the May 8 election, took place at the Jaycees headquarters…
The darkly comic moment was not lost on Brothers to the Rescue president José Basulto as he sat at his desk in BTTR’s office above Madeira Street in Coral Gables one recent afternoon. Frantically waving both arms and uttering a series of shhhhhhhs! and eeeeeeees!, he was trying to signal…
If you are one of Miami-Dade County’s homeless, you might have heard about St. Christopher’s by the Sea, an Episcopal church on Key Biscayne that provides sandwiches, food vouchers, and perhaps a little moral support to those down on their luck. Key Biscayne, of course, is better known as a…
