Regina Greenhill is a wealthy Jewish widow. A stroke victim, she lives alone in a condominium tower, just across a parking lot from the Aventura Mall. Bridget Garcia is a working-class black native of the U.S. Virgin Islands. For nearly two years Bridget worked as Regina’s private nurse, spending up…
With an air of nobility, a dose of hustle, and a boundless desire to save the world from air pollution, Robin Zachary Parker sits down to an elegant lunch at Mezzanotte in Coconut Grove. The tall, blue-eyed, 54-year-old Parker has stopped extolling the insalata frutti di mare and is now…
A few months ago, soon after the ironworkers union began signing up employees at RC Aluminum Industries, about a half-dozen burly bouncer types appeared at three of the company’s five Northwest Miami-Dade plants. These men were security guards, but they didn’t wear uniforms or badges; they didn’t have to. The…
Used to be that if you didn’t receive your newspaper, you’d phone up your delivery boy. He’d ride over on a Schwinn, apologize for the inconvenience, and give you the day’s edition. Then he’d ring your doorbell the next morning to make sure you were happy. True, this kind of…
At Level nightclub in South Beach on a Thursday night in late June, models pranced down the blood-red runway wearing sheer, hip-hugging sarongs below and body paint on top, outfits courtesy of Anastasia Monster of Art. On a stage the self-proclaimed “last of the Great Masters” splashed colors onto a…
The owner of the hip-hop label Lil’ Joe Records pulls up to his Northwest Miami-Dade offices most mornings in a true player’s ride, an aquamarine Jaguar S-2000. He wears the right accessories for his role. A diamond-crusted Rolex jangles from his right wrist. Fat gold rings glisten on both hands…
Public records show them to be a curious bunch. Two have no full-time jobs. One makes a six-figure salary working for a publicly backed social service agency. Two work as consultants, but it is unclear what they do. At least one’s finances don’t seem to add up. And two more…
On the main stage of the Colombian Independence Day Festival last month at Tamiami Park, Juan Carlos Zapata mouthed the words to the Andean country’s national anthem. Then he followed with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” With his hand over his heart, the trim, fresh-faced 33-year-old looked like an earnest schoolboy –…
Johnny Torres and a bunch of his relatives have put up a boxing ring in the middle of the spacious Club Fantasy Show, a nightclub in Little Havana. By ten o’clock on this Tuesday night the card is well under way, and a thin haze of cigarette smoke hovers tenuously…
“Have you seen the Pedro Pan story in today’s Times?” Lourdes Blanco asked Sandra Luckow back in January 1998. Intrigued, the Queens-based filmmaker grabbed a copy of New York’s paper of record. What she found was a cold war, cloak-and-dagger story about priests and American government agencies working together in…
When the Miami Heat’s latest vision of the American Airlines Arena complex hit the New Times newsroom, the place went bonkers. “I am outraged!” exclaimed editor Jim Mullin. How could there be new plans? The great white wall had already been built. All that remained for construction crews was to…
Darrin McGillis doesn’t believe his sister committed suicide. On a warm afternoon in January, his eyes beginning to tear, he expresses his skepticism. “No one saw her hanging,” he says, having just ordered a turkey and cheese sandwich for lunch at the Oasis Café in Miami Beach, an item not…
Sitting at a desk in his office, which is in a strip mall on Collins Avenue, Dave Samson thrusts his large head forward. The palms of his hands press on his desktop, supporting the weight of his squat torso. He wears a white polo shirt. What is left of his…
Sit down with Joe Carollo’s enemies and the insults can pile up pretty quickly. Depending on who’s talking, you might hear the City of Miami’s chief executive termed a back-stabbing opportunist, an anti-communist reactionary, a mean-spirited dolt, a vindictive egomaniac, or perhaps a plain old schizophrenic schmo. And if that’s…
As Rolando Bolaños, Sr., nervously awaits the September trial date of his two sons, Rolando Jr. and Daniel, the Hialeah police chief’s own behavior is under quiet scrutiny in Tallahassee. The Bolaños brothers, both Hialeah cops, are charged with brutalizing a prisoner and lying about it afterward. Prompted by two…
Confusion reigns as the first winners accept their prizes late last May at the Cubadiscos Awards 2000, in Havana’s National Theater. The happy honorees mount the stage, acceptance speeches springing to their lips, but the smiling hosts clutch their microphones tightly. This is not the Grammys. There will be no…
Dressed in their evening finery, hundreds of the Democratic faithful gather on a Saturday in late June for the annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner, a gala fundraiser for the Florida Democratic Party. Supporters from around the state, including Sen. Bob Graham, Insurance Commissioner Bill Nelson, and state Rep. Elaine Bloom, file down…
After fifteen years of myopia, Miami officials are once again protecting your peepers. During the past two months, zoning inspectors have issued dozens of citations to owners of illegal billboards. Among the most prominent are the signs that spoil the skies in Overtown and Wynwood, east of I-95. Still looming…
Not many of the professional boxers pounding the punching bags at Gerrits Leprechaun gym in Wynwood have seriously considered the concept of a boxers union — an organization like the ones that represent athletes in other professional sports. At Gerrits: “I think I’ve heard about that,” says Carmelo Ramos, taking…
Between bites of eggs and bacon and sips of café con leche at a La Carreta restaurant in Kendall, Firpo H. Garcia answers the obvious question: Why does a 43-year-old dentist with no children want to join the Miami-Dade County School Board? “You don’t have to be a parent to…
Nothing prepared Joel and Michelle Rodriguez for their first experience as landlords in Edgewater, the tattered waterfront area just north of downtown. Back in November 1996, the young couple, who were in their late twenties and planning to wed the following spring, came across an eight-unit, 1940s-era Art Deco-style apartment…
City of Miami Commissioner Arthur Teele insists it is news to him that he owes $6100 to Miami-Dade taxpayers. Back in 1996, during his failed bid to become county mayor, Teele submitted campaign spending forms 207 days late. As a result the elections department fined the former county commission chairman…
