When Surfer John called on a Thursday afternoon, New Times’s plans for exclusive coverage of the 45th annual Columbus Day Regatta seemed to be proceeding auspiciously. “This is the Polack,” bellowed the legendary Coconut Grove nomad, whose waterfront connections run as deep as anyone’s. “I’m looking for your berth aboard…
New York City lawyer Russell Carbone and his paralegal, Henry Mejia, stumbled out of the federal courthouse in downtown Miami Friday somber and stoop-shouldered. Their suits were wrinkled. As they walked to the parking lot, they smiled wanly at their children. It was the end of a long, disappointing stay…
Backstage at the Miami-Dade County Courthouse, ousted Miami Mayor Joe Carollo and more than twenty of his campaign volunteers prepare to feed the media sharks. It is the first day of Carollo’s bid to convince a judge that rampant voter fraud swept him from office — and allowed Xavier Suarez…
Interstate 95 is at a standstill. Venezuelan businessman José Campos Cerrados stares angrily at the rain splattering on his windshield. After dropping his wife, Lourdes, at the hotel, he had taken to the highway like a fool. This traffic is one of the reasons they shouldn’t move to Broward, he…
Francis O’Keefe is educated, erudite, and eloquent. He also has been homeless for the past twenty years. Recently the gray-haired man with questioning blue eyes has found refuge in a park that surrounds the West Miami-Dade Regional Library in Westchester. The library regulars seem to like O’Keefe, who is sober,…
Keith Moss emerges from the garden of his north Coconut Grove home carrying a hose. “Not many people water their car,” he says, while drenching more than twenty species of herbs, flowers, vines, and weeds that completely cover his 1980 Toyota Corolla station wagon. Plants such as mallow, Moses in…
The angry and affluent bayside dwellers of Miami Shores, who recently lost a battle to install guard gates, are striking back. After the council of the Village Beautiful quashed the keep-out-the-poor effort, the swells decided to throw a shindig. Or actually a countershindig. This Saturday night, October 16, when many…
In a crowded Stock Island trailer park about 90 miles from her homeland, Juana Maria Chambrot lays on a narrow cot lamenting her losses. “I have no life here,” she says staring blankly at the ceiling. “I don’t even go outside. In Cuba I could at least walk over to…
Eusebio Escobar sits at the sewing machine in his Kendall workshop, smoking a cigarette and listening to Sarah Brightman’s pop arias with the stereo turned up loud. On his lap he holds a manila folder full of fantasies. He sifts through a sheaf of colorful sketches illustrating his designs for…
Twice a year members of the Miami Police Relief and Pension Fund (MPRPF) convene at the ultraswanky Miami Palm Restaurant in Bay Harbor Islands. They dine on lobster that sells for $80 and up and filet mignon at $29 a pop, and swig fine wine that goes for as much…
The vultures are still circling. Two months after accountant Ronald Stern committed suicide, 28 individuals and companies are demanding a piece of his estate. Although Stern was broke at the time of his death, creditors have filed claims in Miami-Dade Probate Court for almost three million dollars. First in line…
Not long ago a group of politically connected builders seemed to have a lock on developing a commercial airport at the old Homestead Air Force Base, a 1632-acre tract located between two national parks in South Miami-Dade County. But after nearly two years of preparation, the U.S. Air Force next…
United Way is in the business of breathing life into communities. It provides child care, keeps families together, and rescues the homeless. But recently United Way of Miami-Dade, the charity’s local branch, committed a murder. Well, kind of. It all began in April when the organization purchased the six-story Ansin…
Teen couriers, Orthodox recruiters, and Miami nightclub dealers fueled a multimillion-pill drug ring stretching from Amsterdam to South Beach.
The kids who attend Thomas Jefferson Middle School in North Miami call the place T.J. for short. Not all of the epithets are so cute, though. For example, many T.J. students are alumni of nearby Biscayne Gardens Elementary and affectionately refer to their alma mater as Biscayne Garbage. It may…
Imagine the peace of mind! As yet another hurricane churns toward the United States, a high-ranking government official calmly flips a switch. Instantly three or four large fans strategically stationed along the eastern seaboard crank to life. Within seconds wind speeds stronger than the storm are generated and the cyclone…
Miami Mayor Joe Carollo’s response to his critics? Throw the bums, er, commissioners, out. On Purple-Heart hero/radio host Emilio Milian’s show Que Opina Usted? (What Do You Think?), which is broadcast on La Poderosa (WWFE-AM 670), thus spoke his vituperativeness: “If you want to improve the City of Miami, then…
The stretch of Biscayne Boulevard that slices through the Upper Eastside has long been Miami’s version of skid row. Near hotels with bright neon signs that are totems of some bygone era of tourism — the Seven Seas, Sinbad, Shalimar, Star Dust, Vagabond, and Sunshine Motel — hookers ply their…
For five hours every Sunday morning, from seven o’clock until noon, Radio Continental broadcasts from a cramped closet at the back of the Acapulco Records and Video shop in Homestead. It’s the only time the city’s large Mexican and Central American populations hear their music on the radio: Los Tigres…
Even before Tuesday afternoon, when boyish Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas lifted the evacuation order, it was clear the City of Miami had again avoided a major hurricane. Last year we had Georges, then Mitch. Dennis passed by this past August. And finally there was Floyd. As soon as the storms…
Miami Mayor Joe Carollo needs to brush up on basic civics, not to mention civility. Appearing recently as a guest on Radio Mambí’s (WAQI-AM 710) weeknight call-in show, Mesa Redonda, Carollo egged on host Armando Perez-Roura and callers as they hurled insults at the Cuban dance band Los Van Van…
She’s convinced it’s bound to come, the high-tech hurricane of the Y2K computer bug, and so Melissa, a well-educated professional with two teenagers, is selling her three-bedroom Miami-Dade house, quitting her white-collar job, and fleeing the area for her mother’s north Florida farm. “Oh my God,” she says, half-jokingly, “I’m…
