If you believe that Joe Blake is marked for death — as Joe Blake himself ardently believes — then his killers should have it pretty easy. Blake is, after all, 83 years old. He is five feet six but looks shorter because of a slight stoop. And he gets out…
John Rivera, his hulking frame trussed up in a sharply creased tuxedo, smiles broadly as the starched and sequined crowd streams into the ballroom at the swank Westin Resort in Miami Beach. A three-foot-high ice sculpture of a police badge glimmers on a table. Hundreds of people nibble on shrimp…
Issac Delgado and Hugo Cancio may pay a price for success. Delgado, a salsa sensation from Cuba, appeared April 21 at the Miami Beach night club Onyx. Cancio, a local businessman turned promoter, staged the event. In an astonishing first for Dade County’s contentious Cuban exile community, no one disrupted…
The shot clock is about to expire on the Miami High boys’ basketball team. An official investigation has determined that boosters of the state championship squad improperly provided housing to star transfer students. The finding virtually guarantees that the school will have to forfeit its Class 6A crown as well…
The Cuban sextet Vocal Sampling’s concert last Thursday night at the Lincoln Theatre in Miami Beach was an outpouring of joyful noise; the euphoria in the hall matched that of a gospel summit. Using only their voices and hands, the group performed originals and classics from the island. A crowd…
Marie Bastien might never have needed help were it not for Hurricane Andrew. After all, the hard-working single mother of three boys managed to buy her own home just five years after immigrating to Miami from Haiti. But in 1992 the lashing wind and rain of the storm damaged the…
Drop a famous professional athlete in an inner city church and you can pretty much guarantee a buzz amongst the congregation. At the New Birth Baptist Church in North Miami, excited chatter begins the moment Miami Heat center Alonzo Mourning — disqualified from today’s playoff game against the New York…
The National Association of Black Journalists has awarded another New Times staff writer second place among the nation’s small newspapers. Staffer Robert Andrew Powell took the prize in the sports category for “Coming of Age on the 50-Yard Line” (November 27, 1997), a story that described the intoxicating march of…
Here I am, trying to be a good corporate citizen,” huffs Hara Frankel. “And I’m getting screwed!” Before her on a small square table is a clutter of angry letters, arrest reports, and employment applications. Behind the Plexiglas counter of the Subway sandwich shop she owns near Jackson Memorial Hospital,…
It was supposed to be a debate about increasing police presence in black neighborhoods. But when Adora Obi Nweze stood up in a flowing orange dashiki at the Joseph Caleb Center May 28, it was as if a divining rod suddenly jerked the meeting toward a reservoir of discontent. “We…
In the rear of a nondescript South Miami office building, a hidden door is set in a tiled floor. Grant Miller, who uses the place to publish a chain of weekly newspapers, pries it open for a visitor. “Let me show you something,” he says. A dank odor issues from…
No one expected that Radio Marti’s relocation to Miami from Washington would go smoothly. Since its creation in 1983, the short-wave station, which beams its broadcasts to Cuba, has been a controversial pull toy, tugged at one end by Washington and the other by Miami’s Cuban exile community, principally businessman…
It was May 22, near midnight, when Coral Gables attorney Manny Alonso-Poch was imbued with the spirit of giving. At that late hour, he donated to the citizenry of Dade County a ship that will become an artificial reef for divers from around the world to enjoy. The story of…
It seems an outlandish scenario: A jetliner crashes into the Turkey Point nuclear plant, a horrific explosion follows, and the residents of South Dade run for cover. Or maybe it’s not so crazy. After protests from local activists — and a New Times story (“Place Your Seatbacks in the Upright…
The National Association of Black Journalists last month awarded New Times staff writer Jacob Bernstein second place in the features category for small newspapers. Bernstein’s winning story, “Black in Blue” (November 1997), described the travails of five young men who became Miami’s first black police officers in 1944. NABJ co-chairwoman…
A business convention whose purpose is to bring international music executives and promoters to Havana, Cubadisco ’98 feels more like a public festival than an industry confab, a five-day excuse to party. By showcasing the music that is rapidly emerging as a Cuban cash crop, Cubadisco also attracts plenty of…
Frank Dennis, former denizen of Dade’s jails, doesn’t inspire much pity, what with convictions for beating up his girlfriend and attacking a police officer. In the words of one prosecutor, “It would be difficult to find a more unsympathetic victim than Frank Dennis.” But when a half-dozen male corrections officers…
On May 16 New Times picked up sixteen honors in nine categories at the Society for Professional Journalists’ Sunshine State Awards, held in Boca Raton. The newspaper swept the business and sports nondeadline categories for small newspapers statewide. In the business division, former staff writer Kirk Semple took first place…
Petunia was eating cherries off the sidewalk about 3:00 a.m. when the first police car pulled up. Then another cruiser arrived. Then another. “There had to be twelve to fifteen cop cars, unmarked and marked. They were everywhere!” recalls Mark Digulimio, who awoke to red and blue flashing lights. He…
At 12:40 on the morning of April 11, Yves DiLena, the owner of Warsaw Ballroom, was summoned to the front door of his legendary Collins Avenue nightclub on urgent business. He emerged from his office and waded through the warehouselike venue, which was throbbing with industrial-strength rock and multicolor strobe…
Neils and Renata Teichfuhs had many reasons to move from Germany. High taxes squeezed them. Neils, a chef, had suffered a heart attack and doctors told him a warm climate might improve his health. Their 22-year-old daughter Maren dreamed of joining the U.S. Navy. So in late 1995, when Neils…
What did the bright red Coca-Cola sign over the front door of Miami Killian Senior High School mean? To a local bottler, it meant payback for donations. To the principal, it meant a nod to Coke’s support for education. And to some parents, it meant a sellout of their children…
