The grand reopening night at the Jockey Club climaxed with rousing applause, balled fists circling overhead, and Bob Beamon — the Bob Beamon — jumping for joy, his long silhouette splayed against the ten-foot TV screen on which Evander “Underdog” Holyfield was being hugged by his wife in the boxing…
To scores of other Dade County residents who’ve been fighting on the same fronts, a chronicle of Lucinda’s life for the past eight months sounds like deja vu. They’ve all been battling the AIDS virus; many are single parents, and more are struggling to stay drug- or alcohol-free. On top…
An Introduction By Helen L. Kohen A Cuba-of-the-Imagination exists inside Cuba as well as outside. It is what Juan Antonio Molina, a Cuban national living on the island, exalts in a surreal and loving tribute inspired by a visit to the home and studio of the Cuban painter Amelia Pelaez…
New Times staff writer Jim DeFede has been selected as a winner of the 1996 Mencken Award. Sponsored by the Free Press Association, and named after iconoclastic editor and social critic H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), the award honors “outstanding writing and cartooning on issues of individual liberty and abuses of power.”…
The sweat on Bob McAllister’s bald pate glistens even in the fluorescent light of the Coconut Grove Convention Center on this first day of November. He pirouettes across a blue-skirted stage as he relates anecdotes and quips conspiratorially to the front row. This is a tough crowd — 2300 Dade…
Maison Paco Rabanne. The words alone, soft as an Hermes scarf, evoke images of European elegance and luxury — jewelry and servants and fine food and everything smelling sweetly fragrant. Now think of a high-rise condominium with that name: sprawling units with floor-to-ceiling windows and wrap-around balconies overlooking Biscayne Bay…
The beautiful people they are not. Outsiders wander in, look around, eye the regulars, and cringe. A man on the sidewalk lowers his sunglasses to take a peek: “Oooops, wrong bar.” The place is avoided like the potholes that pock the street in front of it. Definitely not on any…
Though Sam Thompson is running late on this hectic afternoon in early October, the indefatigable dean of the University of Miami School of Law refuses to forgo his sprints around the track — four laps, 440 yards each. When he finishes, he heads to the law school’s courtyard. As a…
Thirty days. That’s what City of Miami officials gave the developers of Northwestern Estates. Thirty days to move all the people from a soon-to-be-demolished housing project in Liberty City to acceptable housing. If the developers wanted to replace the project with new affordable homes, as planned, they first had to…
At about eight o’clock on the evening of October 26, three elegantly dressed European gentlemen commandeered all of Dade County’s public broadcasting frequencies and began to sing very loudly. For the next two hours, radios and televisions tuned to WLRN-FM (91.3), WDNA-FM (88.9), WLRN-TV (Channel 17), and WPBT-TV (Channel 2)…
On August 30, a career bureaucrat named Manohar Surana abruptly retired as finance director of the City of Miami. Two weeks later some of his co-workers joined him in retirement — involuntarily. The federal government filed charges against City Manager Cesar Odio for allegedly seeking a kickback on a city…
A surefire sixteen-point plan to put the city of Miami back in the black Jeez, some people misplace a few million bucks and they get all hyper. Ever since Acting Miami City Manager Merrett Stierheim revealed that the city’s supposedly balanced budget was actually short by as much as $70…
A news photographer captured the image: Harry S Truman hoisting a copy of the Chicago Daily Tribune dated November 4, 1948. The headline proclaims Thomas Dewey the winner in a close presidential dogfight, but the press guessed wrong — late returns squeaked Truman into a second term. In the photo,…
In Sarasota last Thursday the Florida Press Club presented its 1996 Excellence in Journalism Awards. New Times received a total of ten awards in the statewide competition. New Times staff writers garnered the top three honors in Feature Writing: First place went to Sean Rowe for his stories “Our Garbage,…
It’s Wednesday, October 23, and Humberto Hernandez is in his element at Robert King High Towers. The Cuban-American lawyer receives a rousing welcome as he arrives at the housing project near the Orange Bowl, where the second annual Hispanic Heritage Festival is in full swing. Nearly 900 elderly registered voters…
Depending on one’s point of view, Alan Smith had the lousy luck to be standing ahead of Det. Frank Irvine at the Convenient Spot convenience store in North Miami on April 14, 1994. Or perhaps the misfortune was all Detective Irvine’s. The chance encounter would cost the emotionally disturbed, 25-year-old…
Jose “Pepe” Alvarez lives a charmed life. Waterfront home on Miami Beach’s exclusive Sunset Island number three, menservants, yacht, black Cadillac limo for squiring friends around. The 50-year-old president of the Miami-based Union American Insurance Company is accustomed to VIP treatment. Winston Noe Curtis lives in a small Northwest Dade…
Lakes by the Bay Community Council members had a decision to make on September 5. Should they support the proposed placement of a construction dump near their 1200-house subdivision or oppose the project and risk having low-income housing built on the 60-acre site? The council voted unanimously: Bring on the…
One of the islands in Biscayne Bay just north of the Julia Tuttle Causeway appears to have come down with a bad case of mange. Once bushy and verdant, it’s now relatively barren. The island’s most prominent feature is a yellow backhoe. “We’re basically giving the island a face-lift,” explains…
The passage below, excerpted from Alex Daoud’s unfinished memoirs, is set at the Howard Johnson hotel on Alton Road in Miami Beach. Federal agents are preparing Daoud for a meeting with Abel Holtz, chairman of Capital Bank. Their rendezvous location is nearby: the Forge restaurant. A recording device and microphones…
He did time for corruption. He made deliveries for a florist. He spewed out page after page of autobiographical prose. And all the while, his sordid past has plagued him like a lousy case of heartburn.
In 1989 a hearty, hand-shaking Californian named Sherman Whitmore motored into Miami on a 68-foot Bertram. He stepped off the yacht into a cream-colored Rolls-Royce, drove to the Grand Bay Hotel for brunch, and began dropping hints about his $13 million West Coast real estate holdings. It wasn’t palm trees…
