Touted as a national model, Dade County’s ambitious $15-million-per-year plan to combat homelessness has come under the hardest public scrutiny since its inception in 1993. During hearings last month before U.S. District Judge C. Clyde Atkins, old antagonists argued the effectiveness of the plan and its implementation. The debate arose…
Perhaps you heard a chorus of whoops emanating from the City of Miami Beach’s finance department late last month. That was the sound of giddy bean counters celebrating a milestone in the annals of local taxation. For the first time ever, city officials broke the $900,000 barrier in their monthly…
With Chairman Art Teele temporarily out of the chambers, Alex Penelas was running the October 20 county commission meeting, and doing his best to keep the agenda moving. “There are some items here that perhaps we can dispense with rather quickly,” he told his colleagues. Turning to Commissioner Javier Souto,…
Talk about hot. Jerry Powers had yet to unveil his magazine and already he was getting good ink. “Powers, the man behind Ocean Drive magazine, must have more credibility than most new publishers,” gushed Miami Herald columnist Gail Meadows in November 1992. “Without even a prototype to show potential customers,…
It’s a little after dark on Ocean Drive: A man in tight Lycra shorts and a black tank top is lumbering down the sidewalk, a video camera on his shoulder. He’s carrying a strange-looking aluminum pack on his back, which makes him look like a potbellied astronaut who has just…
Nudists of the world unite! That, in fact, is exactly what happened when Miami Shores resident Richard Mason, president of South Florida Free Beaches, sounded the alarm over a bill to restrict public nudity that’s being considered by the House Criminal Justice Committee in Tallahassee. “This is more than a…
In San Antonio seven-foot Spurs center David Robinson glowers from an assortment of billboards. The image that towers over Seattle’s highways is that of fierce all-star forward Shawn Kemp. The Houston Rockets decorate their boards with a battery of NBA champions — Hakeem Olajuwon, Vernon Maxwell, Otis Thorpe. Here in…
When it comes to bedside manner, “suicide doctor” Jack Kevorkian really missed the boat. At least that’s the opinion of a rival assisted-suicide advocate who claims to operate secret “euthanasia cruises” A suicide voyages for which terminally ill passengers from around the nation pay $500 for the privilege of being…
Inside a cramped studio apartment on South Beach, a tiny 95-year-old woman in white polyester pants and a white jacket is watching some of the preliminary skirmishings in the O.J. Simpson trial on TV. Hunched over in her rocking chair, peering intently at the screen, Charlotte Leibel, like millions of…
Celebs mind their p’s and q’s What’s pop star Jon Secada really like? One person who says she knows the answer to that burning question is graphologist Charlotte Leibel, who was asked by New Times to analyze anonymous handwriting samples from Secada, singer Albita Rodriguez, and other lesser-knowns, including one…
This isn’t the way it was supposed to turn out. The vast space on NW 54th Street in Liberty City once teemed with colorful merchandise that stretched from the clothing and shoe departments on one side, through sporting goods and electronics, to housewares, toys, and health-and-beauty aids half a city…
I didn’t know quite what to expect from 95-year-old Charlotte Leibel, master graphologist, when I visited her at her Rebecca Towers efficiency apartment on South Beach. Frail-looking, soft-spoken, and wearing a magnifying glass around her neck, she didn’t appear to be someone who could penetrate to the depths of my…
Bruno Carnesella holds a cigar and a cell phone in one hand and a fat billfold in the other as he exits the Neighborhood Enhancement Team office in Coconut Grove, a sort of mini-city hall located in Peacock Park. The tall, debonair Italian, who left Genoa 25 years ago and…
In ancient Rome the festival was called Lupercalia. It was held on February 15 and was designed to protect the populace from wolves. This was accomplished by dispatching young men to whack their beloved with animal hides. Women were said to encourage the whipping, which they believed made them more…
Obviously Hialeah isn’t the only municipality in Dade where ardor precedes murder. This county routinely tops Florida in domestic homicide stats, and, as might be expected, the emphasis is on the bizarre. In the spirit of Valentine’s Day (or Lupercalia, anyway), consider the following: In 1961 a South Dade man…
Back in 1978 violence and enmity were ripping Jamaica in two. On one side were supporters of socialist prime minister Michael Manley, on the other were backers of Manley’s conservative rival Edward P.G. Seaga. In the middle was bloodshed and rioting. That was the year someone tried to assassinate legendary…
A new real estate developer comes to a town already congested with new developers and wants to make a name for himself. So what does he do? He throws a party. A really big party, under a lavishly decorated 15,000-square-foot tent shipped in from Tennessee. He invites more than 1000…
(*NOTE: THERE WAS A CHART ACCOMPANYING THIS STORY) You think you’re sick of O.J.? Imagine how the news directors at our local television stations feel. For the past two weeks, they’ve been chin-deep in Simpsonalia, trying to find some new angle on the most overhyped story in the history of…
The shafts of light formed a luminous triangle above the darkened beach, drawing curious onlookers from the terrace of the Cardozo Hotel and stirring the population of senior citizens from ancient contemplations. As a crowd gathered, light artist Sidney Smith set his work in motion. Beams ricocheted off mirrors angled…
Since this past summer’s Cuban exodus, Miami’s exile leaders have been biding their time, waiting for the right moment to exert their influence in delivering the nearly 30,000 refugees from the limbo of Guantanamo Naval Base and the safe-haven camps in Panama. Obviously, no massive immigration effort would be announced…
Playground banter about Hank Aaron’s batting average and Joe Namath’s pass-completion stats could soon be a thing of the past, replaced by talk of Claudia Schiffer’s bust size and the career implications of an appearance on the cover of Vogue. At least it could if Penelope Friedland has her way…
Stripped to a pair of boxer shorts, the obese man leaped to the edge of the plastic tub. With his toes curled around the rim like a treed possum, he howled and beat his chest. Ripples of fat rolled across the expanse of his round belly. The tub beneath him…
