Perhaps more than any other Metro politician, County Commissioner James Burke could probably use the new year’s restorative psychological boost. True, he won re-election this past fall after running unopposed, but that victory was overcast by the gloom of political and personal miseries. During the summer, a New Times investigation…
The last squatter at 841 Collins Ave. in Miami Beach walks out of the dimness of the once bright and cheery Art Deco building to confront the two men he believes own the property. Ricardo is on his way to work as a cook at a local restaurant, and he…
In some segments of Dade County society, Roxanne Falco is a famous person. Stories are told about her, news of her whereabouts exchanged. But the talk is not complimentary, unless you consider sheer notoriety flattering. Roxanne Falco is a prostitute, and she is generally unwelcome in the part of town…
Police officers patting down black teenagers in Overtown and Liberty City hardly makes for headline material. That’s what bothers John de Leon. The Dade County assistant public defender says he inadvertently discovered a City of Miami Police Department search policy — which involves ordering youths to remove their shoes –…
Midday talk grouch Neil Rogers referred to him on the air as “Boy Gary.” In print, Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel critic Tom Jicha blamed him for a “ratings hemorrhage.” WIOD-AM (610), the radio station where he and Rogers worked, fired him. So Gary Bruce has done what any red-blooded American…
In 1814 Andrew Jackson — a freshly minted general on his way to an undistinguished presidency — chased the Seminole Indians into Florida. For most of the next century, federal troops continued to hunt Native Americans, pushing them farther and farther south, into the swampy fringe of the continent. Most…
Wayne Huizenga was a mogul with a Midas touch – and an extremely unpleasant man.
This is Tence Wolfe’s story in its most succinct form: A trusted employee of the Dade County Clerk’s Office since 1989, Wolfe worked on the seventh floor of the Metro-Dade Justice Building, in the criminal courts division. Her job was fairly straightforward — when attorneys filed documents in a criminal…
Spatter: The process of the forceful projection of blood. Had this been a convention of insurance salesmen, or podiatrists, or even Shriners, the scene that unfolded in the Atlantis Room might have been avoided. But this being the annual conclave of the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts, the unpleasantness…
It’s been fourteen years, but Dade County’s official archaeologist still remembers the dream. Bob Carr was standing in a place he had known since childhood — on Brickell Point at the mouth of the Miami River. Just in front of him a ledge of exposed limestone projected from the bluff…
At water’s edge in Miami Beach, early in the morning, a large black man with a shaved head begins to dance. As his sleek head moves from side to side, his belly — about the size of a medium Butterball turkey — rolls in perfect counterpoint. Facing the rising sun,…
When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers carved its vast canal system out of South Florida soil, the Corps wanted to drain water from the land and prevent further flooding. The plan worked — too well. Realizing that the labyrinth of canals and levees has robbed needed water from both…
Everything is dirty, or at least feels dirty. Metro-Dade buses, once bright white with blue and lime-green stripes, are now various shades of gray. With the reduced water pressure, it’s hard to get clean under the dribble that falls from shower nozzles. Better to take a sponge bath (and there’s…
In playing this field, bettors can make certain assumptions to increase the odds of success. First and foremost: One of the positions — and only one of the positions — will go to a Hispanic commissioner. Therefore, playing the exotics that involve both spots (i.e., perfectas and quinellas) is a…
Despite the urgency of the situation, that permission is not guaranteed. Environmental activists and environmental regulators are concerned that additional pumping at either the Northwest Wellfield or the Miami Springs wells could have disastrous consequences for the environment and jeopardize public health. “I gotta hear a lot more from my…
Standing before the audience gathered around him on the Lincoln Road mall, he looked like someone from another century. “Would you care to see some stealing, lying, and cheating — and magical effects?” he asked of some passersby. Dressed in an oversize top hat, a purple and tan vest, and…
The day before Johnny Torres won the Florida state junior-welterweight boxing championship, he went to work as usual in a lime grove outside Homestead. Bumping down the narrow roads in his ten-wheel Ford truck, Torres was frustrated that he’d have just a few hours after work to get to the…
In my line of work I’m often required to meet with high-level sources. But rarely are they as high-ranking as the ones I met through Lawrence Furman, the psychic and magician who allegedly channels “entities” from other dimensions. My interest in a psychic reading wasn’t very elevated: I was hoping…
It’s payback time. Neil Shiver, a 36-year-old attorney who was admitted to the Florida Bar only four months ago, is picking through legal papers spread out on the living-room floor of his Coconut Grove bungalow. Gleefully, he holds up a petition he filed with the Eleventh Circuit Court in August,…
The work of staff writer Kathy Glasgow took honors in two categories. Glasgow was awarded the top spot in Feature Writing for “Where the Girls Are,” a glimpse into the lives of a group of transvestite prostitutes living in a neglected city park; “From Moscow to Miami,” a story about…
At age nineteen, Noah Tepperberg is a nightclub promoter in his native Manhattan, a student at the University of Miami, and a consummate salesman, the sort of fellow out of whose mouth the right words spill. On this particular August evening, he is selling his fraternity, Zeta Beta Tau, to…
The rumors had been swirling around Miami’s AIDS community for at least two years: Dr. Homer L. Kirkpatrick, Jr., would do more for his patients than just treat their HIV infections. But the allegations of sexual misconduct seemed too outrageous to believe. Yet even after some patients began discussing in…
