Dumb it down, mainstream it, keep it safe, and corral the masses for your advertisers. The mentality of commercial radio programmers explains why people walk around mumbling “radio sucks” and it’s also one reason Big A and 30 cohorts have relaunched the pirate station Radio X, at 88.3 on your…
That a liberal bastion like the New York Times would command Congress to turn off TV Marti came as a surprise to no one. In an editorial published October 1, the Times referred to the controversial television project as “the limp blimp,” and noted that it had consumed $67 million…
A mean little piece of land along the Miami River gained brief notoriety last month as the site of the so-called pizza murder. A thirteen-year-old boy, who had brought some pizzas to share with others who frequented the spot, shot and killed a homeless man for taking two slices instead…
The old man doesn’t have to wait long to prove his point. Where upward-flaring, stainless-steel columns once graced the grand, sweeping entranceway of the Fontainebleau Hilton Resort and Spa on Miami Beach’s Collins Avenue, spindly shafts now stand. “I hate to go back into these places,” he mutters as he…
At the tunnel-light end of the Seventies, Ted Gottfried was working as a water-meter reader for Dade County. Leslie Wimmer was employed at a bookstore near her home in Deerfield Beach. Along with a close friendship, Gottfried and Wimmer shared a passionate curiosity about the revolution in rock. Disco was…
During his long career, Morris Lapidus worked on hundreds of architectural projects, including stores, hotels and motels, apartment buildings and public housing projects, banks, schools, synagogues, hospitals, laboratories, theaters, shopping malls, municipal facilities, office buildings, convention centers, country clubs, private homes, and cruise ships. The architect’s involvement ranged from remodeling…
Each year, out of the goodness of their promotion-hungry hearts, booze giant Tanqueray sponsors Tanqueray Rocks, a national battle of the bands that yields a compilation CD, juicy prizes, and, for the top five bands, a trip to New York City for the finals. This year one of the five…
Few black South Floridians enjoy the name recognition and high profile of Miami attorney H.T. Smith.
This was not going to be a particularly pleasant holiday season for Simon Steckel. Just two days before Christmas 1992, the prominent Coral Gables attorney had injured his back badly enough that he would later need surgery. Adding to his discomfort was the sorry state of his marriage, which appeared…
Increasingly, stern voices are shouting at those brave enough to walk the streets of Miami. And when we turn to respond, we are ashamed to discover we are being chewed out — by a car. “Warning! You are too close to the vehicle,” proclaims the voice. “Step back!” “Oh, yeah?”…
A few months back, during one of his regular Wednesday night jazz jams at Tobacco Road, flautist Mark Krumich was approached by a tense man who wanted to know when Krumich’s Roadkill Jazz Orchestra was going to take a break. Krumich, who has run the jam session at the venerable…
On Tuesday, October 5, the Florida Press Club announced the winners of its annual Excellence in Journalism Awards. New Times and its writers won six awards in competition with other weekly newspapers throughout the state. The work of staff writer Jim DeFede topped two categories. DeFede earned a first place…
Evenings, when the sidewalks of South Beach become a pedestrian mall of boozing and buying, Michael Hernandez’s pitch might be mistaken for just another commodity among the burgeoning itinerant marketplace of flower vendors, parrot photographers, and craftspeople. But Hernandez’s merchandise is singular. And he’s unloading it for free. The 23-year-old…
Lisa Cox and Caroline Clone’s positions as Miami’s top lesbian club promoters make them two of the most well-known members of an increasingly visible community. Gay women’s prominence in the media, both nationally and locally, has raised public awareness of lesbianism and, in turn, has prompted in the lesbian community…
A Prelude Nineteen floors above the gum-stained sidewalks of downtown Miami, in a private room within the First Union Financial Center’s exclusive Miami Club, an assembly of South Florida’s most important but least known individuals gathered recently for their monthly luncheon. Between them they represented some 40 nations, and each…
With the City of Miami’s mayoral election less than a month away, the Miriam Alonso campaign has shifted into high gear. And no one can deny that Leonel Alonso, Miriam’s husband and chief advisor, has been hard at work plying his own unique form of public relations — all while…
After only a week in South Florida, Minh Nguyen was pretty much ready to pack it all in and move back to Washington, D.C. On September 20 a thief broke into his friend Darryl Strawser’s South Beach apartment and stole all of Nguyen’s belongings and nearly $5000 worth of camera…
The 1991 federal corruption indictment of Miami Beach Mayor Alex Daoud shocked many upon its release, if only for the scope of its charges.
Steve Showen kneels in the sand, lost in a trance. A youthful-looking man in his mid-40s, his shoulder-length blond hair tied in a bandanna, he tilts his head to the sky, looking at the full moon that gazes down on the 50 or so people gathered here on the beach…
With prison just around the corner, Miami Beach’s former golden boy looks back at the gravity of his corruption and broods on the sorrow of his fate.
In the three frantic weeks since German tourist Uwe-Wilhelm Rakebrand was gunned down on the Dolphin Expressway, America’s finest pack journalists have choked the airwaves with reports on our city’s crime epidemic. Connie Chung. Ted Koppel. David Brinkley. Even Oprah paid a visit. And where Oprah goes, Geraldo is sure…
When the Metro-Dade Police Department orders a car to be towed, the circumstances are likely to be unpleasant. The driver has been pulled over for a traffic violation, or he has been involved in an accident, or his car has been stolen, stripped, and abandoned. Metro-Dade police currently rely on…
