Ed Wasserman arrived in Miami nineteen years ago with a young wife and family in tow to take a job as an editor at the Miami Herald. For the previous two years, Wasserman had been an editor at the daily Star-Tribune in Casper, Wyoming, a city of about 50,000 on…
Such a nice young man, this Demetrio J. Perez. So handsome, too. He’s got the rosiest cheeks. His prematurely thinning hair is combed neatly in place, and his black suit hangs attractively on his thick frame. He makes fantastic eye contact when he greets you, speaking confidently in a clear,…
On Saturday nights in Miami Beach, the wicked don’t begin stepping out before 9:30. Girls will squeeze into miniskirts, men will gel their hair, hopeful night crawlers will splash themselves with libidinous fragrances. But even at that hour, at Mango’s Tropical Café on Ocean Drive, early-bird tourists are already worshipping…
For about five months, complaints have ricocheted around Miami and Washington, D.C., concerning the peculiar news judgment exercised this past April by Radio Martí director Roberto Rodriguez-Tejera. Radio Martí, the official voice of the United States government to the people of Cuba, ignored for almost four hours the dramatic April…
The German chemical tanker Igloo Moon cut through the predawn stillness in the waters off the coast of South Florida. It was 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday, November 6, 1996, when Chief Mate Peter Stubler sent one of his crewmen on a routine inspection of the ship. Stubler liked to call…
Development dreams and political schemes have a way of running aground on Watson Island. And they may be heading that way again soon. Since April of last year, Miami officials have been quietly working out a deal to bring a sprawling cruise-terminal operation to one of the city’s most forsaken…
For the past two years, a drug gang has rampaged through Opa-locka, clashing with a network of local dealers. The resulting violence has left at least seven people dead, though law enforcement and street sources say the actual number of fatalities may be more than that. Another half-dozen people have…
At a hearing last week, the City of Miami’s code-enforcement board reached a unanimous decision regarding Lambda Passages, the seventeen-year-old gay and lesbian bookstore at 7545 Biscayne Blvd. The powerful board determined that Lambda owner John Drew was in violation of city laws prohibiting the sale or rental of adult-oriented…
The sixth fight on the boxing card at Miccosukee Indian Gaming this past August 12 was a four-rounder pitting lightweights Luis Ernesto Delis of Cuba against Rudolfo “Rude Boy” Lunsford of St. Petersburg. By the time the match got under way around midnight, at least half the audience had either…
Just when it seemed the wheels of economic justice in Miami-Dade County had ground to a halt, they began revolving again — at least for thirteen small businesses located in some of the most blighted parts of town. Last year their owners applied for commercial-revitalization grants from the county’s Office…
Manuel Gonzalez Hernandez could sit still no longer. As the torch singer onstage held a low note, he flew off his barstool and hurried toward the man with a pencil-thin mustache nursing a drink at a round table in the middle of the Radical nightclub. Gonzalez Hernandez, better known as…
In June 1998 John Drew purchased Lambda Passages, secure in the knowledge he had made a good business investment. After all, the gay and lesbian bookstore at 7545 Biscayne Blvd. had been operating successfully for fifteen years. In transient Miami that qualified Lambda Passages as a venerable institution, an excellent…
She has a way of making bureaucrats tremble. Combative and cantankerous, she combines a lawyer’s knowledge of federal housing regulations with an advocate’s passion for defending the disenfranchised. The resulting compound can be explosive. Detractors have disparaged Barbara Pierre as a “gang leader”; some have sought court injunctions against her…
Even a casual observer in Havana would notice the striking disconnect between the slogans emblazoned on billboards across the city and the actual mood of the Cuban people who pass underneath them. “Imperialists, You Don’t Scare Us at All!” reads one towering graphic depicting a Cuban soldier facing off against…
On October 6, 1970, fourteen-year-old James Ingraham was late for school. When he got to his shop class at Liberty City’s Drew Junior High School, he broke a glass. For these two transgressions, Ingraham was taken to principal Willie J. Wright’s office to be paddled. When Ingraham protested, Wright called…
In the wake of a two-part New Times cover story, and following multiple death threats made against the subject of that story, the Aventura Police Department has reopened its investigation into rape charges filed by Bridget Garcia, a certified nursing assistant who worked for an Aventura widow. Aventura Police Chief…
Craig Grossenbacher still can’t believe his eyes when he looks at the aerial photograph and sees a five-acre swath of sea grass gouged out from the floor of Biscayne Bay. The trench is on the south side of the Port of Miami, along Fisherman’s Channel. That is the path by…
Alex Penelas is a politician who never loses but rarely succeeds. He’s won every race he has ever entered, whether it was for Hialeah City Council or the Miami-Dade County Commission. Four years ago he took the grand prize of South Florida politics, becoming the first executive mayor of Miami-Dade…
Only a few months ago, Miami-Dade County had pretty much lost its already tenuous grip on reason. The place was in a blind frenzy over Elian Gonzalez, and it seemed that no one escaped the mass contagion. Just across the Florida Straits, in the other Cuba, arose equally zealous public…
Standing in a courtroom late last week, prominent businessman Manuel Diaz handed over to his lawyer his tie, gold watch, and belt. A bailiff then quietly cinched tight the handcuffs and escorted his charge to the county jail for booking. Only then were investigators from the Miami-Dade Police Department’s public-corruption…
Despite being in business since March 17, Club Space, the nightclub pioneer in downtown Miami, held its “official” grand-opening party five months later, on August 19. In keeping with the grand traditions of hype, the opportunity to capitalize on such a misnomer was not lost on promoters Emi Guerra and…
For nearly two years Aventura widow Regina Greenhill expressed nothing but praise for her former aide, Bridget Garcia. Bridget, a certified nursing assistant, had treated the 87-year-old Regina with great care, spending every day of the week cooking her meals, driving her around town, and allowing her to live an…
