The Uneven Bars

Admit it. You caught Olympic fever when the torch ran by on the Fourth of July. And now the main event is upon us! The centennial Olympic games begin tomorrow in Atlanta. The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. Up close and personal with NBC’s beloved Bob Costas. How…

Couch Potato Alert!

NBC has the exclusive rights to the Atlanta Olympics, which they bought for a mere 456 million clams. As they say in the old country, “If NBC doesn’t show it, you won’t see it!” According to the network’s programming department in New York, the schedule has been drafted to appeal…

Buffalo Soldier

Let’s face it: Chicken wings are not very good for you. But they sure do go good with beer, and they generally fit into one’s budget. Which is why we risked life and cholesterol count to rate the wings at each and every sports bar we visited. (Do not, we…

MEMORANDUM

To: Pat Riley Re: How to win over a football town There’s a lot of work to be done here in Miami. It’s not just about winning games. This is a battle for the heart and soul of a football town! Look around: Shula, J.J. — even Dan Marino has…

Tennis, Anyone?

Where could a tennis fan watch the opening matches of Wimbledon on HBO during the week of June 24? Not everywhere! No HBO means no access to lots of prizefights — only those on pay-per-view. HBO and satellite systems are not mutually exclusive. And some places have got to try…

And You Thought Hot Flashes Were Bad

As Coca-Cola once was to the American beverage industry, so is Premarin to national pharmaceutical production. Considered the gold standard of hormone-replacement therapies, Premarin is a name brand of estrogen that has been on the market for more than 50 years and is used to treat the discomforts of menopause…

Dead Wrong

If you turned on the boob tube the night of June 17 and switched to WTVJ-TV (Channel 6), you might have heard this while rooting around in the fridge for a cold one: “Now to Miami, Florida: It’s become world-famous for its beautiful people and carefree lifestyle, but it’s also…

Name Droppers

After growing up in a series of chilly, drab-sounding places like Grosse Pointe, Michigan, Sioux City, Iowa, and Manchester, Massachusetts, a drab-sounding woman named Joann Kozlin settled in exciting South Florida. In 1994 she got into the swing of things by declaring bankruptcy in Broward County. She took up singing…

Them’s Felonious Words, Pardner

Willie Wilkerson has been bedding down at the Dade County Jail. He was arrested on June 27 by a Miami police officer who says he saw the 38-year-old panhandling on Biscayne Boulevard downtown. Pestering passersby for small change is considered a misdemeanor in Florida and doesn’t normally merit jail time,…

The Naked Truth

Maria Genero isn’t this town’s best-known weathercaster. But when Hollywood came a-knocking, top stormdogs Bryan Norcross and Don Noe were nowhere to be seen; it was the perky WTVJ-TV (Channel 6) weekend fill-in who answered the door. Genero landed a bit part in Striptease, the Demi Moore vehicle that was…

What Goes Up

By Kirk Semple It is a disturbing fact of urban life that we while away a good deal of our time packed into vertically moving boxes, forced to endure the awkward rituals and mind-numbing boredom of confinement. We speak, of course, of elevators. Blessed be the elevator passenger who has…

They’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad

Heading north out of the Hialeah yard, the engineer and conductor slump into position for the nine-hour haul to Jacksonville. Glenn Wade — jeaned legs akimbo, one hand holding half of a peanut-butter-and-jelly-on-white-bread sandwich, the other hand on the throttle lever — sits in the right corner; in the left…

Parachute Not Included

The WTVJ-TV (Channel 6) transmission tower soars exactly 1767 feet into the sky over South Dade. That’s 313 feet higher than the Sears Tower, the hemisphere’s tallest building. Nearly one-and-a-half times the height of the Empire State Building. Or, to apply local architectural measuring sticks, two First Union Financial Centers…

No Kick from Champagne

Richard doesn’t have the ten-dollar cover charge, so he’s crashing the party behind an invited guest. “I’m with him,” he blurts, lifting his chin toward the stranger. The doorman unhooks the gold velvet rope. It’s been a while since Richard has been in this cavernous nightclub. In 1987, as Club…

Up Snapper Creek Without a Pedal

Hundreds of off-road bicycling enthusiasts got a shock not long ago when they showed up at their favorite woodsy riding trail in South Dade. Someone had built a chainlink fence through the heart of the winding track, bisecting enough of the hairpin curves to render the rest useless. “The track…

Fume It May Concern

Miguel Haddad’s Auto Diesel Service Plaza, way out on West Okeechobee Road in Hialeah Gardens, has been the trucker’s friend for 28 years now. The Citgo fuel pumps are open 24 hours a day. Drivers can take showers and naps, dine at the Mamma Mia restaurant, and have that oil…

Home Truths

Info: Home Truths After decades of living month to month in trailer parks, some South Dade migrant workers have found a permanent address By Judy Cantor A burly man cradling a black-haired baby strides across the empty shuffleboard courts at the Royal Colonial Mobile Home Park in Naranja and walks…

Won Way

In competition with other weekly newspapers throughout the state, New Times and its staff have won a half-dozen awards in the Florida Press Association’s Better Weekly Newspaper Contest for work published in 1995. Staff writer Elise Ackerman’s feature “Land of Opportunity,” an examination of Dade’s flawed system for evaluating property…

Sweet Redemption

Last year so many Dade residents forgot or refused or otherwise failed to pay their property taxes that the sum total of delinquency — $73 million — outweighed the entire property tax revenue of most North Florida counties. This year looks like a repeat. Instead of twiddling their thumbs and…

Hour Town

Info:Correction Date: 07/04/1996 Info: Hour Town Six months after its debut, the county’s scheme to keep teens out of nighttime trouble gets mixed reviews By Ray Martinez The numbers were typical: The weekend of June 7, Miami Beach police charged ten youths with a misdemeanor for violating Dade County’s curfew,…

To Protect and Unnerve

It’s not easy being Bob Holley. Though slowed by a clubfoot, the 55-year-old Perrine resident keeps buckets of paint, brushes, rollers and extensions, and a change of clothes in his van so he can stop and paint over graffiti on his way home from work. A full-time technical writer at…