On October 3, 1994, the The New Republic magazine published an article titled “Our Man in Miami,” written by freelance journalist Ann Louise Bardach. The story purported to be a sweeping compendium of facts about the life of Cuban exile leader Jorge Mas Canosa, Miami’s multimillionaire business executive and chairman…
It’s that time again, when local politicians crank up the rhetoric, express their profound concern, promise the impossible. And regardless of whether they’ve officially declared their candidacies, Dade’s mayoral hopefuls are at the vanguard, plumbing the depths of credibility with their pretty come-ons to potential voters. Among their talking points:…
Like most residents of the Roads neighborhood in Miami, northwest of Brickell Avenue and the Rickenbacker Causeway, Lorraine Albury didn’t take to the high-rise idea. When developers proposed a nine-story apartment tower on a tiny swatch of property four blocks from the house where she has spent the past 56…
Now that a special election has been announced to fill the Miami mayor’s seat, a searchlight scans the terrain for leaders who are able and willing to lead the city. Many names have been bandied about, but so far the only people who have actually stepped forward are losers from…
Lorenzo Simmons can be forgiven the confidence with which he strode into the Miami City Commission chambers on July 26, 1994. The president of the Tacolcy Economic Development Corp. was a man with a plan to revitalize a key corridor of Liberty City, one of Miami’s poorest neighborhoods, to replace…
Carload by carload they come, judges and politicians and attorneys and cops, some enthusiastically, others ambivalently, to toast a man who just a week earlier was the most powerful law enforcement official in South Florida but is now an unemployed lawyer most famous for an alleged taste for nude dancers…
Steven Almond’s story “The Canyon” has won this year’s Sigma Delta Chi Award for newspaper feature reporting. One of the most prestigious competitions in journalism, the Sigma Delta Chi Awards are presented each year by the Society of Professional Journalists, the nation’s largest and most broad-based journalism organization, with upward…
The sun bores into your back as you trudge along the winding path to the gorilla cage at Monkey Jungle. Macaques scamper on wire mesh overhead, and the sweaty, almost human odor of gorilla wafts out among the whirling flies and gnats. And then you see three women lined up…
Uwe Krupp’s slap shot slid between the pads of goalie John Vanbiesbrouck early Tuesday morning, putting an end to an extraordinary triple-overtime game, claiming the 1996 Stanley Cup for the Colorado Avalanche, and etching a big pout on the puss of Florida Panthers fans all over Miami. Then giddy Denverites…
Tuesday, April 25, 1995, was a good day for long-boarders and a bad one for Portuguese man-o’-war. Throughout the morning the surf near the Government Cut jetty came thundering in from the east, mean and green. Surfers in wet suits showed up on Miami Beach at sunrise to pick their…
On Saturday, May 18, the South Florida Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists announced the winners of its annual Sunshine State Awards. New Times won nine awards and two honorable mentions in competition with other weekly newspapers throughout the state, as well as one award in a category open…
At half past nine on Easter Sunday evening, April 7, Gina Cunningham drove south on Miami Beach and turned right from Euclid Avenue onto Fifth Street. She was headed for Tap Tap, the popular Haitian eatery/art gallery she co-owns, but she was about to get sidetracked. It began when Miami…
To the untrained eye, the mass of turfy green may have appeared to be just another strange sea plant common to Looe Key reef in the Florida Keys. No big deal. Food for the fish, perhaps, or somewhere for them to hide. To Bill Matzie, though, it was, in his…
The sunlight this February afternoon is piercing and yellow, and a gusty wind shoves around the crumpled litter on NW Seventeenth Avenue, outside Mount Tabor Missionary Baptist Church. Cars fill the church’s back parking lot and line the rutted streets to the north and south. Men in dark suits and…
Like South Beach has hotels, Opa-locka has churches. In its 70-year history, the four-square-mile city has become home to 30 different sanctuaries. The religious proliferation is most visible on the southeast side of town, where cross-topped towers are easily discernible above single-story homes and warehouses. A spiritual hub of sorts,…
Month in and month out for thirteen years, Dade County’s 1.2 million telephone customers have shelled out eleven cents to support a conundrum called Manhole Ordinance #83-3. The mysterious charge shows up on every bill for every residential and commercial phone line, lumped on the same page with federal, state,…
For the past three years, residents of West Dade’s Schenley Park neighborhood have been on a crusade to make their community a better place. Homeowners have organized garage sales to raise money to purchase palm trees and have them planted along Southwest 34th Street west of Red Road. Every four…
The questions began shortly before 9:00 that morning and continued for ten hours, ending in the early evening. The three opposing lawyers took turns grilling the woman before them, probing her private life, searching for inconsistencies. She sat calmly through it all, gazing every once and awhile out the window…
Hypothetical situation: You live in Opa-locka. On a cool Sunday evening, your neighbor drops by to return the hacksaw he borrowed a week ago. During his visit, as he stands on the front porch drinking some of your lemonade, he casually reveals his plans to kill you. What do you…
A mile from Miami City Hall stands Mercy Hospital, a private, not-for-profit institution owned by the Catholic church and positioned on a first-rate chunk of bayfront real estate. The hospital has never paid any city taxes on the bulk of its land or buildings, but every time a fire alarm…
It was 7:15 p.m. on Tuesday, April 23, and cars were quickly filling the rear parking lot at Palmetto Elementary School. Men and women, some with children straggling behind, walked briskly to the cafeteria, which had been converted, by the addition of a ballot-counting machine, into election central for this…
The City of Miami’s purchase of the Riverside Center office building was, by all accounts, a heckuva deal. Florida Power & Light surrendered the brand-new marble structure for only $16 million A $7 million less than FPL wanted and almost half as much as it would cost to build the…
