Within easy reach, Jim Wellington has virtually everything he needs to watch over the South Miami Avenue drawbridge that spans the Miami River. Looking like a St. Nick of the waterways with his white hair and beard, Wellington has settled in for the overnight shift inside his fifteen-by-fifteen, glass-walled lair,…
A line of cars snakes down U.S. 1 toward a party in Kendall. Although tropical storm Allison is directly over Cuba at the moment, a torrent of rain has fallen on Miami, leaving the streets glistening and slick. There are about twenty cars in all, including a BMW 325i, a…
As the gavel finally falls on the O.J. Simpson trial, so too ends one of the greatest advertising coups in Miami history. Since May, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lance Ito has been tacitly endorsing the only Miami television station that sent a reporter to California to cover the…
Movie actor, multizillionaire, and part-time Miami resident Sylvester Stallone dropped in on the September 14 Miami City Commission meeting to add a dash of Hollywood vanity to an otherwise dry budget hearing. In persuading commissioners to save downtown’s Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, the thespian nonpareil promised the city…
Tall, gray-haired, and well-spoken, 46-year-old Richard Barreto, the man seen by many as Miami Beach’s next police chief, has the distinguished, imposing bearing of a veteran police officer. “He is a charismatic leader, a good speaker, a take-charge kind of guy who won respect through his mastery of skills,” says…
The way Russ Rector tells it, he never would have considered peeking at the underside of the Miami Seaquarium’s whale stadium. Buildings aren’t his metier; as the strident director of the Ft. Lauderdale-based Dolphin Freedom Foundation, he has always been more concerned about captive cetaceans than about the structures that…
You might think the manatee, that lovable blob of seagoing tranquility, would be the creature least likely to provoke adults to fits of rage. Susan Markley, Dade’s top biologist, knows otherwise. Four and a half years ago, when Metro-Dade drafted new speed limits designed to reduce the number of manatees…
Jack Vigliatura sat alone at a tiny table at the Stephen Talkhouse, wearing a tricornered Paul Revere hat and big white sunglasses, dressed for Halloween in the middle of April. He didn’t look like a typical fan of Forget the Name, that evening’s headline band. People gawked, but he sat…
In the already humid hours before dawn on June 7, 1993, a heavily armed, bulletproof-vested task force of federal, state, and local law enforcement agents fanned out across northern Dade County. Their quarry: eleven men believed to be members of one of South Florida’s most lucrative, murderous, bad-ass drug rings…
In March of 1994, the Miami Beach City Commission unanimously approved an innovative partnership with hotelier Tony Goldman to launch a $9.2 million parking garage project in the heart of South Beach. Now, with about 60 percent of the work completed, city officials have discovered they could owe more than…
A menacing presence stalks the streets of Hialeah. Though you may never notice (that’s part of the insidious plan), the threat is real. Someone somewhere is seeking to masquerade as a member of the Hialeah City Council. That’s called “falsely personating an elected official,” and it’s a crime. Last month…
La Toya Jackson came up with one. So did Dionne Warwick. And Walter Mercado. And Celia Cruz. Never one to miss a trend, premier actor and recording artist Philip Michael Thomas has pounced on the infomercial-clairvoyant craze, promoting his own network of psychics on late-night TV. Presumably handpicked by the…
One year ago this week about 200 people gathered in the plaza at Miami-Dade Community College’s downtown campus to watch President Clinton launch his AmeriCorps national service program. The president was appearing on a closed-circuit television broadcast from the White House, where he delivered a stirring speech explaining his vision…
During the past three years, homelessness in Dade County has become a high-profile issue, with some of South Florida’s most powerful business and political leaders addressing the problem that once was left solely to hard-pressed social service and advocacy groups. The turmoil has not bypassed one of the county’s oldest…
When Liz Balmaseda described Gloria Estefan’s late-August trip to the Guantanamo Naval Base as “a most personal journey,” the Miami Herald columnist was in a good position to judge. Balmaseda was at Estefan’s side as she toured the camp, close enough to see the tears welling up in the singer’s…
The arms deal was scheduled to take place around noon on April Fool’s Day, 1993, in an empty Miami warehouse, one of hundreds of anonymous buildings cobbled together out of steel beams and aluminum siding and hastily erected during one of South Florida’s spurts of growth. Luciano Maiello, a Brazilian…
Gripping the back of the folding chair at her small make-up table, China Chang lifts up one muscular, caramel-colored leg and forcefully pries her foot into the declivitous instep of a purple sequined pump. A few seconds later, a male dancer in a cropped tuxedo jacket and snug white Lycra…
Bullets make you braver, as do too many drinks, and both can make a smart man stupid,” wrote Miami Herald wunderkind sports columnist Dan Le Batard in a July 30 column about the proliferation of gun-toting athletes. “Doesn’t help that many athletes already feel invincible.” Of course, athletes aren’t the…
Do you want to go to a demolition party?” asked an enthusiastic Cathy Swanson earlier this summer. Swanson, development director for the City of Coral Gables, was referring to the city’s bus terminal, slated for demolition to make way for Gables Grand Plaza, the Codina Group’s planned $30 million high-rise…
From deep in the bowels of Miami’s city hall comes a sound unlike any other that has been heard in South Florida since Cassius Clay defeated Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship of the world. — faint cry at first, it has been gaining intensity with each passing day, as…
Since they arrived from Cuba in 1962, Andres Senorans and his family have been patriots. American flags fly from cars parked behind the auto parts store they own at NW 21st Avenue and 36th Street. In an office above the store is a framed picture of Senorans shaking the hand…
Because I live in retirement in Mountain View, California, 3500 miles from the distribution of New Times, I ordinarily do not read your publication, but Robert Andrew Powell’s June 15 article, “The Importance of Being First,” was sent for my perusal and comments. [The article detailed the passion shared by,…
