Lazaro Albo provides a pointed new meaning to the old term “rugged individualist.” For more than a year now the 62-year-old businessman and close friend of countless politicians has absolutely refused to follow the crowd — the crowd of neighbors, city officials, and even some of those influential close friends,…
Dozens of crudely constructed little sailboats, canoes, rowboats, and rafts were strewn like scattered driftwood on the stone floor of a room in the Spanish Morro castle that overlooks Havana’s harbor. Arranged in the form of a ship with the bow pointing north, the clumsy, crowded armada of toy boats…
Max Orlando Ba*os was a mechanic until he picked up an old Russian camera a few years ago. Before he knew it he’d become a photographer, shooting the streets of Old Havana where he has always lived and where he knows everyone. The roof literally caved in on his family’s…
In the current climate of mounting rancor about the cost of health care, radio-show host Bill Faloon broadcasts a tempting message. “Ladies and gentlemen, I contend that the Food and Drug Administration, along with the pharmaceutical drug cartels they support, are engaged in a conspiracy to commit genocide against the…
Recent years have seen an explosion of promotional giveaway events at baseball parks across the nation. A tradition that once was geared primarily toward kids, one that was limited to a smattering of anxiously awaited dates such as Bat Day, Ball Day, and Helmet Night, has burgeoned into a veritable…
A few months ago, while Walter Reynoso was having a cup of coffee in the federal courthouse downtown, he was approached by a distraught cafeteria worker who recognized the Coconut Grove criminal lawyer. Martha Rodriguez, a Nicaraguan immigrant, began crying as she told Reynoso about her son, who was being…
During Pow Wow, the May 21-25 international tourist trade show sponsored by the Travel Industry Association of America, Miami wasn’t taking any chances. Especially with Germans. When Frankfurt tour operator Doris Treffkon got off the plane at the start of the convention, she was met by two security guards. One…
Blockbuster style: The mother of all memos Legend has it that when H. Wayne Huizenga was first offered the opportunity to buy a small video- rental chain called Blockbuster, he balked. Huizenga had always envisioned the video industry as dingy storefronts that peddled pornography, an unseemly business with which he…
On Miami Beach, especially South Beach, where just about anything goes, the exotic and outlandish usually elicit only yawns. But Elliot Offen A the runner who makes a nightly eighteen-mile trek wearing skimpy, ruffled women’s lingerie, pantyhose, white makeup, red lipstick, and Reeboks A causes heads to turn. “I have…
At 4:30 p.m. on Friday, April 22, the jury empaneled in the case of State of Florida v. Raul Rodriguez returned a verdict. It was nothing like in the movies. The jurors had deliberated just four hours, including lunch, but they looked cranky and out of sorts as they filed…
The irony of the moment appears to be lost on Fabian Seijas. But here he is, a forlorn customer in a corner booth at Denny’s A perhaps the most pedestrian diner in the United States A fondly reminiscing about one of the toniest restaurants on South Beach, a glamorous enterprise…
Another sunny day in downtown Miami. A playful eight-year-old tags along with her mother on a shopping trip. When Mother stops to take a closer look at something, bored daughter wanders off. By the time Mom realizes her little girl is no longer at her side, it’s too late. As…
Like the rest of the industrial world, Dade County is smothering itself with trash: three million tons of solid waste per year. In the late 1980s, after the Florida legislature passed a statewide waste-reduction act, county officials set about developing one of the nation’s most comprehensive recycling programs. Today an…
Chris Drennan was getting some bad energy from back home in the Sunshine State. Having temporarily relocated to Chicago to care for her dying father, she was concerned about her little red house in Coconut Grove. When she placed a long-distance call to her next-door neighbor, Drennan says, he refused…
Tomas Garcia Fuste is not running for office, and he’s no pop star. Still, when he goes to lunch at Victor’s Cafe, it takes him about twenty minutes to make the journey from valet parking to his table. So many people, so much homage. Fuste, ¨c centsmo andas? Oye, Fuste,…
Late last month the National Association of Black Journalists Awards committee announced the winners of this year’s 1994 NABJ competition for outstanding coverage of African Americans and issues of special concern to the African-American community. New Times staff writer Kathy Glasgow won second place in the features category, for her…
Radio personalities Armando Perez Roura and Tomas Garcia Fuste would seem to have much in common. Both were rising young celebrities in their native Cuba during the 1950s, friendly rivals in the lively, competitive news business that thrived in Havana during the days when the casinos were open all night,…
Twice each year the Dade County Grand Jury releases its report in much the same way as a sailor would cast overboard a message in a bottle, albeit with a little more fanfare. While the jury’s primary function is to review prosecutable offenses (in particular first-degree murder cases) and decide…
A few short years ago Steve Simon was fretting over the sudden expansion of his new business venture. The Miami Beach entrepreneur had just launched a company specializing in a unique investment opportunity A buying life insurance policies at a discount from the terminally ill, then cashing in the policies…
In the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau conference room high above Brickell Avenue, staff members sometimes display an oversized flow chart that shows how the public-relations catastrophes of the early 1980s nearly ruined tourism before the dramatic recovery in recent years. Still, despite its reminders of such bad news…
In the early weeks of the fall semester a ceremony unfolded within the University Center complex at UM’s campus in Coral Gables. Upstairs in the Flamingo Ballroom the media circled like vultures, determined to capture this monumental moment: a celebration of the boost in power of WVUM’s signal. On hand…
Of all the people gadding about in the fire-hot sun baking the steps of the Dade County Courthouse, this guy is the most easily pegged as a narc. The others gathering around the display tables are a mix of Pearl Jam concert refugees, hippie-heyday leftovers, old ladies. Aside from those…
