Category: Miami Stories

Nostalgia. It is what happens to me when I start thinking about where Miami begins and where I end. This remarkable city, a nexus of comings and goings, is my homestead and refuge. Although young, I have enough “I remember when” statements to paint my childhood and youth with as much warmth as the offerings of Miami’s midday sun.

I remember when Sunset Place used to be the Bakery Centre, where inexpensive and fresh baked goods were actually sold, and which had a rare coin shop and an Eckerd’s Pharmacy on the side. Sunset Drive also had a children’s bookshop that had the most remarkable story hours that ignited my passion for reading. Saturday mornings were spent at Velvet Creme, the doughnut parlor that introduced me to crullers and provided my family and me a cozy place to start the weekend.

And how could I ever forget each hurricane? My first was Hurricane Andrew and ever since then, I keep track of Miami’s storms and their lasting effects based on the absence or damage of ficus trees in the neighborhoods. Each memory, even the ones on the surface, brings to life a part of my growing years here. These memories, vignettes really, represent the rich excess that defines my beloved city.

In the summer of 1996, my deliciously beautiful cousin Sohela came from the Netherlands to visit my family and me in Miami. This was a particularly special visit because it was her first time in Miami and my first time meeting her. I had high expectations because I had already bonded fiercely with her older sister, my cousin Sara, who in previous visits had convinced me that Sohela was a witch.

My two cousins, along with my precious mother, became model examples for me because they gave me a context for what it meant to be a modern Iranian woman. Sara and Sohela were beautiful, well-spoken, well-traveled and highly educated. Essentially, my two cousins represented everything my 12-year-old heart wanted to be when I grew up.

Having been born in Miami, and the only Iranian-American girl in my class, I often shied away from my olive skin, thick eyebrows and massive curly hair. I went by my middle name, Leslie, because it was much easier to pronounce than my first name, Saghar. I struggled with where I fit in Miami and more so, how I fit in my own skin. These cross-cultural family visits in Miami let me see the beauty of my heritage and appreciate my place in the broad spectrum of diversity in Miami.

When Sohela arrived, I was on the fence about her and used every outing to judge whether or not I was going to love her as much as I already loved Sara. When we went to swim and suntan at the Venetian Pool, where I first learned to swim, I decided to judge her by whether she could swim from the edge of one side of the pool to the cave on the other side of the pool without getting her sandwich wet. I stared her down in the cave, as we ate our perfectly dry sandwiches.

When we took her for early morning strolls at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, I quizzed her on starfruits, mangos, sabal palms and sausage trees. Would she appreciate the differences in our fruits and the different types of palm trees? At Matheson Hammock Park, I checked to see if she could spot the ridgeback of an alligator that was barely, just barely, skimming the top of the lake. Being the Miami girl that I was, I thought (and often still do) these things were important! One by one, Sohela passed my little Miami tests and with ease started to win me over.

The evening before Sohela left, we took her to South Beach. My parents, brother, Sohela and I all piled into our cream-colored Jeep and drove from our Coral Gables niche to South Beach. I watched her from the back seat taking in the sights from MacArthur Causeway. With the window lowered and her head slightly tilted out, I could see the light in her eyes as she took in the expanse of the port to our right, the beach in front, and the lights from downtown just behind us. More than anything else, I could sense she enjoyed the warm, evening breeze brushing her cheeks. As we inched our way to Ocean Boulevard, I wondered if she could hold her own in South Beach—outlandish, exotic South Beach.

We parked our car and started our stroll on Ocean Boulevard. Across the street, we heard a ruckus coming from the News Café. When we looked, we saw a row of five shirtless guys holding up large, poster score cards. As women would walk or drive by, they would rate them and hoot and holler. My heart was pounding because I wondered if they would rate Sohela and if they did, how she would fare. Holding my dad’s hand, I picked up the pace of our stride hoping that if we shuffled by quickly enough, we would go unnoticed.

What my cousin did next was so classically “Miami” that I fell in love with her forever. Sohela measured her steps and presented herself squarely in front of these men. She stretched her arms out and gave a slight bow. Sohela then slowly pivoted and awaited the reply. We stood beside her, my mom with a sassy smile and I, a bit bewildered. Sohela held court and the score cards revealed:

10! 10! 10! 10! 10!

In that moment, I soaked it all in. I remember the confident “I know!” nod my cousin gave, the rhythm of the beach, and the comforting hue of the evening sky. I started to wonder if, in that moment, there were any other place in the world as perfect as Miami for creating such an experience.

Years later, I still wonder.

My parents, Sam and Esther Leviten, and my brother, Eddie, came to Miami from Chicago, in the summer of 1946, because my father had hay fever.

They moved to the Shenandoah area in the city of Miami. I was born on December 8, 1947. My father worked for different companies, until he bought Atlas Moving & Storage in 1948, and he later started Atlas Rug Cleaners. We moved a few times (it was free) until we bought a house on Southwest 18th Street and 18th Avenue. We stayed there until 1980.

My parents were active in many organizations. One was the American Jewish Congress, where they helped to fight religion in the schools. Our family was active at Beth David Congregation from 1949-59. I rejoined on my own in 1967. Other organizations Dad belonged to were: the Greater Miami Jaycees, the Graybeards, Sertoma International, the Elks Club, Business Exchange and The Movers Association.

He was president of the National Defense Transportation Association when Hurricane Donna came to South Florida in 1960. My parents and I went down to the upper Keys after the storm to find out what kind of transportation was needed to get supplies and food down there. Dad died from Parkinson’s in 2006.

Mom was active in the PTA at Beth David and at my brother’s and my schools: Coral Way Elementary, Shenandoah Junior High, Miami High for Eddie and Gables High for me. She was also active in many diet clubs! Compared to Americans today, she wasn’t that fat! My parents and I were also active in many political campaigns. Mom died from lung cancer in 1970, although she never smoked.

Eddie was active in 322 AZA (B’nai B’rith Organization) during high school, and he was even president one year.

I was active in the chorus at Gables High, even though I was told to lip synch by my best friend! I was better at selling chorus candy and working in the choral library. I tied for the win in candy sales my sophomore year. We enjoyed the state chorus contest in Daytona every year. After I started lip synching, we were rated superior!

Eddie went to the University of Florida and received his bachelor’s degree, and was in Tau Epsilon Phi. I went to University of Cincinnati for 1¼ years and froze. I came back and worked for two years. Then I went to Miami-Dade Junior College and F.A.U. Dade Center (on South Beach).

Eddie moved to New York, got married, had a son and two grandchildren, and owned an electrical supply business. He retired a few years ago. He plays bridge!

I worked at different jobs until I was hired by Dade County. I worked there for 31½ years, until I retired a year and a half ago. Volunteering has been my life, through political campaigns, the feminist movement, my temples, history groups, the LEAD program, and fundraising for breast cancer research. Now I volunteer for the county. Temple Israel is my temple now, because they helped me so much when I had breast cancer.

I became enamored with Miami in my early teens. Hearing that it was the “in” place to vacation and, as a 15 year old, wanting desperately to be “in,” I persuaded my parents to take our family on a much-needed vacation, at least according to me.

My mom, dad, two younger sisters and my roly-poly grandma (known as Bubs) all left for our vacation in our ‘50s Chevy sedan, driving from Michigan to Miami Beach for the Christmas holidays. Daddy knew everything, or so he said, and of course we didn’t need any hotel reservations. We’d just “play it by ear.”

After three and a half days of a grueling drive (no freeways then), we arrived in Miami and spent an entire day going from hotel to hotel, stuffed like sardines in a hot car (no air conditioning, either), with my baby sister crying all the way. In spite of a frantic start, our stay was heavenly: the weather, the palm trees and the Miami colors, all eye candy to me, a Midwestern teen-ager.

A few years later, I visited Miami Beach for the second time, this time accompanied by my handsome husband, both of us in our late teens. We honeymooned at the Nautilus Hotel and, upon checking in, were given the Presidential Suite. The hotel was oversold and wanted to make amends because our requested room, the least expensive in the hotel, was not available. Being young, inexperienced “adults,” we demanded our tiny room, frightened that the hotel would make us pay for the upgrade. The management agreed and gave another couple the thrill of a lifetime.

While at the Nautilus (referred to in the Midwest as “Honeymoon Heaven”) we made lifelong friends, saw the stars: Carmen Cavallaro and his orchestra at the Fontainebleau Hotel and also the very funny “Professor” Irwin Corey; ate stuffed cabbage at Wolfie’s and had fun in the sun, me wearing what became known as the “Siren” swimsuit by day and my “merry widow” corset and plastic Spring-o-Lator shoes in the evening.

Some years and four babies later, we visited Miami for our third time with our very young children. The occasion was the American Trial Lawyers convention. We stayed at the Beau Rivage in Bal Harbour, headquarters for lawyers with families.

The convention was nearby at the Americana and featured superstar lawyers . One evening we joined other lawyers and their wives (female attorneys were a scarcity in those days) at our first taste of Little Havana.

Years later, Barbara Capitman invited me to speak to her Art Deco Preservation League, comparing Deco architecture to the fashions of the period, which by this time had become a subject of my expertise. When my husband joined me later that week, Capitman’s son and his business associates talked us into investing in some of the original Deco hotels, such as the Cardozo and the Leslie. We saw my favorite side of Miami, the Deco district, and later partied with Eartha Kitt at the Hotel Victor. I took lots of pictures in the nearby Amsterdam Palace, later to become Casa Casuarina, home of my good friend, the late designer Gianni Versace. We held our “hotel” meetings at “The Pink House,” where the TV show “Miami Vice,” starring Don Johnson, was being filmed.

Yes, Miami Beach was in our blood and, after staying at various places on the beach, we bought our present home near the Fontainebleau and Eden Roc hotels – almost 30 years ago. Getting away from the Midwestern winters with frigid temperatures and snow, spending Sundays on Lincoln Road, early December at Art Basel Miami, and midwinter antique shows have added to my fun times.

The boardwalk and the clay courts have been a big draw to my tennis playing, jogging husband. The wide choice of restaurants with their famous and soon-to-be-famous chefs have also added another element of good times/good eats (and good diets) over the years…but the broadening culture base in the area, with its Design District, Arsht Center, Bass Museum of Art, the stunning and educational Wolfsonian and, of course, the gorgeous New World Center, designed by Frank Gehry, together with the always heavenly Books & Books, have given us more than just “fun in the sun.” Miami has given us a home away from home, and then some.

My memories of Miami begin 34 years ago in 1980 when I came here for the first time for a nursing internship at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. I had completed three years of nursing school at the University of Pittsburgh and came to Miami with a classmate for the summer. We lived in what was called the Cedar’s North Tower in the Civic Center. There were other nursing students from all over the country and we bonded very well. Of course, Cedars hoped to recruit us after graduation as there was a nursing shortage at that time. Our first weekend in Miami unfortunately was interrupted by the McDuffie riots. We all called our parents to reassure them that we were safe in spite of having swat team officers on the roof of our building as we watched parts of the city on fire.

I met my future mother-in-law during my first week on the job. She was a nurse at Cedars and upon meeting me she replied, “Have I got a son for you!” Our first date was to see the movie “Dressed to Kill” with Angie Dickenson and Michael Caine at the Omni theatre. By the second date, it was true love.

At the end of the summer, I returned to Pitt to complete my final two semesters of my nursing degree before moving permanently to Miami after graduation. I took my nursing boards at the Miami Expo on Milam Dairy Road and began working at Cedars. I lived again temporarily in the Cedars North Tower where my husband proposed to me on the rooftop overlooking my new city. We were married in November of 1981 and we bought our first townhouse in West Kendall when the home loan interest rates were greater than 15%.

My husband grew up near 8th Street and 71st Avenue and so he introduced me to Gold Star Deli, Sarrusi’s, Pumpernik’s, Arbetter’s and the Blue Grotto. We explored the Keys, Marco Island, and his family’s favorite destination: Sanibel Island. We bowled at Bird Bowl on a league, and shrimped off the bridges of the Rickenbacker Causeway.

We had two daughters who spent lots of time at the new Dave and Mary Alper Jewish Community Center in after-school care and summer camp. My husband and I took ballroom dancing and salsa classes at Miami-Dade College in Kendall. We picked strawberries and tomatoes in a field where Town and Country is now. Some of our favorite family activities included strawberry milkshakes at Burr’s when visiting Monkey Jungle, nighttime bike trips at Shark Valley when there was a full moon, kayaking at nine-mile pond in Everglades National Park, snorkeling at Pennekamp Park, and swimming at Venetian Pool.

In August of 1992, we were on vacation with our children in West Virginia when Hurricane Andrew struck. We had people check on our home and found out it was uninhabitable. My daughters and I stayed up north for another week and when the airport opened my husband flew back to Miami with a brand-new chain saw as his carry on. How times have changed. He knew what a useful commodity it would be with all the downed trees reported to us by the neighbors. As he drove from the airport to survey the damage, he found it difficult to find the house without the usual landmarks. Luckily our neighbors were willing to take us all in until our house was ready to move back into in mid December.

During the next several years we got the house and yard back into shape. My husband, who has a degree in horticulture, restored our yard with lots of fruit trees including grapefruit, orange, lemon, lime, and tangelo trees and other native plants. However, in 1999, a citrus canker outbreak occurred putting all of the state’s citrus trees at risk and so an eradication program was enacted. One day after work we came home to find all of our beloved citrus trees cut down and in the swale of our house. After a few days of moping, we decided to make the most of our now barren yard by putting in a swimming pool. This was the best investment for our family because we have spent many hours of quality time together trying to stay cool during the hot summer months.

I feel so fortunate to have had the experience of living in this multi-cultural city where I learned to love churros and hot chocolate, pan con lechón, chicharrones, and becoming bilingual while working in an ambulatory center on Calle Ocho. My husband and I have a pool surrounded by mamey, lychee, dragon fruit, mangoes, atemoya and papaya. We continue to find new activities in Miami to enjoy, for example the South Dade Cultural Center, Cosford Cinema, the Tower Theater with Azucar ice cream across the street, O Cinema, and Schnebly winery where our daughter was married. I love living here in Miami and am so grateful to my mother-in-law for giving me a reason to come back permanently.

It is unfortunate that nostalgia comes later in life. Having it when memories are fresh might make one more appreciative of what is being lived. I speak of this because of a recent incident that sparked my memories of growing up in the late 1950s through the 1960s in Dade County, on a street just a little north of Perrine and just a little south of South Miami.

My street was an unpaved cul-de-sac that began at U.S. 1 and ran for a couple of blocks. Across the street from my house was a Florida pine forest, though it did not match the forest I would read about in the books I was given in Perrine Elementary school. In those books, leaves fell in the fall and everyone in town would bury potatoes to be roasted with the leaves as they were burned. It sounded like fun to me and it was hard for me to understand why I was not experiencing it in Miami.

The books mentioned snow as well. The good teachers at my school helped give all of us students an idea of what snow was like by having us cut snowflakes out of paper. It was only much later in life that I discovered that our paper models and the real thing in no way matched.

My yard was enormous, or so I remember. It was filled with monarch butterflies, dragon flies, and frogs. Once a year, our yard, the woods, and almost all side streets filled with land crabs. On Old Cutler Road it was not odd to see people collecting them nor was it was unusual see cars with flats caused by them.

The house I lived in was small but made slightly bigger by my father who was very skilled with his hands — something I apparently did not inherit.

A bit north on U.S. 1 there was the Dixie drive-in movie theater, a popular hangout for high school students. Somewhere not far from there was the Miami Serpentarium, a local tourist landmark that was marked by a giant snake statute.

And then there was Harry.

Harry Troeger lived in a small home a few houses down from mine. He designed and built the house. It had no electricity. I suspect he had a well but I do not know for certain. He seemed like a strange man who lived in the small wood and coral house he built. It was almost hidden by trees. For me, my sisters and the other children who lived on the street or the next street over, he was a mystery.

Once a year on Halloween, most of us were brave enough to approach the small house and peek in the windows. We ran like the blazes when we heard a noise. We all assumed the house was haunted.

Harry Troeger, who died in 2008 at the age of 92, was Miami’s Henry Thoreau: a unique man who lived an unusually solitary life in what was, back then, the sticks. Harry was a pioneer.

As a small child I was too timid to say little more than hi when he walked by, heading (I was told) to his job at a movie theater.

Recently, I read in the Miami Herald that his house had been sold to a contractor because of unpaid taxes. The taxes had lapsed in large part because the county was forwarding the bill to an old out-of-date address where Harry lived in the late 1940s.

The article indicated that the house was in danger of being torn down. There was hope, however: it came in the form of a small band of merry Don Quixote types led by Amy Creekmur. The “Friends of Harry” (aka the FOH) were scrambling to make an offer to purchase and save the property.

The lady’s name was familiar. By chance, several weeks earlier, out of curiosity, I checked county records to see who was recorded as the owner of my childhood home. Amy Creekmur had purchased the house I grew up in.

But neither Amy nor the troops that made up FOH were able to move fast enough to save Harry Troeger’s house. His house was brought down. The coral stones he had used for the construction were moved. The wood discarded. A unique part of our local history lost.

It is not reasonable or expected that every old house or historic building be saved. And it is understood that there are many who would save none. To them, the properties are old buildings with no value.

But I believe most of us seek to save some links from our past. Harry Troeger’s house once had historical designation but the agency that granted the status took it away. For me, it is hard to believe that there was a more worthy candidate for continued preservation. Harry Troeger’s house was one of our most vivid links to our past.

I can close my eyes and relive how Dade County was years ago. Sadly losing Harry Troeger’s house takes that ability away from others.

Addendum from the Miami Herald

Troeger built the cabin, which was loosely divided into a wash room, bedroom and reading room, by hand out of coral rock and Dade County pine in 1949. Troeger, who made the cabin his home for nearly 60 years, lived a simple life: no electricity, no car, no running water, only a pump he built himself. The cabin walls were lined with books about Buddhism and works by Emerson.

In 1998, the county deemed the home “unsafe” and threatened to tear it down. When friends and neighbors rallied, the county designated the home as historic and Troeger was allowed to live out his life in his home. In 2008, he died in his bed at age 92.

My father met and married my mother in 1929 and I arrived in 1930. Her mother came to Miami from Cleveland, OH, in 1923 to begin a new life. She opened a tropical fruit stand on the front porch of her coral rock house at Northeast 26th Street and Second Avenue.

The fruit was purchased early in the morning at the farmer’s market on Northwest 12th Avenue and 20th Street, and the market is still there. She then became a real estate broker and, after many years of buying and selling real estate, she purchased a small hotel on Miami Beach. She became a civic leader and was presented with a gold key to the city by the mayor.

When I was seven years old, I watched the store as I ate my nickel ice cream cone and observed the trolley cars go by on Second Avenue. On the weekends, my family and I took the trolley car that ran down the middle of the MacArthur Causeway to Miami Beach. We went swimming in the ocean and built sand castles. Though the trolley is long gone, now there is talk of bringing it back to run once again. As the saying goes, “Everything old is new again.”

I attended Beach High, where many of the students were from families that were either very rich or very poor. However, at school, everyone played and worked together and we had a great time. Latin music was the rage and many of the boys had Cubavera jackets and suede shoes.

The Lindy Hop was a popular dance, and Beach High’s big patio was the place where we had wonderful dance parties. Sports were a big part of high school life. I played tennis and won the Beach High tennis trophy. I was initiated into the B club and joined a fraternity with Irwin Saywitz, who became an owner of Joe’s Stone Crab restaurant.

After graduating, I attended the University of Florida, studying architecture with Kenny Treister, who later built the Mayfair Center in Coconut Grove. We were members of the ZBT fraternity and one day made a bold decision to write to Frank Lloyd Wright and ask him to design a fraternity house for us. He did — it was brilliant.

Unfortunately, the fraternity could not afford to build it. Wright came to Gainesville for two exciting days to present the plans and to meet and lecture with all the young aspiring architects and the faculty. That was the highlight event of the school year.

After graduating, I entered the Navy Officer’s Candidate School. This was the time of the Korean conflict and all boys over 18 had to serve. After serving three and a half years, I was honorably discharged as an LTJR (junior lieutenant). During this period I was on an aircraft carrier stationed in the Mediterranean. My next tour of duty was as an aid to the commander-in-chief of the fifth fleet in Norfolk, VA, where I greeted all of his visitors.

After my discharge, I returned to my home in Miami, where I began my career as an architect with Bob Bleemer, a high school friend. We opened a very small office on 40th Street in the Design District and were successful. It was a time of construction and growth in Miami and we were a part of it.

We borrowed money and built an office building in the neighborhood and eventually employed 35 designers and architects. We became well known and designed more than 40 condominium interiors in Miami, plus many projects around the country and in South America. Miami grew and we grew with it.

After 20 years, I partnered with Pepe Calderin and we became Levine Calderin & Associates. We won numerous awards.

I received a lifetime achievement award from the American Institute of Architects, and then finally retired to spend time as president of the American Foundation for the Arts, which I founded. In the 1980s, we created an exhibition space in the Design District on 40th Street and Second Avenue. This was a period when Miami only had a few galleries and a small museum of art, and The American Foundation of the Arts played a major role in Miami’s developing cultural life.

We helped bring numerous artists to Miami for exhibitions and lectures, among them Christo who draped the islands of Biscayne Bay in pink and pop artist Alex Katz. We also gave many local artists their first show and produced beautiful catalogs for each exhibition.

During the creation of the museum, I learned about the artist Purvis Young, who lived in Overtown. The Miami Herald ran a big story with a color picture of “Goodbread Alley” where Purvis lived. The article said that many of the wooden homes and fences in the neighborhood were to be demolished, including paintings that were nailed to the houses.

The next day, I went to “Goodbread Alley,” met Purvis and purchased 80 of his paintings. Purvis’ work is now in many museums and private collections throughout America.

The city has grown and today has many outstanding cultural institutions. It is a vibrant, cultured, and fabulous place to live. It was wonderful to be a part of the growth of the Magic City.

As a kid growing up in a small New England town, I remember people going on winter vacations to Miami. They always returned with stories about what a magical town Miami was – 70 degrees in January!

The sunny snapshots always featured palm trees and other beautiful tropical plant life, so from an early age I always associated Miami with beautiful summers in winter. My family never got to go on vacation though – my father’s “vacations” consisted of painting the house or putting in a new lawn or something else equally exciting.

In August 1968, a friend invited me to accompany him on a vacation to MIAMI! After two days of driving, we finally arrived. Even though it was the hottest month of the year, that didn’t bother me because Miami was even more beautiful than I’d imagined.

After returning home to New England, I just couldn’t get the place off my mind, and I couldn’t get the girl I’d met there off my mind either. After a couple of months of phone calls and letters, that girl drove up north and, in September 1969, we were married. In November 1971, we moved to Miami along with our brand-new son.

Since my wife’s family was in construction, I soon became a carpenter’s apprentice and worked as a carpenter until 2007, enjoying almost every day of it. Miami was the perfect place to live. Where else can you work outdoors year-round? I must have installed at least 5,000 windows. Now, I notice buildings that I helped construct or renovate: Winston Towers; the Palm Island home once owned by Al Capone; the Imperial House in Miami Beach, where I ran into Meyer Lansky; and the Burleigh House, where I installed doors for Barbara Walters’ parents.

I also like to think back to the weekends – going to Crandon Beach, where the Miami Zoo was also located, with my wife, son and daughter, who was born in 1980. Driving along Bird Road and stopping to eat at Pizza Palace on 87th Avenue or Arbetter’s across the street. There was a Mister Donut and Daddio’s Hot Dog Emporium on 163rd street. Most of those places are gone now but they live on vividly in memories.

We did take one short detour, though. In 1984 we decided to give small-town life another try, as most of our friends were doing at the time. But we just couldn’t get Miami off our minds. Watching the television show, Miami Vice added to our homesickness. One year later we returned, broke, but determined to start over again.

We made a good life here. In September, that girl I met on vacation in 1968 and I celebrated 43 years of marriage. Our son works with the Miami Herald and our daughter is now a teacher at Felix Varela Senior High School. When I turned 62, I retired from construction and took a job at Publix, where in November, I’ll have been for five years.

And, as for my wife and I, we’re still busy soaking up the magic of this town. Miami still is and always will be, “The Magic City.”