Category: Miami Stories

On Sundays when I was little, my dad and I would take the tandem bike and ride from our home in North Miami to the beach. Most of the time, my legs were just along for the ride and rested lightly on the rotating pedals, allowing my dad to do the hardest pedaling. With the 19-mile round trip, I preferred to save my energy for galloping through the waves. I started tap dancing when I was four, and it was always more fun to shuffle and lindy through the waves. The flapping of my feet struck the water, and resonated with even more satisfying sound than the beat of metal taps on a wooden dance floor. It was always a celebration, dancing.

While my dad and his dad were football players at my age, I was never interested in sports. There was, and still is, something magical that happens when I step out onto a stage. The feeling is a strange cross between everlastingness and fleetingness. And somewhere in between the -ness, I have always remained caught. For me – much more than the acknowledgement that dance is a language and that dance is a representation of everyday experiences – dance is much like life: some days it feels like forever, and then there comes a day when there are no more days. In this way, dance is also a measure of time. And this love for dance has helped me through many difficult times, including the loss of my mom when I was 9.

One of the best memories I have of my mom is standing on the tops of her feet as she danced around the living room. I remember the feeling of shifting from one foot to the other, the continuity of her movements and my role as her abiding partner, neither controlling nor directing the dance but a part of it nonetheless. After she passed away, I would stand in the middle of the living room, close my eyes and try to recreate our waltz. It was never the same.

My mom started me in dancing. Once a week, we’d all get in the car together and drop her off at an adult tap class in North Miami. My dad and I would then continue on to Donavan’s Bar & Grill on Northwest 7th Avenue. Donavan’s had billiards and French fries, and we’d hang out there for the hour or so of her class. Eventually, I grew curious about my mom’s tap class and began to stay and watch. This led to being enrolled in dance class myself and it was strange at first – not the same as leaping through ocean waves or whirling into dizziness at home, but I soon caught on.

I am very close with my dad, and for a few years after my mom died, he too became closer with his. Around this time, my dad signed me up for a football summer camp. I tried football, but I prayed for rain every day we had practice. Most of the other boys at Bunche Park already understood football and played it in their own backyards, much how I practiced dance in mine. I remember doing sprints – that was the one thing for which I was passable. I could run without tripping on my own two feet. Aside from one kid I befriended with a perpetually runny nose, who could also burp on command, the entire experience was pointless. I have a faint memory of my dad bringing Grandpa Lou to one of the practices (when I had been unsuccessful with my rain invocation), and as terrible as I was, my grandpa seemed far more pleased with my mediocre football than my love for dance.

A few years later, my grandpa passed away. And for another year or so after that, his ashes and wristwatch waited on the mantle. After watching the movie Around the Bend with Christopher Walken and Michael Caine, my dad and I awoke from our moratorium. We walked outside and stood on the dock behind our house to cast his ashes into the dark lake, leading into a canal of brackish water that weaves through many of the neighborhoods in Biscayne Gardens. After minutes of silence, my dad turned to me and said, “Give us a little soft shoe, son.” So there I stood holding my grandfather’s ashes in a cardboard box and tapping out “Tea for Two.” I felt highly inappropriate doing this, believing this ceremony required a more solemn reflection.

After making sure all of Grandpa Lou was out of the box and into the lake, I noticed for the first time just how cathartic dancing is for me. The tapping out of the rhythms brought me back to my best memories of my mom, and suddenly this was not so much about solemnity as it was of celebration. Celebrating life that can be over as quickly as a dance. And it is in this precious fragility I now find my place as a dance artist and choreographer.

Much like my earliest experiences with dance, I am very interested in creating dance for non-traditional and unexpected locations. We have plenty throughout Miami – secret places we drive past everyday without ever knowing of them. I was recently awarded a Knight Arts Challenge grant for a project called Grass Stains that will help commission and mentor other artists interested in creating work that highlights Miami’s hidden spaces. As I continue to change as an artist, my early memories of growing up in North Miami inform my art making and remind me of those in-between moments, of everlastingness and fleetingness, the dances that have ended and those whose music hasn’t yet begun.

One of Jean McNamee’s first memories as a child in Hollywood was of her mother, Elise La Monaca, putting her and her brother in the family’s icebox.

Her father, Caesar La Monaca, calmly assured his wife that everything would be alright, but Elise was afraid the roof would come off the house or that the rising flood water would overtake them.

Caesar peered out of their East Hollywood home on Sept. 18, 1926. In the shadows of the stormy morning he saw images he would recount for the rest of his life: Large objects floated haphazardly through his neighborhood. Cars were being pushed by powerful winds and waves through the streets, as if being driven by frenetic children on a bumper car floor.

The Great Hurricane of 1926 killed many people on its path of destruction. What La Monaca couldn’t have realized that day was that the winds of that storm would change the direction of his career and his life. It would end up pushing him towards Miami, where he would become the city’s authentic “Music Man.”

La Monaca was born in 1886 to a shopkeeper father, Vito, in San Severo, near the heel of what is the Italian boot. His mother, Giovanna, raised six children.

He was born Cesare, which he Anglicized to Caesar in America. He followed his older brother, Giuseppe, who later changed his name to Joseph, into the Banda Bianca, an Italian community band in which new band members were apprentices, studying music theory as well as instrumental techniques until they were good enough to play with the group.

After Joseph earned a flute-playing job in Ellery’s Royal Italian Band, a touring group in the United States, he found a spot for Caesar as a horn player.

The La Monaca brothers immigrated and traveled America’s booming heartland, playing concerts, festivals, fairs and any event that would hire them.

As America entered World War I, La Monaca was drafted. His expertise in music was discovered and he was made the enlisted bandleader of the Camp Kearney band, in California, while serving in the 82nd Infantry Division. During those years he transitioned from musician to bandleader.

The war wound down before he was deployed and La Monaca moved back to the Northeast, where he worked on Broadway and in vaudeville. In New York, he met a beautiful young Italian immigrant, Elise D’Addona. She was 15 years his junior but Caesar proposed on their first date and they were soon married. The La Monacas soon had two children, Caesar Vito and Jean.

Joseph La Monaca moved to Philadelphia, where he began a prestigious career as flautist and composer with the Philadelphia Symphony.

Ceasar La Monaca brought his band to Florida in 1923. With six new houses starting construction daily, developer J.W. Young’s Hollywood was exploding with residents and they needed entertaining as much as the tourists in Young’s hotel. Young hired La Monaca full-time. By 1926, Hollywood had a bandshell, an outdoor stage at the casino, and countless other venues for live music. La Monaca even formed a marching band to participate in Hollywood’s first Fourth of July parade.

Soon after the Great Hurricane, Hollywood’s economy floundered and La Monaca had to look for work elsewhere. He joined the American Legion as musical director for Harvey W. Seeds American Legion Post #29 drum corps. The corps already held a national championship. La Monaca would lead them to three more national championships and countless state championships as well as international accolades over the following 25 years.

La Monaca soon won the job producing seasonal concerts at Miami’s Bayfront Park. His free concerts became a social staple, with thousands in attendance at almost every show. He attracted guest soloists like the famed Mana-Zucca and local John Basso. He introduced thousands of music fans to classical songs he arranged from memory. His bands also played popular songs and even some of his own compositions. La Monaca wrote several songs about Miami.

He was always teaching music and bringing good musicians together. He incorporated members of the 265th Coast Artillery band of the Florida National Guard band, where he was the bandmaster, and students from the University of Miami, into his shows.

During the Great Depression, La Monaca, through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), was able to get unemployed musicians to teach music to his drum corps.

It is impossible to count the thousands of young men and women La Monaca trained over the years. He and Miami Sheriff Thomas Kelly, a fellow Legionnaire, launched the Miami Boys Drum and Bugle Corps for younger boys. Even after they retired from the marching field, they helped guide the development of the Miami Vanguard and Legion of Brass drum corps. La Monaca taught Boy Scout drum corps in Miami and Hollywood. He organized the predecessor to the Greater Miami Youth Symphony.

Daughter Jean McNamee recollects one Orange Bowl parade in which her father marched the route five times. As soon as he would get to the finish line, a police escort would take him back to join another of his marching bands or drum corps.

From 1926 to his death in 1980, La Monaca’s bands were everywhere in Miami: His band opened the horse track at Tropical Park in 1931 and played there and at Hialeah race track regularly. In 1933 his band was at Bayfront Park during the attempted assassination of President-elect Franklin Roosevelt.

During World War II, La Monaca was too old to serve. He was forced to retire from the military. He joined the all-volunteer Florida State Guard and helped the sales of war bonds.

He worked tirelessly in the industry that brought him joy and success. He was a musician, composer and a respected conductor. La Monaca, an Italian immigrant whose life began under adverse conditions, arranged his way to the American dream as Miami’s Music Man.

In 1953, my father realized his dream of many years when we moved from Allentown, Pa., to South Florida.

I can remember stepping off the train at the old Florida East Coast Railway station in downtown Miami in the middle of August. When the blast of heat hit me, all I could think about was how I missed my hometown, my friends and my dog that I had to leave behind. When I entered Ada Merritt Junior High School, it looked like a cardboard school compared to the sturdy brick school I attended back home. It was a difficult adjustment, but before long I made new friends and became acclimated to the heat and mosquitoes.

We lived on Southwest Sixth Avenue and my brother Jim and I would take frequent walks to explore our new environment. We often walked by the two-story frame homes from the late 1800s that lined Brickell Avenue. Close by was Miss Harris’ School, a private school for girls. My only regret is that I never took photos of these historic homes.

One day, my brother and I bicycled across the Rickenbacker Causeway to the end of Key Biscayne to explore the old Crandon estate. There was very little left, but it was exciting to view the remains of this home, as well as Key Biscayne. We could hardly walk for a few days after that long bike trip. Another time we tried to “enter” Vizcaya via the bay side, but didn’t get far past the thickets.

Our family moved to Coconut Grove a few years after coming to Miami. Our home was on a street that ended at the bay. There was a large empty lot that extended from behind our home to the bay. This land has since been developed. Back in the ‘50s, we had large land crabs crawling all over our back yard and we could get a clear view of the bay from our house. I used to enjoy sitting on the seawall at the end of our street watching the boats go by. From the seawall, I could see Fair Isle (now Grove Isle) before it was developed.

When we were teenagers, we used to speed down “thrill hill,” as Darwin Street in Coconut Grove was then nicknamed due to its elevation. It wasn’t much of an elevation but compared to the rest of Miami, it was a hill. Being a short hill, we had to quickly brake at South Bayshore Drive. Just a few feet down the street was Jensen’s Restaurant, which later became Monty Trainer’s.

Coconut Grove was a sleepy, artsy town in the ‘50s. A highlight of my teen years was going to see Elvis Presley at the Olympia (now Gusman) Theater in downtown Miami. The theater was filled with screaming teens and, I am embarrassed to admit, I was one of them.

After graduating from Miami High, I entered the University of Miami. The campus was different from the way it looks today. Everyone congregated at the “Slop Shop,” along the patio by the lake. Girls were forbidden to wear Bermuda shorts to class and many wore them under their trench coats. There was always a party going on at one of the frat houses that lined the campus, and the lion in front of PKA frat house was constantly getting attacked with paint. On Friday afternoons, the place to go was the Campus Canteen, which is now Taco Rico on U.S. 1. One afternoon, Coral Gables police officers pulled up to the Canteen with a bus to haul away all the students who were caught drinking under the age of 21.

Miracle Mile and Lincoln Road were THE places to shop before Dadeland was built, with many wonderful stores to choose from, like Judy Leslie’s and Stow on the Wold. Popular restaurants included Chippy’s and Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlor. Also, Tyler’s Restaurant on Ponce de Leon Boulevard, where the chicken with honey was always a hit. A few blocks down on Coral Way was Dean’s Waffle Shop where we would go for a late-night snack after a movie. At Dean’s you always saw someone you knew. The Holsum Bakery coffee shop was another popular spot to stop for coffee and glorious French doughnuts.

In the ‘70s, the favorite sport among teens, including our oldest daughter (unknown to me), was to sneak into the abandoned VA hospital – now the Biltmore – and climb up to the tower. This was a challenging and scary prospect as there were no lights in the building and the abandoned operating tables and gurneys added to the eerie atmosphere. I learned of these exploits years later when my daughter knew she would be free from punishment.

My husband and I have been residents of Coral Gables for 45 years. We remain ever grateful for the privilege of living and raising our children in this beautiful city. Our daughters now live in New York but loved growing up here and spent much of their youth playing tennis and swimming at the Coral Gables Country Club. They have fond memories of J. Paul Riddle, an aviation pioneer and founder of Embry Riddle Aereonautical University, who was a mentor and tennis coach to my older daughter and so many of the youngsters who frequented the tennis courts.

As a docent at Merrick House, I have learned much about our city’s history and the debt we owe to its founder and creator, George Merrick. It is always a good feeling to drive through the arches and come home to this beautiful tree city. There is nowhere in South Florida I would rather live.

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.”

I was born during a knee-high snowstorm on Feb. 20, 1921 in Pittsburgh. The Bureau of Vital Statistics misread the doctor’s crossed t as two t’s, so I became Ritta instead of Rita. I was second oldest of six children – Eva, Ritta, Josephine, Mary, Frank and Dolores.

I started grade school at age 5, skipped the third grade and graduated at age 12. I was a voracious reader, especially on the weekends. The travel advertisements in the Sun-Telegraph and Pittsburgh Press about Florida were so enticing to look at on zero degree days. Every step along my route to school reinforced my thoughts about Florida.

After graduating from high school at age 16, I attended business school and then was employed by Carnegie-Illinois Corp. as secretary to the expeditor for a shipbuilding company, which built destroyers, etc. for the war effort.

We were a very patriotic family, and since the only male was 12 years old (he later served in the Korean War), I enlisted in the Navy in the organization “Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service” (WAVES). I was sent to combined boot/yeoman training in January 1943 at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater.

As our training was coming to a close, we were asked to indicate if we had a preference of Miami, Washington or California for a place of deployment. Naturally, I chose the place of my dreams – MIAMI, and was fortunate to be deployed to the U.S. Naval Air Station at Opa-locka.

I was assigned to the Flight Training Division in Hangar No. 1. At that time, only pre-operations training was given, since the runways were too short for the larger, heavier planes required for operational training. Later, when the runways were completed, the base became Operational Unit –VSB-5 OTU-5. The plane used was the famous SBD-5 dive-bomber known for its “Swiss cheese” wings. Newly commissioned Navy and Marine officers were trained there, in addition to a few British, New Zealand and Australian pilots.

Opa-locka had its own bus line to Miami, which was heavily used by both civilianworkers and military when on “liberty.” Miami and Miami Beach warmly embracedall servicemen. I still have my “Serviceman’s Guide,” which listed the places that welcomed us:

The MacFadden-Deauville Hotel for a very small fee provided use of their Olympic-sized pool and lockers, etc. Richards department store had a lending library for two cents a day – no deposit required.

At Shangri La Restaurant, lunches started at 40 cents. At Club Bali, deluxe dinners cost $1.50. The daily rate at Hotel Patricia was $3 and weekly rates were $18 for one person and $25 for two people.

I was discharged in late November 1945, returned to Pittsburgh and took a few months off.

My military service was a most gratifying experience – doing what I felt was my duty and enjoying the camaraderie with my WAVE friends and the officers and enlisted men stationed in Miami. Some have remained friends for life.

In 1946, I was re-employed by Carnegie-Illinois in Pittsburgh and attended Duquesne University at night. After a couple of unendurable winters, I came to my senses and applied for admission to the University of Miami. I enrolled in 1948.

The main campus consisted of the administration building, a wooden science building, apartment housing, and an unfinished Merrick building (the “Skeleton”). The bottom floor was the bookstore and the second was a library. The top floor, when added, became home to the law school, many wooden portables, and the student union building, which was called the “Slop Shop.”

I was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1951 and enrolled in the law school. I graduated in 1953 and became a member of the Florida Bar, which I maintained for 50 years, retiring in 2003.

In November 1953, I married a fellow law-school graduate, Clifford S. Hogan. He served in the Army Air Force in the European theater as a fighter pilot, flying the classic P-51 Mustang.

In the early 1960s, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was recalled to serve at the Homestead Air Force Base and we temporarily moved to the base.

The army had set up a tent city for the troops. The year before his assassination, President John F. Kennedy visited the base. All of the residents lined up to greet him. He rode in an open-air car. Everyone was quiet and I shouted “Hi” and he looked directly at our camera and we were able to get him on film waving at us.

After the end of the Cold War, we returned to our home in South Miami. My husband remained in the reserves for many years and later retired as a colonel.

We were blessed with three children: Clifford, Robert, and Valerie. They received their primary educations at Epiphany, Lourdes, and South Miami High School. Two obtained degrees at the University of Florida and one at Florida State…so, we had all three schools covered football wise. We have been parishioners at Epiphany Catholic Church all of our time in South Florida.

Miami has more than exceeded my hopes and dreams…which began at age 12 in frigid Pittsburgh.

My father George Alberts was a reserve officer in the United States Air Force. When he was called to active duty during World War II in 1943, some of his basic training took place on Miami Beach. This was to have a huge influence on the Alberts family 10 years later.

I was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1946, and my family lived there during the first 5 years of my life. In 1951, my father, who was an Air Force navigator, got called up again because his services were required to navigate military aircraft between Tokyo and Seoul. When it became apparent that the fighting would be prolonged, he was allowed to send for his family, and we lived in Tokyo for a year and a half.

He was discharged from active duty in 1953 and we then moved to Wisconsin. My mother did not like the cold Wisconsin winters, so my father, recalling the beauty of Miami Beach, decided to take the family to live in Miami. He rented a two-bedroom apartment near the University of Miami where he finally managed to complete his college education that had been interrupted twice by war. He graduated with a degree in business administration in 1955.

Miami was a much different place in the mid-1950s. I can recall going to a food market in South Miami in 1954 with my mother and sister Maureen, and hearing my sister complain to my mother that the drinking fountain in the back of the store labeled “colored” was out of colored water! Fortunately, that sort of overt racial discrimination stopped by the end of the decade.

In 1955, my father started his business known as Alberts Advertising. Dad also purchased a new home on Southwest 18th Terrace and 82nd Avenue. Back then, the area that is now known as Westchester was so rural that I can recall seeing hunters with shotguns bird hunting across the street from our house.

Many of my fond memories from the early 1960s are of things that happened at the former Westbrook Country Club, which was located on the southeast corner of Southwest 87th Avenue and Eight Street. This club was very popular during the summer because it had an Olympic-sized swimming pool which, viewed from above, looked like a giant W. All of my friends and practically every lovely young lady I knew swam in and sunbathed around that pool. Unfortunately, the club closed in the mid 1960s. The beautiful pool, cabanas and two-story clubhouse with its formal ballroom are gone.

My mother was pretty much a stay-at-home mom. She did like to dine out frequently and in the mid 1960s she had dinner at a small restaurant on Southwest 32nd Avenue called The Studio Restaurant. She became fast friends with the owner and was hired as a hostess. She loved to tell us about people standing in line for up to two hours, sometimes literally fainting from heat and hunger.

Later on, Mom also worked as a hostess in another small restaurant that was located on Bay Harbor Islands called the Inside Restaurant. This establishment was owned by Dick Schwartz who was Meyer Lansky’s stepson. Lansky, the mob’s financier liked to dine at the Inside. He was frequently seen huddled with his associates having a quiet conversation at his favorite table in the back of the restaurant.

A few years after my mother left this job, Dick Schwartz was having drinks at the bar of the Forge Restaurant with a “made man” from the mob and they got into an argument about something. Dick drew a handgun from beneath his jacket and shot the man dead. A few weeks later, as Dick was getting out of his car parked in the lot adjacent to his restaurant, retribution came in the form of a shotgun blast that ended his life.

I received all of my education in Miami.

The first school that my sister and I attended was Sunset Elementary School. I spent my middle school, or what was then called junior high school years at West Miami Middle School. In 1962, I started 10th grade at Southwest Miami Senior High School. I wish I could say that I was an honor roll student but, unfortunately, I wasn’t wise or mature enough to take advantage of my educational opportunities.

What I did take advantage of was the fabulous social scene. Back in the early to mid-1960s, high school sororities and fraternities were very popular. There were legal (supervised by responsible adults) and illegal clubs. My passion was to socialize and party with my “brothers” in my illegal fraternity known as Eta Sigma Phi or “Eta Sig” for short. Southwest High, Gables and Palmetto all had these social clubs. Most of these fraternities had students from only one school. One of the nice things about Eta Sig was that it was comprised of students from all three schools, which helped widen the circle of my social contacts.

Most clubs followed the college tradition of using Greek letters, but others had more creative monikers. Readers who lived in southwest Miami Dade and attended high school at this time may remember some of these club names: Ching-Tang, Counts, Lynx, Decalion, Saxons, Bucks, Centurions and Tri-Sellet, to name a few.

The main purpose of these clubs was to throw parties. The instructors and administrators of the schools and local law enforcement did their best to discourage these clubs and the underage drinking that they promoted, but they remained popular until the late 1960s.

My freshman year of college was spent at Miami-Dade College, popularly known at the time as Dade Junior. In 1965, there was no South Campus so classes were taught at Palmetto High School in the evening. In 1966, I transferred to the University of Miami. My tuition for 15 credit hours of classes was $700. At my UM orientation, I recall a guide proudly showing the new students the school’s IBM 360 series computer, which was housed in a large room behind a glass wall. Can you imagine, the school only had one computer!

I majored in business administration and my time at the university was fairly uneventful except for the Vietnam War protests, which fortunately helped bring that conflict to an end several years later.

Today, Miami is a very different place with its multicultural and multiethnic population, its sprawling communities and its many beautiful buildings. Miamians have much to be proud of, but I also believe that among long-time residents there is a consensus that a relaxed, less stressful existence has been lost.

I guess my earliest memories are from the time of World War II, when I was aged 6 to 10, and all of Miami Beach was an OCS (Officer Candidate School) for the Army. Soldiers were marching in the streets, coming to our house for dinner, and training on the golf courses, where “obstacle courses” were set up.

Car headlights were painted black on top. Windshields had stickers to show the amount of gas you were allowed (according to need). Once or twice, my dad or someone drove us to the beach to watch a freighter burn that had been torpedoed by German U-Boats. On Purdy Avenue, there was a fenced-in area where they kept German POWs for a short time. I remember walking by, but don’t remember saying anything to them.

Port Elco, a marina at Dade Boulevard and Purdy Avenue, is a good place to start a tour of our neighborhood. I remember that I was at Port Elco on VJ Day (the end of the war). All the boats in the marina started blowing their horns, and everyone was shouting, “The war’s over!”

Right next to Port Elco was the bridge to Belle Isle. It made a good ramp for our home-made skate scooters (an apple box, nailed to a 2×4 with roller-skate wheels) and was a good place to fish with our drop lines, and especially good for dropping our home-made crawfish and stone crab traps. Back then, we thought that shellfish had to be cooked alive, so we just ran home with them.

The mouth of the canal, where the tide either came in or went out under the bridge, was another great fishing spot. That’s where I kept my rowboat, and later on it was a hurricane refuge for my brother Tom’s and my sailboat.

Mother Kelly’s was a nightclub on the corner of Dade and Bay roads. Mother Kelly (no relation) was a round, white haired, Russian man with three grown sons. Because I lived so close, I was adopted as their mascot. Sometimes, on Sunday morning, I would help Mother Kelly clean up the bar.

Three blocks south of Lincoln Road was the start of Flamingo Park, the biggest park on the Beach. It had red clay tennis courts (sometimes when I went to play, my sister Babe would give me her white tennis shoes to take along and scuff up to look worn), basketball courts, softball fields, a football field (my high school, St. Pat’s, played our home games here), a band stand, a professional baseball field (AAA), and two four-wall handball courts. Some of the best players in the country played here. In my late teens & early 20s, they let me play with them if they needed a fourth.

In the beginning, when we left the neighborhood, it was either by foot, thumb, bus, or jitney.

There were not enough bikes to go around. In fact, I think I had the only one for a while. It was a hand-me-down from my sisters, which I used on my paper route until I saved enough to buy a new Columbia from Western Auto. Of course, we also got rides in my mother’s car – mostly to the beach at 21st Street and Collins, but also many other interesting places, like Matheson Hammock, Tahiti Beach, Venetian Pool, Greynolds Park, and many others.

The bus system in those days was great. If my mother wasn’t taking us to the beach, we caught the “L” bus across from Mother Kelly’s to the 21st Street beach. The L bus was also our ride to downtown Miami, across Venetian Causeway, down Biscayne to Flagler, the last stop for the beach bus, and beginning for all Miami buses. At this stop was the famous “Jahn the Magic Man” hobby shop. Model trains, planes, boats – the works. At one end was a small stage where Jahn would put on magic shows.

On Saturdays, I got to work with my dad at his produce company. I’d help put up orders, and ride with the drivers. Dad and I would go to breakfast at Charlie’s Marketview Restaurant. We always sat at the same table and had two cake doughnuts.

Dad’s warehouse was on the railroad tracks and when the circus came to town, he brought me down to the station to watch them unload the animals and gear. The field where they set up was also nearby, so we got to watch them put up the “Big Top” and lay out the midway. They used elephants to help put up the tent, carry the gear, and pull up the center pole. Just as much fun as the actual circus.

When Tom came back from the Army and UF, about the time that my father died, I was 13. I gave Tom my paper-route savings (about $400) and he put up the rest, and we bought our first sailboat – a 20-foot center-board sloop with a star rig. Tom came up with an enterprise for her: advertising for Picciolo’s Restaurant. My mother sewed a sign on the boat’s sails in red letters, “TONIGHT DINE AT PICCIOLOS” on the main sail, and “DINNERS $1.25 & UP” on the jib. Mr. Picciolo paid us $100 a week (weekends and holidays). The “enterprise” ended when we turned her over in Government Cut and tore up the rig on the jetties.

After her demise, we bought a 30-foot sloop with a cabin and gas inboard. She was a “double-ender” and looked like a submarine when motoring. We named her Gypsea.

We sailed her down to Matecumbe one time for her most eventful cruise. She sunk at her mooring behind the VFW hall, when she impaled herself on a submerged piling we didn’t know was there. After that, we moved on to power.

Well, that takes us up to the ‘50s, and the days of my first car, a 1937 Ford Coupe, black, 3 speed on the floor. Cost me $35 and she ran! Needed a new transmission pretty quick, which I got at a junk yard for $18. A friend of Tom’s put it in for me, and off I went. The 50s were right out of “Happy Days,” and happy they were, but a little too wild for these pages.