Category: Miami Stories

Miami became my home in February 1960 when I was based here as a Delta stewardess.

I lived in Miami Springs, on a lake, with three other stewardesses – one from Eastern, one from National, and one from Delta. Other airlines were flourishing at that time, too; there was a large contingent of personnel from Pan American and TWA, as well as a number of South American airlines and Flying Tiger cargo airline.

During that era, we got new expressways that connected the mainland to Miami Beach. And culturally, we had opera. During the ensuing 54 years, I have seen our incredible city grow into a most amazing and iconic location between North and South America.

Back then, we thought we were big city dwellers, but the limits of the “city” at the time only went as far west as eastern Hialeah and the Opa-locka airport. To the south was the University of Miami and U.S. 1 to the Keys. The Palmetto Expressway was originally constructed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but by the 1970s, various sections of the 16-mile corridor were expanded to six lanes. That connected motorists to the west to places such as the Doral Hotel and Country Club.

As the 1980s began, our community exploded. The Dolphin Expressway connected to the Palmetto, and I-95 and I-75 expanded the breadth of our amazing South Florida locale.

Among the highlights for me were the creation of the Miami City Ballet with the help of Toby Lerner Ansin. The inaugural performance was on Oct. 17, 1986, under the artistic direction of Edward Villella. The New World Symphony was established in 1987, co-founded by Lin and Ted Arison with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. Bringing the genius of conductor Thomas to our growing Miami venue and securing the Lincoln Theatre on Miami Beach for concerts also elevated the cultural magnificence of our city.

In the late 1980s, the Miami Heat basketball team was founded, and later came the Florida Panthers hockey team. The first Miami Arena was built downtown, and sometimes there were games as many as five nights a week. So many Miami sports fans nearly lived in that arena.

At the same time, the University of Miami was expanding and became an internationally recognized and respected university.

Additionally, we had the Grand Bay Hotel in Coconut Grove. It housed the internationally known “Regine’s” nightclub. Michael Jackson and his entourage occupied the top floors during their stay in 1984 before the late singer’s Orange Bowl Victory Tour concert.

As the city grew, so did the need for broader cultural experience. That paved the way for the construction of the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. A new sports arena also rose downtown, now known as the AmericanAirlines Arena.

Major shopping facilities were opening everywhere, although the Bal Harbour Shops, which officially opened in 1965, continued to grow throughout the next three decades and it is still known as a high-end spot to shop.

Miami Beach and South Beach began to blossom in the late 1980s. Before that, many hotel pools were green with algae and doors leading out to the beach were boarded up.

South Beach had many unique stages of growth and attracted flocks of Europeans, South Americans and celebrities. New nightclubs were springing up weekly. During that time, there was also the Miami-Dade Cultural Center with the Historical Museum of Southern Florida and the Miami Art Museum, which was relocated downtown from its original Bayfront Park site.

In more recent years, Miami and Miami Beach also became home to Art Basel, the internationally acclaimed art fair. With the Art Basel venue here, art sophistication exploded and very positively impacted our South Florida environment.

We now have the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), which opened in December on the same weekend as Art Basel. Coming soon to the Museum Park is the anticipated opening in 2015 of the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science and planetarium.

When I look out my windows at our incredible city, I marvel at what Miami has become. It is now a destination for people from all over the globe. Still underway is the continuing expansion of the Miami Design District as well as significant additions at Mary Brickell Village.

I have been living and working as an interior designer in our great city for these past decades, creating residences of some of Miami’s most interesting, accomplished and extraordinary families. The progress makes me so appreciative of all who have dreamed, struggled and created what this amazing Florida community is today. I feel so privileged to have passed this way during these times.

My father came to the Magic City in 1916 at the tender age of 3. His mother had taken a new job and moved from Chicago. She wanted to start a new life in what was truly a “frontier” on Biscayne Bay.

With perhaps only 10,000 people calling Miami home, it was a tropical paradise with inexpensive land and crystal blue waters teeming with marine life.

My grandmother, Althea Altemus, brought my father Robert to Miami after accepting the job of James Deering’s private secretary at the new “Gilded Age” mansion, Vizcaya. She spent seven years attending to the wealthy industrialist’s business needs while he was in South Florida.

I vaguely recall stories of my grandmother “rubbing elbows” with the Deering brothers (James and Charles), Phineas Paist (associate architect of Vizcaya, who would later design many landmark Coral Gables buildings) and the politician, William Jennings Bryan, who was once Deering’s neighbor and a major contributor to Miami’s real estate boom of the 1920s.

Dad would graduate in 1931 from the then high school, Ponce De Leon. He would go on to become a prominent CPA and banker. My brother Robert, who passed away earlier this year, and I started our own journey in South Miami, living east of U.S. 1 on Kendall Drive, across the street from where Gulliver Academy stands today. I rode my bicycle to Pinecrest Elementary at Southwest 104th Street and Red Road.

There was no development for miles, which left peaceful woods and fields to explore and fuel a child’s imagination. No one bothered to lock homes or car doors when going into South Miami to shop or eat. I drive by my first school, Pinecrest Elementary, every workday morning on my commute to my Coral Gables office. Seeing the children in the playground reminds me of a “simpler Miami.”

My father’s generation, often called the “greatest generation,” was tough-minded and persevered through one of the most difficult periods in U.S. history. As I enter the fourth quarter of my business career, I now realize what my father passed on to me. I am a banker who has survived over 40 years in the financial service industry. After navigating six bank mergers since 1980, I am still employed. Thank you Dad, for your silent and enduring strength and what it stands for.

My father was not a “communicator.” What little I learned about him and his mother strangely came from my mother Rosemarie.

In 1985, when I got married at Vizcaya, the destination was solely based on its beauty. At that time, I had little knowledge of my father’s and his mother’s intimate experiences at Miami’s landmark residence. My father would ride his bicycle after school to Vizcaya to wait for his mother to get off work. Fishing off of Vizcaya’s famous barge would quickly yield a boat full of fish and lobster. Miami then was the Bahamas of today.

Last year, my limited knowledge of my father and grandmother’s role in early Miami history quickly changed with a discovery of a long-forgotten manuscript, written by Althea Altemus, following a chance encounter with Joel Hoffman, the current executive director of Vizcaya Museum and Gardens.

The encounter has contributed to a wealth of knowledge about Deering and his famous actor guests and other industrialists who would come to inspect the newest home of the “Gilded Age.”

Althea Altemus was employed at Vizcaya for seven years, leaving in 1923 to return to Chicago before returning to Miami a second time to retire.

The discovery of my grandmother’s ties to Vizcaya and its famous people in early 1900s Miami has driven a renewed interest in our family tree. Think of the excitement of the moment, if I had known more about my father’s relationship to this grand estate! I can only hope that he felt some nostalgia for his youth and early Miami experiences.

Miami is a very young city, unlike Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., with their excess of written history. Now that Miami is an important international city, it is important that families contribute to “her story” by sharing their experiences. Without the knowledge of how our city came to be, Miami cannot be truly appreciated.

As our city continues along its evolutionary timeline, don’t forget to speak to your sons and daughters.

It was February 1964 and Chicago was really cold – a blustery, painful type of cold.

I vividly remember standing on the corner of East Superior Street and Lake Shore Drive, waiting for a bus to take me to the warmth of my new apartment located on Surf Street.

It was well after midnight and I’d just gotten off duty at Passavant Memorial Hospital. I’d been a nurse for just a few months and liked my job as charge nurse on the evening shift. Also, living in Chicago was my dream come true; however, it was January and while waiting for my bus it had begun to snow and the frozen particles were sticking to my eyelashes.

Finally, I reached my apartment, took a hot bath, put on the warmest jammies I could find, curled up on the couch and set about reading the mail. Leafing through my new copy of The American Journal of Nursing (AJN), I spotted the ad: “Nurses Needed at St. Francis Hospital. Come to sunny Miami Beach, live and work one block from the ocean…”

That’s all I needed. I fanaticized about the possibilities and vowed to rise early to make the call that would prove to change my life forever.

The next morning I called the contact person mentioned in the ad: Sr. Marie Francine, director of nursing. She explained that the census at St. Francis was seasonal and filled to capacity during the winter months. Evidently, the hospital relied heavily on “snow birds” to accommodate the heavy load. Although our conversation was short (she hired me over the phone and asked if I could come as quickly as possible), I recognized her to be likeable and endearing. In short order this “snow bird” would come to admire and love this woman very much.

Much to my parents’ chagrin, I arrived in Miami the next month with the intention of staying until spring. The following month, I wrote to the kind folks in Chicago and tendered my resignation. I would continue to work at St. Francis for the next 23 years.

Initially, I lived at the hospital nurses’ residence. It was a terrific deal: monthly rent was $25 – with daily room service. As promised in the AJN ad, the nurses’ residence was one block from the ocean. Those of us who worked the evening shift found plenty of time for the beach. It became routine for me to walk that one block to the 65th Street beach and work on getting rid of my unsightly northern pale. Frequently, prior to hitting the beach, I would stop at Pumpernik’s on Collins Avenue and 66th Street and order the coffee and Danish roll basket – all for $1.

Miami Beach in the ‘60s! To be alive and young during those years was simply the best. Despite the despair of war, we were a nation of young dreamers. Perhaps it was because of the war and the loss of our young president that we were determined to carry on and live life to the fullest – an easy task in Miami Beach.

St. Francis Hospital was located on Allison Island on 63rd Street. It was an impressive site, sitting on this wonderful piece of property that jutted out to the middle of Indian Creek. Over the years as it expanded it was a striking presence on Miami Beach.

In 1964, the hospital was only four stories high, yet quite spread out. Despite the age of the place, it was immaculate. One could plainly see that it had been well tended to by generations of people who provided the loving care that it deserved. From the solarium on the fourth floor one could look out and see nearly all of Miami Beach. In those days, when looking south, there were no high-rise condos and views of the ocean were breathtaking.

As remarkable as it was, St. Francis Hospital was far more than bricks and mortar. It was a community of caring and nurturing that truly made it one of a kind. I believe the Franciscan Sisters maintained an environment of family orientation so pervasive and enduring that all who graced its halls recognized it. Their mission must have been to provide the very best care possible to the community it served, to include the residents of Miami Beach and the many celebrities.

Some of our most famous patients included Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Lena Horne, Aretha Franklin, Meyer Lansky and Lou Walters (Barbara’s father). Martha Raye, a famous comedienne of the day ended her weekly television show with “Good night, Sisters of St. Francis Hospital.”

As a nurse, I have embraced my profession with great passion. For me, nursing was a vocation that I have always considered a sacred trust. For some inexplicable reason St. Francis Hospital attracted many others who must have held the same beliefs. Indeed, the sisters must have been very proud of the excellent care provided. I know that I, along with countless others, felt pride in our work.

When I left St. Francis to further my career, I vowed to promote this tradition of ultimate caring. Over the next several years, I was blessed with opportunities as chief nursing officer in three hospitals throughout Kansas. To impart my philosophy and expectations to nurses, I always told the story of St. Francis Hospital and presented it as the perfect hospital, the one for all to emulate.

Since St. Francis Hospital closed in 1992, two reunions have been held. Both were well attended by several hundred people, to include employees representing all departments, administrative staff and physicians.

While working in Kansas over the past 23 years, my husband and I never wavered from our plan to return to Miami. Finally, upon my recent retirement, we have come home.

My adult daughter, Sage Hoffman, lies in a hospital bed, her body attached to numerous IVs, monitors and a catheter. I am in a little cot only a foot away. Sage has just donated a kidney to a long-time friend. Now she is recovering in the ICU unit where the nurses never seem to rest. Our room seems to be the tiniest in the ward. She’s in pain, and I am stressed to the max.

With nothing much else to do, I start to think about how things have changed in our lives since that day in 1987 when we first moved to an Art Deco apartment on Collins Avenue. After a botched nine-month marriage in Broward County, I decided to strike out on my own in Miami Beach. Sage was a junior in a magnet program in a local high school, and I was working for Miami Today newspaper.

We arrived in Miami Beach during a strange and wonderful time. South Beach was still a haven for elderly retirees from up north. But changes were happening. We lived in a charmingly renovated “Tony Goldman” apartment. Tony, like others from up north, was seduced by the bold geometric shapes of Art Deco architecture and the cheap prices of buildings. In South Beach he began buying up and renovating buildings, which was the beginning of Goldman Properties and its many restaurants, buildings and arts programs in Miami Beach and Wynwood.

Some evenings in the mid-1980s, Sage and I would sit on the front porch of our building and watch the world by – and what a different world it was compared to suburban Denver where we both grew up! Right across the courtyard lived Leonard Horowitz, the man who created the pastel palate that transformed the streets of South Beach. Around the corner from our apartment were the Clevelander Hotel with its open-air bar and the Edison Hotel, where Arthur and Charlotte Barron operated a swinging jazz club.

The TV series “Miami Vice” was everywhere. One day Don Johnson and his crew would be shooting scenes in our alley. Another evening Miami Vice set up shop in the beach-side café of the Edison. That day Sage put on her hippest clothes and snuck onto the set as an extra. Later in the season, we spied Sage in a Miami Vice episode. Granted, it was for three seconds, but there she was, seated at the corner table of the Edison cafe.

The streets were also filled with real Miami vice. While retirees rocked on front porches of old hotels, drug dealers and prostitutes were out on the streets. Drug dealing and cocaine cowboys were a reality. One afternoon I heard screaming out in the street. I had always vowed that I would never hide behind window shades as people had done during the murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens. I got to the sidewalk just as a guy ran by, clutching a small item under his arm. I surmised that he had mugged an old lady and took her purse, so I ran to see if I could help her. Yikes — I ran right into four policemen running after the guy with their guns drawn. Whoops. Just another 1980s day in South Beach.

At Miami Today I was assigned Miami Beach as my territory for ad sales. I had the fun task of visiting every restaurant, hotel, shop, and art gallery, from Lincoln Road down to 5th Street. What a way to get to know our adopted town! I met people who still are my friends. What a crazy town it was, but Sage and I decided to stay.

We found a 1940s home in the mid-beach area and bought it for about one fifth of what it would cost today. Sage and I then flew back to Wheat Ridge, Colorado, picked up all our stuff that we had left in storage, and drove for five days in a big yellow rent-a-truck all the way back to Miami Beach.

Five college degrees later (two of Sage’s and three of mine), a new marriage, lots of travel, and too many friends to count, we are still part of the South Florida scene. Sage is a director for Mary Kay Cosmetics, and I am the founding director of the Arts at St. Johns at the St. John’s church over on 47th and Pine Tree Drive.

But wait, what about that donated kidney? This is a story of who Sage and I have become. We are not just living off the bounty of Miami, we are part of those people who also give back to our community. Miami is a colorful, sun-filled town, but it is also a place of great need. I give back through my church and the arts program, which uses the arts as a way to address social issues. For example, in spring 2015 we are presenting “Convivencia Miami,” a project that celebrates a time in Spain when Jews, Christians and Muslims lived, worked and created together in relative harmony. We think this is an excellent model today for our very diverse South Florida.

Sage gives back through Mary Kay, in the way it supports and uplifts women. And she also felt called to give away her very healthy kidney (heck, you only need one!) to a friend who was on dialysis and needed a transplant. Her kidney is now alive and humming in her friend, and both are recovering nicely.

Thanks Miami, for encouraging us to become the people we are today!

On the plane ride from Panama to the United States, there was a short layover in Nicaragua. However, we were not allowed to deplane. I looked out the window and asked my mother, “Why are there men with guns outside?” That was my first memory of Nicaragua, where I was born.

The day was Feb. 14, 1985, and I was a precocious 5 year old. I had only heard the stories as my parents spoke with their friends about the events that forced them out of their country. I vaguely knew that the reason we were living in Panama was because of the Sandinistas. It was because of them that my parents were forced to start all over in a different country.

My mother never wanted to go to the United States because she wanted to continue her profession as a professor, which she was able to practice in Panama. In addition, although my father knew how to read and write in English, he saw the United States as a place where he would have to clean toilets, and having been the credit manager of a bank in Nicaragua, he shuddered at the thought. My parents had worked very hard and had overcome many obstacles to become professionals in their country. They wanted more for their children, and that was their main motivation for leaving behind all that they knew.

Under the Sandinista regime, boys would be forced to become part of the military service to defend the “Revolution,” headed by Daniel Ortega, against the counterrevolution, known as “La Contra.” My parents had two boys before me and they refused to allow their children to be used as pawns for something they did not support. So we left for another country without family and without relatives, but where my brothers and I had a chance for a future.

Life always throws curve balls, however, and my brother Lodwin fell sick. My parents took him to doctors and they couldn’t diagnose what was wrong. They took him from specialist to specialist and no one was able to give them a clear answer. After several attempts to take care of the symptoms, the doctors finally came to the conclusion that he had acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which spread to his central nervous system and attacked his vision. My 12-year-old big brother had almost completely lost his sight in a matter of a year. The cancer was attacking his body and the only solution that my mother saw was to bring him to Florida and find out what the doctors here could do for him.

My mother was completing her doctorate in education at Universidad de Panama, and we were supposed to be in Miami only temporarily. My father and oldest brother, Richard, stayed behind because they had to continue with our lives in Panama. After all, we were going back once my brother was well. When we walked through customs, I had five dolls. My brother was in a wheelchair wearing dark sunglasses and his lips were cracked and dry; he looked like a skeleton. My mother was strong and swift; she knew what her child needed and she was going to find it here.

We went to stay at my uncle’s studio apartment off Biscayne Boulevard and 29th Avenue in Miami. My mother slept in a chair and my brother and I slept on a couch. My two uncles slept on the floor. Thankfully, the doctors and nurses in the cancer unit at University of Miami/Jackson’s Holtz Children’s Hospital brought my brother back to life. He went through chemotherapy, and a series of other procedures. Eventually he was in remission, and although he had lost his sight, he was a top student in high school.

We never went back to Panama. Instead my father and eldest brother came to Florida and we all became Americans. We left behind all that we knew. My parents were able to work and grow in different fields, and were able to provide a better future for all their children.

This country gave my brother eight additional years of life. He filled the house with jokes, art, and never complained. My identity revolves around being an American. This country signifies life to me. It brought my brother back to life and it has given me a life that I would not have had in Nicaragua, or Panama, for that matter. I’ve been submerged into this culture and I feel like a tourist when I go back to my place of birth.

Living here, I have had the opportunity to graduate from Florida International University in business, and later had the opportunity to change careers. Here, my political party affiliation doesn’t determine the jobs or promotions I will get. How I feel about President Obama doesn’t determine my future. My children will never be judged by my choices and they will be able to decide their own futures. I have the liberty to grow and achieve what I am willing to work for.

Today, I hold a master’s degree and I teach young people who are very much like me. This melting pot, Miami, exposes us to a “ colada” and “ empanadas” and different ways of saying things in Creole, Spanish, and Portuguese. I have met people who have come from Haiti, Argentina, and Iowa – in one sitting. My students reflect that diversity and that same hope for the future. They have their own immigrant stories and they are here because their parents want a future for them that they cannot have in their own countries. There is no other place like Miami in the world. The United States is a beacon of light, when we have come from such dark paths. I tell them this every day as we salute the flag and “Pledge Allegiance” to it.

Oh, Miami! What a wonderful and glorious place to live.

I have been in Miami since 1949.

My parents moved here from Pennsylvania, when I was almost a year old. My father opened a soda fountain on Southwest 67th Avenue and Eighth Street. At the time, it was the closest place for the Miccosukee Indians to come and eat. I remember the pictures of them in their traditional Native American dress.

We lived in a small house behind the store, and when my mother’s family soon followed from Pennsylvania, everyone lived in this small home while my father and his new neighbors built a house on Southwest 57th Avenue and 33rd Street. The mortgage? All of $7,000. The neighborhood is now known as Schenley Park.

When the area on 67th Avenue started to build and added a drugstore, my parents sold the business and my dad took a job at Dressel’s Dairy Farm as a milk delivery man. He used to get up at 4 a.m. to start his milk route. What a great place.

Dressel’s Dairy was a farm with an ice-cream shop, ponies to ride, and cows to watch being born. We used to have great birthday parties there. Sadly, this place also closed and moved upstate to a bigger plant.

I also remember the Holsum Bakery on South Dixie Highway. Who could forget the great smell — a smell you just waited for?

When my uncle Paul went to the University of Miami he would take me to football games and we played on the grass.

My grandparents soon moved into their own home on Villa Bella Avenue. My grandfather continued to work as a food business owner. I loved the trips with my grandmother to downtown Miami where we would go to the old Burdines store and I used to get M&Ms; by the pound because they were not packaged. Burdines had a “ladies lunch room” and an ice-cream parlor, which was such a special treat. At Christmas time there was an amusement park on the roof with wonderful rides and, of course, Santa Claus! So sad, it is all gone now.

One of my grandmother’s favorite places was the cafeteria on Miracle Mile. We would go there for lunch. My grandmother lived in her house on Villa Bella Avenue until her death at 103.

My dad’s favorite things were Bird Bowl and waking everyone up to go to 7 a.m. Mass at the Church of the Little Flower. Mine? The skating rink next door to Bird Bowl. My mom’s? The Slim and Trim club, to which she belonged for over 25 years.

My brother and I would walk to what was then Children’s Variety Hospital. We would fly kites and play football in their front yard. It was such a big place to have fun!

There is a canal a street over from my parents’ house with open towers in which to play “king and queen.” They were sealed shut later because of bats. The boys in the neighborhood would swim in the canal and it was sparkling clean, but I was too scared so I would just walk the wall behind the canal.

The Biltmore hotel had a pool that was so deep you could “scuba dive.” Doctors were trained there. Somehow, my doctor got my friends and me into the pool. It was so deep that it scared us.

We had Fuller Brush men coming door to door selling such great products, and also a knife sharpener who would come by every month to sharpen all of my mom’s knives. One of the most fun things was the man with ponies. He would come to our houses and had hats and costumes to take pictures of us riding. It was just a great thing to do.

When my father worked at the dairy he would get off on Wednesdays, which meant breakfast at Crandon Park. Back then it had grills set up with picnic tables and even spigots to clean with. Mom used to say I loved the spigots more than the beach. But how could you forget the zoo and amusement rides there? What a special treat to go there. I remember taking my children to the zoo and the rides there.

Mr. Crandon had a huge house on 57th Avenue that was set way back; it had a wall around it and the kids used to walk on the wall till the butler would catch us and come running to make us get off. Now that area is filled with houses.

How can I ever forget the Venetian Pool? So cold and so big. It had a snack bar when you first walked in and I just loved to get the cherry sticks, hot dogs and Florida trinkets. They even had a Miss America contest there! The pool had islands in the middle and a cave with an opening you could dive through. You had to swim across the pool before the lifeguards would let you go to the diving boards. How proud I was to do that. The pool is fed with an underground spring and every night it was emptied and refilled with ice-cold water.

We would drive to the pool and have to do a circle around this huge fountain with faces that sprayed water. On special days we would go by the fountain and it would be full of soap bubbles to clean it. But as I grew older, I spent less time at Venetian Pool.

Oh, Miami!

My great-grandfather, Joseph Rapisardo, Sr., was a farmer in Chester, New York, with my grandfather, Leo Nicotra. As the cold and nasty winters arrived every year making crop growing a challenge, they decided to move to sunny Florida in 1950.

After arriving in Florida my great grandfather and grandfather built a home in Homestead, Florida on the corner of NW 8 Street and 6 Avenue. On the adjoining property they decided to plant onions. The crops grew well in the South Florida’s sunny winters. In 1950 the area was rural and Homestead only contained 4,573 residents.

After being so cold in the winter, South Florida was a piece of heaven and that is why for more than 50 years the family has continued to live in South Florida. At first my great-grandfather and grandfather tried to settle in Naples, Florida, but did not care for the area or the soil. They both agreed to move to the small town south of Miami known today as Homestead. It was a perfect fit for raising a family and starting a farming business.

After the elder Rapisardo and Nicotra were deceased, the children and grandchildren continued the family tradition. My father, Gaetano Talarico married my mother in 1962 in New York and in 1967 he also moved to Homestead, Florida. After falling in love with the area he started F&T; Farms, which is now over 40 years old.

I, too, went to school here in the winter and also in New York for the summer to continue the planting of the onion seeds. My uncle, Joseph Nicotra, continued the tradition that his father, Leo Nicotra, and grandfather, Joseph Rapisardo, started back in 1950.

The seeds were planted in December and the plants were pulled in April. Joseph and Leo made the long trip back by truck to Chester, New York, where they were planted again only to be re-harvested in July.

In 1953 the Homestead Air Force Base opened and grew the community to 9,152 residents and became a national center of attention since it contained the closest jet fighter facility to Cuba. With the new growth in Homestead, it still remained a part of an agriculture spot as it is today.

The property to date, now on the corner of NW 8 Street and 6 Avenue, houses duplexes that are still owned by the family. I have now lived in Homestead for nearly 46 years and was so proud to be a part of the Nicotra-Rapisardo family and learning the history of the planting seasons.