I’ve visited Miami often over the past 20 years, sleeping on friends’ couches, perusing thrift stores, gorging on ceviche, watching the ever-changing crowd along Ocean Drive. But it wasn’t until 2009, when I stepped outside all comfort zones to research my book, Fringe Florida, that I got an inside glimpse into the diverse and quirky […]
My family moved to Florida in December 1944 just after war was declared. I was 15 at the time. This was a time when World War II soldiers were being sent to Florida for training purposes. They occupied many hotels on Miami Beach. A couple of years later, I would become a junior Red Cross […]
After a family road trip in 1969 from New York City to California to Miami and back to New York City, my husband, Guillermo, and I were very impressed with Miami. We saw a burgeoning metropolis holding much promise for the future of our children. Guillermo was Cuban, having left Cuba in 1947, and I […]
I grew up on the North Shore of Boston in the ‘50s and ‘60s in a small blue-collar town with its four seasons. It took me years to figure out why every year I would get “blue” in August. I loved summer, beaches, the sun, and walking around in flip flops. In August, I knew […]
I was born in Nicaragua. I lived there until I moved to Miami in 1979 when I was 19 years old. I moved with my daughter; she was almost 2 at the time. From the moment I moved to Miami I felt at home. My sisters were living here. The first time I came to […]
I was born 70 years ago at Jackson Memorial Hospital. My father had done his surgical training there in the late 1930s, following his mother’s move to Miami from Tennessee. My great-grandparents came to Coral Gables in 1928, and my mother’s family wintered here and later took the grandparents’ home. My parents’ wedding reception on […]
I was born at Coral Gables Hospital in 1948. My mother was from Brooklyn, my father from Morriston. He was a CPA, in the Giller Building on the Beach, at the exit off the Julia Tuttle Causeway onto Arthur Godfrey Road. He said that every day when he drove across the causeway, he marveled at […]
My Miami story began the day my KLM flight touched down from Cuba at Miami International Airport. I was traveling alone in 1961 at the age of 11. I was going to some unknown destination, which turned out to be an orphanage in Colorado, arranged by Operation Pedro Pan. I was reunited with my mother […]
My sister Laurie and I share an unusual trait: we are in our 50s and we are both native Miamians. We were born at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach. My mother, Suzanne Gillette Collins, and her family moved here in 1939, because my grandfather, Jules Gillette, was seeking new opportunities in Miami. He […]
Our family moved to Miami Beach from Brooklyn, N.Y., for my grandmother’s health. It was 1943 and Dad was with the Navy in the Pacific, so it was Mom, Aunt Rose, sister Bonnie, Grandma and me. We settled in a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment on Third Street and Jefferson. Our apartment was close to the dog […]