The Silver Meteor and the Champion were the two sleek trains that came to Miami from the Northeast in the early 1940s. My first trip to Miami was with my parents, Harry and Jeanette Levine, and my younger brother, Yale. Leaving Metuchen, N.J., on a drizzly morning in February, we traveled all night, through the […]
Although I was born in Miami, I left when I was a couple months old and did not return until I was almost seven. My father got hired as a pilot for Pan American Airlines, but when they cancelled his training class, he took a job for Dominicana Airlines, based in Santa Domingo. When the […]
My father, John Mantell, was born in 1898, somewhere in Romania. At age 16, he emigrated to the United States and was employed by relatives as an apprentice in the parquet and flooring craft industries. Industrious and of high intelligence, he quickly became skilled in this craft, learned to speak impeccable English, and adapted quickly […]
In 1949, I first came to Miami to check out the University of Miami. I hitched a ride from New York with my Uncle Pat, who drove the boss’ shiny black Cadillac down south every fall to be the chief mutual racetrack teller through the winter season at Hialeah and Tropical racetracks. Leaving New York […]
As a youngster, I was excited to be driving out 36th Street to see my uncle, Dave Click, arrive in an airplane. He was secretary to Florida state Sen. Trammell. The airstrip was just a small landing area in a big grassy field with a chain-link fence around it. (In later years, I spent much […]
It was the depths of the Depression, 1937, when my parents Manny and Grace LaCalle pulled into Miami with their two girls in the back seat of the car. After many jobs and homes in five other states, my father had an offer from Schenley Distillers. They shipped all their belongings and drove to Miami […]
n 1963, I made my first trip to Miami. I had just graduated from college and was invited to visit by the man who would become my husband, Richard Rosichan. At the time, he lived in Bay Heights with his parents, Arthur and Claire Rosichan. I was young and had lived my whole life as […]
I’ve been trying to leave Miami for a long time now. Miami was my home after I left Haiti. Creole was in every corner, familiar faces spilled out of supermarkets and Quick Marts, and botanicas haunted every jitney bus and crowded every small church between businesses. I felt at home, lakay as we say in […]
I started my life insurance career in Norfolk, Va., then transferred to South Florida in early January 1964 to manage my company’s Miami district office. I had previously rented a small, new house in Coral Gables for my wife Barbara and two young daughters, Jane, 7, and Margaret, 5. What we didn’t know was that […]
I am sitting here in our den and weathering another tropical storm. Fortunately it is one of the smaller, less significant ones, but interestingly enough, it is on the 20th anniversary of Andrew. I was born in Miami and so storms and hurricanes are just some of those things that we have to endure for […]