Category Archives: Unpacking

The Coconut Grove Playhouse Trojan Horse; Part I

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Some of the parking lots described in this post.
[See map legend below for matching location.]

Background: Looking south towards [C] the E.W.F. Stirrup
House, dwarfed by [A] The Monstrosity, aka Grove Gardens
Condominiums. Foreground: Looking across [F] The Blue
Star- Lite Drive-In and [E] the 45 parking spaces leased from
the MPA for Valet Parking. Behind the fence at right are [D]
the two vacant residential lots used illegally for parking rich
folk. Immediate left: The back wall of the Coconut Grove
Playhouse, the Blue Star-Lite Drive-In screen, and some junk.

Events have been moving quickly this week. Just as I was finishing a blog post writing up a full year’s worth of research on the parking lots
surrounding the Coconut Grove Playhouse, Miami-Dade County selected Arquitectonica to restore/ renovate/raze the structure (depending on who you ask). That forced a drastic rewrite to what follows.

Get comfortable, kiddies, because this is a long one. It needs to be long so I can develop the thesis in the headline: “Why is the reno of the Coconut Grove Playhouse really a Trojan horse for a gigantic glass and steel parking garage with a small theater attached?” It’s a sprawling Michener-like story — so long I’ve had to chop it up into 2 parts — covering almost a century and a cast of characters that number in the tens. Like Michener, lets take a quick look at who you will be meeting:  

  1. First and foremost, E.W.F. Stirrup, one of Florida’s
    first Black millionaires, who had more to do with the creation
    of Coconut Grove and the building of West Grove than anyone else you can
    name. Almost with his own hands he built an entire, cohesive Black neighbourhood in the Jim Crow south that lasts to this day. His house and his legacy have been allowed to undergo Demolition
    by Neglect; 
  2.  Commodore Ralph Monroe, a contemporary of Stirrup’s whose house The Barnacle, only a few thousand feet away from Stirrup’s, is now a State Park [K] and polished within an inch of its life, for whom Commodore Plaza [N] is named, and who gets most of the credit for creating the early Coconut Grove;
  3. Aries Development in the Snidely Whiplash persona of Gino Falsetto, who built The Monstrosity that changed the entire character of West Grove, has allowed the  E.W.F. Stirrup House to go to wreck and ruin through nearly a decade of Demolition by Neglect, and who, through several of his valet and parking companies, is destroying the quiet enjoyment of his neighbours; 
  4. The [allegedly] corrupt Miami District 2 Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff, who refuses to answer any questions posed to him by this reporter and is now running his puppet wife for his seat, now that he’s been term-limited off the City of Miami Gravy Train; 
  5. Miami-Dade Cultural Czar Michael Spring, who recently defended the legitimate “cone of silence” during the Coconut Grove Playhouse selection process, but doesn’t mention any of the backroom deals and decisions that were made prior to starting the selection process and dropping the cone of silence; 
  6. Arquitectonica, chosen by Michael Spring’s selection committee to oversee the Coconut Grove Playhouse destruction, or renewal, depending on which side of the fence you sit;
  7. Luis Choter, of The Miami Parking Authority, who has likewise refused to answer the questions forwarded to him by [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff, despite his email to me of January 27th apologizing for his lack of attention and promising he will be “looking into all the concerns and responding accordingly within the next couple of days.”;
  8. Cameo appearances by Sharie Blanton, of [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff‘s office; Ron Nelson, of same; Arthur Noriega, CEO of the Miami Parking Authority; Alejandra Argudin, who does something or other with the MPA; and Rolando Tapanes, another MPA employee; all of whom are in the email’s CC: field dodging my questions;
  9. Entrepreneur Josh Frank and his Blue Star-Lite Drive-In; 
  10. Jeremy D. King, a media flack at Regions Bank’s HQ; 
  11. The Movers and Shakers of Coconut Grove, both now and then;
  12. 1920s architect John Irwin Bright who designed the Coconut Grove Playhouse; 
  13. Several valet companies with dozens of valets;
  14. A number of private parking companies;
  15. A number of different parking lots;
  16. And, neighbours both good and bad.

Let’s begin:

After a years research — and a lack of clear answers from the city of Miami — Not Now Silly concludes the small 300-seat theater being proposed as a replacement for the Coconut Grove Playhouse, is nothing more than a cultural Trojan Horse being used to sneak a huge parking structure onto the corner of Charles Avenue and Main Highway.

I started researching the parking problems around the Coconut Grove Playhouse a year ago as a natural outgrowth of my research on the E.W.F. Stirrup House and The Colour Line in West Grove. Six years ago, when I first started researching Ebenezer Woodbury Frankling Stirrup, I could have hardly imagined that his house, The Coconut Grove Playhouse and the Playhouse parking lot were interconnected in a very complicated ways, both now and historically.

The Bright Plan shows the proposed city hall and golf course,
with “Colored Town” moved to “the other side of the tracks.”

A QUICK HISTORY LESSON: Prior to the illegal annexation of Cocoanut [sic] Grove by Miami in 1925, the town’s monied interests — the Movers and Shakers — of The Grove envisioned turning the small, nascent tourist village into a big tourist destination. So they hired Philadelphia architect John Irwin Bright, who came up with The Bright Plan in 1921, the very first of an untold number of urban renewal plans for Coconut Grove over the years.

The Bright Plan called for a fancy hotel; a golf course across most of West Grove, from Main Highway to Douglas; and a city hall approximately where Cocowalk now is. A wide boulevard ran from city hall to Biscayne Bay with a reflecting pool down the middle. The entire Bright Plan was based on Mediterranean-style architecture and would have been beautiful. However, it never got built. The bottom fell out of the Florida real estate market almost before the ink on The Bright Plan had dried.

However, there was one item on the Bright Plan that eventually got built: The Coconut Grove Theater (now the Coconut Grove Playhouse) was erected in 1927 and was based on Bright Plan drawings, which is why the building has a faintly Mediterranean feel. It first showed movies, but was later converted to live theater before it closed in ignominious bankruptcy 2006.

This is just one rendering of a potential gigantic development on Main Highway.
Don’t be fooled. The facade will be a facsimile. There is no plan to save it.

Save The Coconut Playhouse is a Facebook group not affiliated with the Not Now Silly Newsroom. It has far more detail about the backroom machinations of the current plan to renovate and/or tear down the Coconut Grove Playhouse.

Please join if you care about historic preservation.

Another rendering of a potential glass and steel parking garage hiding a tiny theater..

Back in 1927 monied interests — the Movers and Shakers — got together to built the movie house to bring culture to Coconut Grove. However, before the theater could be built the land had to be acquired from E.W.F. Stirrup, by then one of the largest landholders in Coconut Grove. It’s still an open question whether Mr. Stirrup, who was Black, could even go into the movie theater just 200 feet from his front door. At the time movie theaters were heavily segregated. The Ace Theater, on Grand, was later built for the Black folk of West Grove.

Back in 1927 parking cars wasn’t a big issue, but there are times these days when it seems like the parking of cars is the only issue.

When Miami developers present plans for new buildings one of the first questions that needs answering is “Where’s the parking?” Providing adequate parking often seems more important than an eye-catching design or quality of life considerations. This is especially true of Coconut Grove, where residents are howling over the fact that Cars2Go and Citi Bike are taking up precious parking spaces in The Grove because parking for their precious cars is more important than taking a chance on new, alternative forms of transportation.

A year ago Miami-Dade Cultural Czar Michael Spring untangled the Gordian Knot of the Coconut Grove Playhouse in an attempt to revive and renovate it. In other words: Bring culture back to the corner of Main Highway and Charles Avenue.

And, that’s when today’s monied interests — our modern day Movers and Shakers — got involved to screw the taxpayers behind closed doors. 

The backroom Playhouse deal had many moving parts. One part of the deal was to give to Aries Development the former-Bicycle Shop [J on map below] and $15,000. This was done because Aries floated a loan [in an amount I’ve never been able to determine] to the former-Playhouse board before it went belly up. At the time Aries was given a lien on the Bicycle Shop as collateral. That’s not that unusual. What is unusual is that Paradise Parking (another tentacle of the rapacious developer Gino Falsetto, aka Aries Development) is said to have squatted on the Playhouse Parking lot in order to satisfy the loan.

In my exposé from last year, The Coconut Grove Playhouse Deal begins to Unfold, I speculated that a possible future use of the Bicycle Shop could be a restaurant:

[T]urning the Bicycle Shop into a restaurant makes sense because
that’s another cash business. Gino Falsetto [allegedly] learned how
lucrative restaurants can be when he (and his brothers) bankrupted four
of them in the Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, area. When the government
finally moved in to seize the assets (cash in the till and the cutlery,
essentially), Canadians lost an estimated $1,000,000.00 in unpaid taxes.
However, that’s chump change compared to what Falsetto’s investors
lost. That figure is estimated to be upwards of ten million dollars. And
then, next thing you know, Gino Falsetto has enough resources after his
business went bankrupt to buy his way into the hot Miami real estate
market.


Of course, it has to be said, that there are many honest and reputable
restaurant owners. In fact, the vast majority are. However, that doesn’t
mean that restaurant ownership has not been known as a source of illegal profit skimming. Just sayin’.


Speaking of cash businesses, that brings us to the Playhouse parking
lot. On March 1st the Miami Parking Authority (MPA) will take over
control of the Playhouse parking lot. On February 25th the new signage
was being erected. However, most of the old signs hadn’t been removed
yet.


Who had the parking concession until now?


Double Park, Paradise Parking, and Caribbean Parking. Bring Truth To Light
has written extensively about Gino Falsetto; his several various
partners in several various companies; Aries Development Group; shady
Coconut Grove real estate deals; and this particular parking lot. It’s worth quoting extensively: [Click the link to read more of this alleged nefariousness.]

How much money did these companies collect from parking fees in the
time it [allegedly] squatted on the Playhouse parking lot? Was it forced to
return any of that money to the MPA, or was it all just gravy on top of getting the Main Highway frontage, potentially worth millions? And, while I’m asking questions: How much money did these companies report on their income taxes for the years it allegedly squatted on the parking lot?

When I learned these parking companies may have been squatting on the
Playhouse Parking Lot for who-knows-how-long?, I began desultory research on the issue of parking in West Grove, but I had no real reason to write it all up into a post until December 12th.

The area surrounding the
Coconut Grove Playhouse
[Click map to enlarge]
LEGEND:


A). Grove Gardens Condominiums;
aka The Monstrosity;
B). Regions Bank;
C). The E.W.F. Stirrup House;
D). Zoned residential lots, used
for illegal parking;
E). Part of the 45 parking spaces
leased for Valet Parking;
F). Blue Star Drive In & remaining 45
spaces leased to Valet parking;
G). Playhouse Parking Lot
operated by the MPA;
H). Unlocked gate directing traffic
onto William and Thomas Streets
and location of arrow directing cars
to exit onto Charles Avenue;
I). Main entrance/exit for main
Playhouse parking lot;
J). The Bicycle Shop;
K). The Barnacle, now a State Park,
once belonged to Commodore Ralph
Monroe, a contemporary of E.W.F.
Stirrup;
L). Rich people in gated enclaves;
M). Far less well off people in West
Grove, which has remained
predominately Black and depressed
during the last 125 years;
N). Commodore Plaza, named after
Ralph Monroe, is lined with pricy
eateries and more expensive art
galleries, meant for people with
more disposable income than
those on the surrounding blocks.

Not Now Silly has often highlighted the Bad Neighbours on Charles Avenue. For a change of pace let me introduce you to a good neighbour.

Immediately west of the E.W.F. Stirrup House [C] lives Cynthia Hernandez, her husband, and their 2 children. I knew little about Cynthia’s credentials until a recent exchange of emails. That’s when I realized she is a Senior Research Associate, Instructor, & Director of Internship Programs, Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy, Center for Labor Research & Studies, at Florida International University. That’s a mouthful.

I first met Hernandez while photographing the Bicycle Shop for last year’s story. We started talking and, as always, I started pitching the history of the area, especially the E.W.F. Stirrup House. That’s when I learned she lived right next door to the Stirrup House, designated a historic site by the City of Miami, which hasn’t prevented it from undergoing nearly a decade of Demolition by Neglect.

Why is preserving the E.W.F. Stirrup House so important to the cultural history of Coconut Grove? Read: Happy Birthday Coconut Grove!!! Now Honour Your Past

Since then we’ve exchanged information on the house and Charles Avenue whenever I’m visiting. Hernandez couldn’t care any
more about what’s going on if she were an actual home owner. Unfortunately, she just
rents. One of the issues we’ve talked about extensively over the past year is the valet parking business that operates out of the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums, aka The Monstrosity [A]. She feels her complaints about the additional valet car traffic on Charles Avenue have fallen onto deaf ears.

ANOTHER QUICK HISTORY LESSON: Across the street from the Stirrup House, are 2 residential lots [D] devoid of residences. They once had residences, of course: 2 cute little Conch-style houses. In the same complicated swap that gave Aries Development a 50-year lease on the Stirrup House, it acquired ownership of these 2 lots. The first thing Aries did was knock the houses down to use as a marshaling yard in order to build The Monstrosity in 2006.

The Monstrosity is the mixed-use, 5-storey condo complex, with 3
restaurants offering valet parking. While it fronts onto Main Highway,
it’s immediately behind the Stirrup House and dwarfs the modest 2-storey structure. While Zyscovich Architects did its best to design a building with a Key West/Bahamian feel, The Monstrosity looks totally out of place and out of scale when viewed from Charles Avenue, designated a Historic Roadway as the first street in Miami.

After these 2 lots were no longer needed to build The Monstrosity, they remained empty and poorly maintained. The property has been cited several times for a lack of upkeep, when the weeds were more than knee-high in some places. I have been told off the record, by someone in the know, that these two lots can NEVER be zoned for anything other than Single Family Residential use. However, the same thing was once said about the E.W.F. Stirrup House before the developer managed to get its zoning flipped to Commercial in anticipation of turning it into a Bed & Breakfast.

In mid-December I got an out-of-breath phone call from Hernandez about new parking shenanigans on Charles Avenue. While we had spoken many times over the last year, she had never phoned me before.

I took these pictures of residential lots [D] being used illegally for overflow
parking on November 8, 2014, long before the December kerfuffle. [There
are several cars parked to the right of this open gate which can’t be seen.]

Coconut Grove Village Council Chair Javier Gonzales may remember
me calling him that evening to suggest popping over to check it out for
himself; one of several times this reporter alerted him to this problem.

Hernandez’s concern was that the two residential lots across the street were ONCE AGAIN being illegally used as overflow
parking to the 45 spaces the valet parking companies rent from the Miami Parking Authority behind the Coconut
Grove Playhouse [E & F]. She described to me how there were some 40 cars parked on these residential lots, with the valets zipping cars in and out, and creating a traffic jam Charles Avenue, a residential street.

What made her even angrier was that when she called the police to complain she was told nothing could be done about it because — get this — the property owner had not complained. However, the property owner, through a complicated series of companies and familial relationships, also owns the valet parking outlets and the restaurants in The Monstrosity. He benefits financially by illegally parking cars on these residential lots. Why would he complain?

That’s when she called me. I told Hernandez to take pics and video. I also advised her to call the police back and ask, if they couldn’t do anything, would they at the very least make a written report so that there was proof a complaint had been made because previous complaints to the city fell upon deaf ears.

To their credit, after her second call Miami Police sent out a higher-up, who actually ordered the lots cleared. That took some 45 minutes and led to the 2nd traffic jam of the night on Charles Avenue.

I also advised Hernandez on a list of people she should send the pictures to come Monday morning, which she did. She then forwarded me the entire email chain generated by her complaint. That’s when I decided to collate my year’s worth of parking research for a Not Now Silly article. However, I needed some questions answered to adequately flesh out any such article. Consequently, I shot out an email to [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff asking 11 pointed questions in order to finish my article.

READ MORE . . . 

PART TWO of ‘The Coconut Grove Playhouse Trojan Horse quotes my email to [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff, his lack of adequate reply, and outlines why the Coconut Grove Playhouse is the Trojan horse for the gigantic Coconut Grove Parking Garage, coming soon to the corner of Main Highway and Charles Avenue.

Jammed For Time ► Unpacking The Writer

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Lately, it seems, I’ve spent more time in the car than writing.

Welcome, dear readers. Returnees know this as the regular post pulling back the curtain — AUNTY EM!!! AUNTY EM!!! — to reveal the work process of the prefrontal cortex of a writer’s brain.

My biggest problem is I have far more ideas for Not Now Silly articles than I have time to write. I also seem to have less time to write. F’rinstance, usually I start crafting Unpacking The Writer around the 15th of the month. Then, over the next 5-6 days I come back to it from time to time and add and subtract a paragraph here, or there. I don’t really work on it as much as let it evolve slowly. However, this month’s Unpacking The Writer will be started, and finished, on the same day. I’m jammed for time. That’s why I’m going to quote a long thing I already posted on the facebookery. You can skip right to it, if you are so inclined.

For those who are still with me: I continue to research one particular Coconut Grove story. As I collate my research and write up what’s already known, I’m still awaiting some replies to a few outstanding emails which now appear lost in the cyber spaces between here and there. I can’t imagine why [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff has yet to reply. I suppose it’s time to give him a gentle nudge that his constituents are still looking for answers.

Speaking of Sarnoff, his wife Teresa made it official: She’s running to replace him in District Two because he’s term-limited and they believe in political dynasties. She’s never shown an inkling for public office until recently. That’s when her [allegedly] corrupt husband realized they’d have to get off the government gravy train — and the fat skimmed off the gravy — once he had to go back to being just a simple country bumpkin lawyer.

Not Now Silly has never directly engaged in a political campaign before. However, this year the stakes are too great to just sit back and let events take their course. This is the year the Not Now Silly throws its editorial staff into the Miami District Two Commissioner race. Miami District Two is where West Grove sits, where The Colour Line exists, where Trolleygate and Soilgate are still unresolved issues. After 6 years of researching and writing about Coconut Grove, I can tell you without fear of contradiction that this community — also known as Black Grove — has gotten the short end of the stick for the last 125 years. That’s why the Newsroom is jumping into the fray.

To that end the Newsroom launched a page on the facebookery: ABT – Anybody But Teresa. The official position of this vast media enterprise is that even Rob Ford would be a better candidate for District Two than Teresa Sarnoff. Is it too early to put the “[allegedly] corrupt” in front of her name? Or, far too late?

Also running in District Two is Mike Simpson, a gent I’ve never met and am slowly learning about; Rosa Palomino, who helped host me on Miami After Dark to talk about the E.W.F. Stirrup House; and Grace Solares, which leads to a funny story.

Arriving at Grand Central Park at sunset,
after driving 35 miles in rush hour traffic.

Transferring into the 3rd person: It’s noted that Brad Knoefler*, owner of the nightclub that hosted the Official Solares Campaign Kickoff, railed against “elitist, exclusivist policies with closed door deals with our tax money.” Funny story about that. The Newsroom sent its head writer, Headly Westerfield, to the Official Solares Campaign Kickoff. He posted of this GIANT MEDIA FAIL on his facebookery, but it deserves further dissemination:

I have to say I am VERY unimpressed with the Grace Solares campaign for Commissioner in Miami’s District Two. I went to her OFFICIAL CAMPAIGN KICKOFF tonight. Here is my report:

I learned of the Grace Solares 2015 campaign kickoff from a posting
on Facebook. Since she’s a community activist, I thought I’d see what a
community activist sounds like on the campaign trail. I even sent a
facebook message to the campaign earlier in the day to say I’d be there.

I arrived about 20 minutes early and a guy introduced himself to me
(and I promptly forgot his name). I introduced myself back to him. He
asked if I had met Grace before. I said, “No, but the more important
question is. ‘Where’s the washroom?’ ”

Keep in mind I had just driven 35 miles on a tank of coffee.

After I took care of the important business I went to the back of the
campaign room (in the Grand Central nightclub), set up my camera and
tripod and sat down to wait.

A guy came up to me and asked if I was taking video or stills.

“Stills, but what difference would it make?”

“None, but I’m the tech and need to know.”

Well, that made absolutely no sense at all. But, surprisingly, it made far more sense than what followed.

Right at the stroke of 6PM a very large security guard came up to me
and asked to see my invitation. This is our approximate conversation:

“An invitation?”

“Yes, this is an invitation only event.”

“I read about it on facebook. It was announced on facebook. How is it invitation only?

“I don’t know, but you need an invitation.”

“I’m with the media.”

“I don’t care. You need an invitation.”

“Okay. Just give me a minute to pack up my stuff.”

“No problem.”

So, as I’m packing up my stuff I keep talking to him. “Look, I drove 35
miles to get here to cover this. Is there someone I can talk to?”

“You can talk to anybody you want…after you leave.”

“How is that going to help me? I just want to talk to someone from the campaign.”

“You can talk to them outside.”

I got all my stuff packed up and picked up my knapsack to leave when
another, even bigger, security guard showed up and blocked my way. He
leaned over and whispered something in the first security guard’s ear.

That’s when the first security guard said to me, “It’s okay. You can stay.”

“I can stay?”

“Yes, you can stay.”

“Without an invite?”

“Without an invite.”

“Can you tell me who threw me out and then who changed their mind and allowed me to stay?”

Driving home alone <sad trombone> I noted that I could have paid $10.50 to zip along
the Express Lanes, However, I was stuck in bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go traffic. That’s
why it took me more than 2 hours to get home. <sadder trombone> I had all that extra time
to think and I couldn’t help but wonder if this kind of disparity between the haves and
the have nots is something a community activist like Grave Solares might talk about.

He smiled a big shit-eating grin and said, “You know I can’t tell you that.” Then he left me alone.

So . . . I set up my tripod all over again and put the camera back on
it and waited. As I waited I realized that this was going to be,
essentially, a cocktail party and Grace Solares would be moving around
the room, glad-handing her backers. I presumed she’d give some remarks
at the end. So, I settled in for the long, boring wait to hear her
speechifying.

After about 20 minutes another guy came up to
me. He was dressed in a sports jacket and was one of the few people
already there when I arrived, so I suspected he was with the Solares
campaign. He said HELLO and then asked, “Who are you and who are you
with?” There was an edge to his question that rubbed me the wrong way.

Normally “Who are you and who are you with?” is a perfectly legitimate
question under these circumstances. However, what I had just gone
through with the security guard already had me on edge.

So I said, “Who’s wants to know?”

He said, “The guy who’s asking you who you are and who you’re with!”

I stood up and started to take apart my tripod all over again.

“I’m the guy who is leaving right now.”

And, I walked out without meeting the candiate, without hearing her
speech, without learning what makes her qualified for running for
Commissioner in District Two.

Here’s the punchline: As I left
the building the first security guard was outside, checking people as
they came in. A couple arrived and the guard said, “For the
Commissioner?” They said, “Yes” and the guard ushered them right in
WITHOUT ASKING FOR THEIR INVITATION.

So, while I’m telling people I was thrown out of Grace Solares’ campaign event, the gospel truth is I threw myself out.

While on the twin topics of Elections and The Facebookery, have i mentioned I’m running for political office? Join Westerfield/Lengyl 2016 and see what all the bribing is about.

Last facebook plug: Now that I’ve unilaterally declared victory in The Johnny Dollar Wars, I’m pondering a name-change for The Johnny Dollar Depreciation Society. Drop on over and let me know what suggestions you may have. I’ve been pondering variations of frases [see what I did there?] of words that all start with the letter “F” because of the alliteration of the Friday Fox Follies I write every … err … Friday for PoliticusUSA. May as well tie into that. I think they call that synergy these days, or is it vertical integration?

And, that’s how I can start a post and publish it on the very same day. See you next month, kids.

* It was not Brad Knoefler who approached me. I only know him from the pictures people sent to ask, “Whuzzit this guy?” Nor was it any of the other people whose pics were sent to me.

Packing Up 2014 ► Unpacking The Writer

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A billboard erected in my honour will look nothing like this.

Howdy to new readers. Old readers know Unpacking The Writer as the monthly post where I pull back the curtain Wizard of Oz-like to reveal the interior life of a writer. AUNTY EM!!! AUNTY EM!!!

First an apology to my most rabid readers. I’ve not published as many original stories this month as usual. While Headlines Du Jour is fun to put together, and a very popular series, I don’t consider any of that original writing and don’t take all that much pride in it, other than a job well done when it’s done. It’s aggregation. I’m fine with calling it that, but wish I had published more new stuff this past month. Maybe I can make that my very first New Year’s Resolution to break.

Meanwhile, I’ve been going though the Not Now Silly Newsroom archives and sharing important, funny, or just plain weird stories on social media. I know it doesn’t fully make up for a lack of NEW, but as I like to tell people, “It’s not a repeat if you never saw it before.”

Part of what’s been keeping me busy is the Friday Fox Follies, which I’ve been crafting the last few months for PoliticusUSA. Because I always saw it as an outgrowth of Headlines Du Jour, from the start the idea was to use actual headlines found on the innertubes to craft a story arc that covers Fox “News” shenanigans and tomfoolery from Friday to Friday. Trying to shoehorn in the actual headlines creates some grammatical irregularities and awkward constructs, but overall I think it’s working. Your mileage may vary.

In the beginning it took me almost 2 days to compile and write, but I’ve managed to get it down to a solid 6 hours of writing for approximately 1200 words. Here’s my methodology: During the week I compile intriguing Fox “News” headlines as they present themselves. Midweek I look to see what themes might be developing and I start thinking about the shape the column might take if these trends continue. By the time I wake up Friday morning at 5AM to start writing it, I have the basic outline and an opening paragraph in my head. After taking a quick look to see which Fox “News” personality said something stupid while I was sleeping, I hit the ground running. Provided there are no power outages (never a guarantee around here), I send it off to the editors some time between 1 and 3PM.

But still, those 6 hours are 6 hours I can’t devote to writing about Coconut Grove, the E.W.F Stirrup House, and what I still hope will be a new ongoing series, Pastoral Letter.

Speaking of my Friday Fox Follies, this happened:

The Charles Avenue Historic Marker with
the E.W.F. Stirrup House in the background.

Also keeping me busy this month has been some pretty extensive research concerning Coconut Grove and Charles Avenue. I’m pulling at several different subject threads simultaneously. This has required spending many hours in the City Clerk’s office doing some deep research on Charles Avenue, the E.W.F. Stirrup House, and Miami Commission meetings, with still many more hours to come.

I have been researching two of these topics for an entire year. While I had hoped to hold them until I had all my ducks in a row, a recent flashpoint has made it important to finish one in a timely manner. To that end I now have outstanding emails with both a Media Relations Associate at a bank’s HQ and a City of Miami Commissioner. Each email requested ON THE RECORD written answers to a series of questions. We’ll see whether I even get the courtesy of replies. If I’m not satisfied I may have to resort to another FOIA request.

Meanwhile, the residents of West Grove continue to get the short end of the stick, while Aries Development and Gino Falsetto seem to get away with everything short of murder. My interest in Coconut Grove started with falling in love with a house, researching its history, falling in love with the legacy of the man who built it, and then falling in love with the people and the neighbourhood, that is sadly being gentrified out of existence around the edges.

I can remember — vividly — how years ago, after my first visit to Coconut Grove, I came back and told a group of friends that I thought I had found an interesting story at the corner of Charles Avenue and Main Hightway, I just wasn’t sure what it was yet. How could I have possibly known back then it would lead to even bigger stories on Trolleygate, Soilgate, Demolition by Neglect of the E.W.F. Stirrup House, rapacious developers, much potentially illegal shenanigans, a [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner, and mapping The Colour Line that still surrounds the historically Black neighbourhood of the West Grove? No wonder there are times I feel so busy.

Join the campaign to Save the E.W.F. Stirrup House on Facebook.

Digging really deep into my id without revealing too much: It was just a month ago when I embarked on what I thought would be a great series — my own Tuesday’s With Morrie — when I published Finding An Old Friend ► Unpacking My Detroit. It still might. However, I must admit to initially being totally flummoxed about where to take it. Let me explain:
I was overjoyed to locate my childhood friend Kenneth Wilson and surprised to learn he was one of the first (maybe only) evangelical pastors in the entire country to OPENLY argue for the church to be inclusive (not just tolerant) of the LGBT communities. I wrote him that open letter, which I posted, and then waited for a reply. It didn’t occur to me until a few weeks later that maybe Pastor Kenny posted his reply somewhere on the innertubes. Turns out I was right. What surprised me more was the realization that he delivered his reply as a sermon from the pulpit. A printed version is at The Gospel of John, Chapter One: They Came in Twos and a live (slightly different) recording can be found HERE.
I arrived back in Kenny’s life at an interesting time for him. In his sermon he says goodbye to his church. He’s not explicit about who fired whom, but it’s clear this is his last sermon from the pulpit of The Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor. Obviously the same notoriety that allowed me to find my childhood friend so easily caused a rend in the tapestry of his church.  He said, in part:
Ann Arbor Vineyard, carry the seed of the kingdom with you into your next chapter. If there are tears, and I hope there will be a few, use those tears to sow the seed for a new harvest.

I could imagine you becoming an even more multi-ethnic congregation than you are now. I could imagine your ministries flourishing in new, unforeseen ways.

To those who will join Emily and me in new Blue Ocean Church Plant, lets use our tears to sow the seeds we bring with us, from this awesome place, this house of the Lord…

Together, Ann Arbor Vineyard and your newest Blue Ocean church plant lets make this our song:

Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with them.
My final practical tip [as the recorded sermon deviates slightly from the printed version], is at a moment like this, when you don’t know what you’re supposed to say, don’t say nothing. 
And then he called for 2 minutes of silence which ends his reply to me. 
I’ve now read, and listened, to Pastor Kenny’s Pastoral Letter to me several times. I kept more than 2 minutes of silence because I wanted to respect any mourning period he may have had for losing his gig, but more importantly, because I simply didn’t know what to say. So, I said nothing.

His sermon — his reply to me — was religious allegory and I’m not steeped in religious allegory. It took me quite a while to interpret it. And, I recognize, I may still have it all wrong. However, it has meaning for me now when it was just words when I first read it. That’s why I’m working on the next Pastoral Letter, which (like everything else) is taking longer than I thought. However, it’s been started and is the next post I intend to finish. Meanwhile, Ken did send me his phone number and I really have to clear some time to phone him.

Incidentally, for those who keep track of this kind of Westerfield Minutia, Zachary Harvard Weed, who inhabits the pages of Farce Au Pain, lives in the house that Kenny’s family once lived in. Adrian Roland Thompson lives in the house I grew up in.

A snapshot in time: The All Time Top Ten at the time of this writing.

At year’s end it’s always nice to take a look at some stats, facts, and figures, especially as we get closer to launching a brand new, improved Not Now Silly Newsroom under our own domain name.

I’m quite proud of my All Time Top Ten, at left. Except for #6, Chow Mein and Bolling 5, which is silly fluff, but the readers just love it. I like to think the rest are all important stories on important topics and thank my readers for having the intelligence to boost them to the Top Ten list. The Blogger platform doesn’t give me very many stats, but one that’s always intrigued me is the search engine results that people received just before they washed up at Not Now Silly. Because this is getting long enough, and because I’ve got other shit to write, I’ll end this with 3 pics: The All Time search results, the top monthly search results, and the weekly flotsam and jetsam. 

See ya next year!

All Time:
 
Monthly:
 
Weekly:

 

It’s All Nothing But Words ► Unpacking the Writer

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Hello again, dear readers. For newbies: Unpacking the Writer is the monthly series in which I expose some of the wrinkles of being a Writer for Hire.

I’m excited about a new (potential) series I started just this week. I almost called it “Pastoral Letters,” but opted to slot it under the ongoing rubric Unpacking My Detroit instead. Finding An Old Friend is an innocuous title for what could turn out to be an important exchange of ideas, especially for me as I grapple with my place in this world in my 6th decade. If it continues it could be far more revelatory than these monthly Unpacking the Writer episodes. While writing Finding An Old Friend I was conscious that in my head, where I do most of my living, the concept felt like Tuesdays With Morrie, the memoir by another Detroit writer, Mitch Alborn. However, the biggest difference is that Kenny and I are contemporaries. Other differences may reveal themselves.

I was also conscious of how we, as a society, have lost the art of letter writing. I’m no different or, maybe, I’m the worst. I’m terrible at answering letters and email. When I’m not writing the last thing I want to do is write, yannow, so I don’t. Taking coals to Newcastle. Busman’s holiday. Preaching to the choir, Kenny? Whatever you want to call it, it’s a bad habit I’ve developed in my life that has allowed old friends to slip out of the berth of my life.

I’ve already heard back from Pastor Kenny. He sent a one-liner to say that he will be more forthcoming with a reply suitable for publication. He did say my email made his day so I can’t wait to read his reply. And, while he included his phone number and asked me to call, I think I’ll wait for his response, so as not to taint his reply.

If you’re reading this, Kenny, I’m waiting.

It’s been a month of near-frantic writing as the Not Now Silly Newsroom makes its deadlines. Most of those deadlines are self-imposed and loosey-goosey. They can always be pushed off if needs be.

But not all deadlines are so fluid. Just before our last exciting episode Head Writer Headly Westerfield arranged a new leisure time activity for the Not Now Silly Newsroom. It has a hard deadline that can’t be pushed no matter how much of the staff has called in sick. Every week for the last 7, he’s had the entire news team pumping out a new edition of Friday Fox Follies for PoliticusUSA. They are meant to be funny and informative. Your mileage may vary.

The Friday Fox Follies are not the first articles by Westerfield published there. Detroit is the New Conservative Wet Dream and Why Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law Has Got To Go are more than a year old, but as true today as they were when written.

But, it’s not just been Friday Fox Follies keeping the Not Now Silly Newsroom busy.

As long time readers of Not Now Silly will attest, I have been trying to Save The E.W.F. Stirrup House from Demolition by Neglect ever since the first time I laid eyes upon it. After I learned the amazing history of the man who built the house, saving it became an obsession. It should be something other than a Bed and Breakfast for tourists to Coconut Grove. The legacy of E.W.F. Stirrup is too deep and rich for his house to become a commercial enterprise enriching a rapacious developer. It’s the oldest house on Charles Avenue, the oldest street in Miami, and the 2nd oldest house in Miami.

November 17, 2014 – What Demolition by Neglect looks like up close

I’ve been at this for several years without making any discernible progress. Worse yet, there’s been no discernible progress on the house in the entire time I’ve been documenting how it is has been undergoing Demolition by Neglect for nearly a decade at the hands of a rapacious developer. However, between times of research and activity, I get dejected. My campaign to Save the E.W.F. Stirrup House is limited only by my inability to to make my campaign go viral.

Recently, I was energized all over again when I learned there were FINALLY plans on file of the E.W.F. Stirrup House at the City of Miami’s Historical Preservation Office. It took a FOI request to get access at the file. Imagine my disappointment to discover these plans are totally inadequate for historical preservation.

However, having been energized, I wrote a number of posts this month about Coconut Grove, the E.W.F. Stirrup House and Infamous Rapacious Developers:

I have a brand new one coming under the “Bad Neighbour” banner, but this time it’s an entirely different neighbour. It may take another week, or so, to put that one together.

Earlier this week I showed up at the stroke of 8AM and spent
several hours on the public City of Miami computer system researching
several of the Coconut Grove threads I’ve been pulling at for the last
few years to see what can be pulled out of the official records.

Oddly enough, there is only one computer in the entire city
that a member of the public can use to research all the files,
documents, and PDFs collected by the City Clerk. It’s in the City
Clerk’s office, which seems like a very public place to do my very private research. How long before I bump into [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff while using the washroom?

Now that I have been able to read and absorb what I
collected on my 1st visit, my appetite has only been whetted for more. I
think the answers I seek are in that infernal machine somewhere. All I need to
do is stumble upon the right search terms.

Meanwhile, tonight I will be on Miami After Dark, AM880, talking about the E.W.F. Stirrup House and historic preservation. When the podcast is posted, I’ll share it with you all.

At one point I was thinking of this as the new logo. This animation
is merely a proof of concept. Had I not decided against it, I would
have also animated my face in the screen. Maybe I still should.

The other thing that’s still taking place behind the scenes is building the NEW, IMPROVED Not Now Silly Newsroom. With fingers crossed it will launch soon. My web designer in Northern Ireland and I have scheduled a weekly Skype meeting as the pace picks up. I’ve seen the templates and mock-ups. This week I locked in the menus and ordered up a few changes. Meanwhile, my graphic designer is working on a new logo. She’s responsible for the logo at the top of the page, based on an archival picture I found of a Depression Era camp.

This time I’m giving her far more leeway. All I’ve told her is that I prefer a serif font with NOT NOW SILLY on 1 line and NEWSROOM on the next, with both lines taking up an equal width. I have also said it should have gravitas, because this is a fucking newsroom, dammit!!! In order to pretend to be more serious I may also retire the 2 slogans “Home of the Steam Powered Word-0-Matic” and “Your Rest Stop on the Information Highway.” 

However, on second thought, I’m really thinking of keeping the second one.

That’s it. That’s all. See you next month with another exciting episode of Unpacking the Writer, brought to you by The Steam-Powered Word-0-Matic, the only machine of its kind on the innertubes.

The Steam-Powered Word-0-Matic is a labour intensive device, which takes 2 people to operate, but it’s worth it for my readers!!!

Finding An Old Friend ► Unpacking My Detroit

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EMAIL TO: Pastor Kenny
SUBJECT: Long Time No See
Dear Pastor Kenny:
Lately my life is in turmoil. I am in need of something pastoral. Tag. You’re it.
I think back to the last time I saw you. If I’m not mistaken you were on your honeymoon with Nancy.
You visited me in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, and, from my point of view, it was a very strange visit. Now that I think about it, it was the very last time I saw any of my childhood friends.
[I understand that Nancy has passed and that you’re remarried. Condolences and congratulations. I’m a sucker for love and it sounds like you have had decades of it.]
It was a strange visit for me because during much of your visit you and Nancy were trying to sell me on Jesus, despite knowing I grew up in a Jewish home and had even thrown off that religion years before. I had never known you to be evangelical before.
We had an amicable discussion, but neither of us convinced the other. When you left, you left behind (no pun intended) a Good News Bible, which you inscribed to me. I carried that Bible – along with a pilfered Gideon’s Bible, an Old Testament, and a book on Scientology – with me until about a decade ago, when I lost my small religious book section in my last break up.
Before the internet made biblical text searches much easier, I would refer to that Good News Bible occasionally for research, or just to rifle through it and read passages. Each time I couldn’t help but think of you and wondered what happened to you. I’ve thought of you often over the years and not always when reaching for that book. Just this summer, when I last visited family in Michigan, I went to Gilchrist. However, after taking a picture of my old house, I stood
and stared at yours for a while.
Outtake from While Detroit Crumbled, Gilchrist
Street Hung On. That’s Kenny Wilson’s house on
the far right, across the street, with Danny Harris
of the Gilchrist Block Club in the foreground.
This visit prompted me to write While Detroit Crumbled, Gilchrist Street Hung On.
I visit Gilchrist often because I’m still looking for something there. Me, I think.
As mentioned above, I have found my life to be chaotic as of
late. Pops is 88 and, after my mother died, I moved from Canada, where I lived for 35 years – taking out citizenship in the process – to take care of him. I’ve been in Sunrise, Florida, for the past 9 years. Some days are harder than others and on Friday I expressed my opinion to Pops at full volume.
Skip ahead to Sunday morning. I was still feeling remorseful that I lost my temper with Pops when I got an IM on Facebook from a name I didn’t recognize. She said she had lived on Fenmore. After exchanging a few messages it turns out I didn’t know her or her brother Randy at all. But then she asked me if I knew you.
I said “yes” and that you were one of my best friends growing up, and that I had been looking for you for years with no luck. Do you know how many Kenneth John Wilsons there are in this world? The internet was no help.
She told me you were a pastor in Ann Arbor, which I did not find surprising, considering our last encounter. However, what she told me next surprised me a great deal. She told me that you were the first person in Michigan to wed a same sex couple. I thought, “WAY TO GO, KENNY!!!” I am a long time supporter of the LGBT communities, believing they should have the right to marry in every state. Sadly I read today that all the Michigan marriages that happened in the interregnum are null and void. How sad for those people. How sad for love.
This book seems like a game-changer for evangelicals.
The internet was an immediate help in finding Pastor Kenneth Wilson, but I’ve still not confirmed you were the first to marry a same sex couple, or that you have actually wed any same sex couples. No matter. I have since read about your book ‘Letter to My Congregation’ and several interviews with you. It’s a brave stance.WAY TO GO, KENNY!!!
I have a hard time squaring that with the evangelicals I am always reading about. I know the squeaky wheel gets the ink, but I keep reading of evangelical hate for various factions of folk in this world, whether it’s The Gay, or the poor, or people of colour, or immigrants both documented and un. While the religion preaches love, there’s a whole lot of hate expressed quite openly. One shudders to think of what might be said in private.
Right after having this Facebook conversation I left for a drum circle. This is a new hobby/habit I’ve developed in the past year. It turns out that I still have no rhythm in my left hand, something I should have remembered when I tried to play guitar as a teenager. That’s why I was the singer in the band that Dean Donaldson drummed in; I couldn’t play an instrument. After 2 attempts at a drum circle I remembered that my left hand will simply not fire when I want it to. It’s pretty useless. However, I managed to find my niche within these drum circles by playing claves, which only needs one coordinated hand, while the other is passive.
What does this have to do with anything? Almost nothing, except this particular drum circle meets in Snyder Park, an oasis in the middle of a heavily industrial area of Fort Lauderdale. You would hardly know you were in the middle of a city. While in the park I took a panorama which I sent to my Facebookery with the caption “How pastoral.”
As I played the claves, and zoned out into the rhythm, I suddenly realized why the word “pastoral” came so readily to mind. By the time the drum circle had ended, I had already written parts of this email in my head.
So, what’s new with you?
Your childhood friend,
Marc Slootsky
P.S. I’m a writer and it looks like you are too. I’m planning on printing this email at the Not Now Silly Newsroom. Unless you expressly forbid otherwise, I plan to share your response, if there is one.

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Don’t forget to read my Not Now Silly blog and look for me on Twitter and facebook.

Marc D. Sarnoff ► Everything Old Is New Again

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I’ve managed (mainly) to avoid writing about [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff, except as it related to Trolleygate.

However, that doesn’t mean Sarnoff was totally off my radar. While I’ve been busy writing about things which interest me far more than a term-limited local politician, I still kept one eye on him, amazed at the crap he gets away with in plain sight. Therefore, I can’t help but wonder what he’s getting away with behind the scenes. Lately that has had a habit of sneaking out, mostly because he’s having trouble keeping his lies straight. You can’t tell one community group one thing and another community group the opposite and not expect them to compare notes. That’s why in so many recent off the record conversations the sentiment was expressed, “No one with the Sarnoff name will ever be elected to office again.”

Granted I was the one saying it, but only because I truly believe it.

I started researching this post, in a desultory manner, when the notice above came in through my electronic transom. “Oh!” I thought. “I really need to go to this to see if [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff says anything stupid or incriminating.”

I hadn’t forgotten how he used $200,000 of Astor Development’s money to bribe the folks at Ambrister Field to oppose the folks fighting to keep Sarnoff from shoving a polluting diesel trolley bus garage into their neighbourhood, contrary to zoning ordinances. I fantasized that Astor Development would be there to help Sarnoff cut the ribbon.  [At the time Armbrister Field was thought to be contaminated due to being right next door to Old Smokey, the incinerator.]

LONG STORY SHORT: In the end, after multiple lawsuits, the bus garage that got built BECAUSE of meddling by [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff will never be used as a bus garage. Now the dickering is over what adaptive use it can be converted to for the benefit of the neighbourhood and how much money Astor Development wants to get rid of this white elephant [pun intended]. The last figure I heard, that people are still laughing at, was $4,000,000.

ANOTHER LONG STORY SHORT: Sarnoff didn’t say anything stupid or incriminating at the Armbrister Field ribbon cutting and — amazingly — he didn’t even try to grab credit for all the renovations. While it amused me he pulled a muscle in the first inning of the Police vs Politicians softball game, it wasn’t enough to sustain a whole post. So I never wrote it up.

Even before the Armbrister Field ribbon cutting I had been thinking of Sarnoff because his name kept cropping up in the media on the issue of Soilgate. I joined a Facebook community group called Friends of Merrie Christmas Park, formed by Ken Russell who lives across the street from the park. Russell was blithely unaware he was living across the street from a toxic park until the park was suddenly closed. He was unaware a remediation plan had been put into effect until the bulldozers arrived. After he delved deeper into the city’s plan for
the toxic soil remediation, and found it wanting, Russell started to organize his neighbours.

Merrie Christmas Park is one of the Miami Parks — most of them in Coconut Grove — closed due to the discovery of toxic soil. The toxic soil comes from ash from Old Smokey, which was used as fill in the earliest days of Miami.

Are these parks merely the tip of the toxic iceberg?

Courtesy John Dolson

The dirty secret that almost nobody is talking about — concentrating on just the parks instead — is that toxic landfill from Old Smokey is scattered all over Miami.

Most of South Florida is built on fill of one sort or another. Keep in mind, just 100 years ago this entire region was little more than a swamp. Slowly, as infrastructure was added in the form of roads, railways, and bridges, vast swaths of land in between was still waterlogged. Digging the canals that crisscross South Florida helped drain the swamp and it also provided the earliest fill to build upon. However, it was never enough. Back in the day Old Smokey was simply giving it away. The du Ponts used approximately 100,000 tons of it to build their estate on St. Gaudens Road. 

What seems to have bothered Friends of Merrie Christmas Park most was the lack of public notification. Notification might have allowed them to have input into any eventual remediation plan. Or, at the very least, an understanding of the stakes before [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff cut all his backroom deals. Yet, as much as this fight is about toxic soil, it is also about property values. The decisions that Sarnoff shoved through city hall without public input forced Miami-Dade County to declare every home within a 1/4 mile radius a Brownfield site. No one knows for sure, but it’s estimated that having one’s home declared a Brownfield site devalues a property by 10% to 20%.

Once Sarnoff caught wind the Friends of Merrie Christmas Park was going to hold a neighbourhood meeting, he sprung into action!!! First he scheduled a Dog and Pony Show at Miami City Hall and then he crashed the neighbourhood meeting in Merrie Christmas Park to obfuscate. Watch:


Video courtesy Al Crespo of The Crespogram Report
IRONY ALERT: It was the earlier lawsuit against
Sarnoff’s previous fiasco, Trolleygate, that uncovered a 2-year old memo
indicating Miami was already aware of poisoned parks, but buried the
results. [Pun intended.] This led to the testing of all the parks, which led to the
closure of 6 of them for remediation. The biggest parallel between Soilgate and Trolleygate is how all of those decisions were made in backrooms, without proper neighbourhood notifications.

In Trolleygate that led to all those lawsuits, which cost the city of Miami a bundle to defend. That was taxpayer money wasted by Marc D. Sarnoff, who was protecting the interests of an out-of-town developer building an out-of-town diesel bus garage, over the interests of his own constituents.

No lawsuits have been filed in Soilgate . . . yet, but it seems inevitable. And, every dollar spent on lawsuits can be blamed on [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff making decisions in backrooms, as opposed to under the light of Florida Sunshine Laws.

IRONY ALERT II: A Marc D. Sarnoff Dog and Pony Show should be trade-marked and patented. They all follow the same pattern. First Sarnoff ignores his constituents, making backroom deals without benefit of Florida’s Sunshine Laws. Once the taxpayers and his constituents have learned they were sold down the river, they start to agitate. If they agitate loud enough, Sarnoff spends taxpayer money to create a Dog and Pony Show and then calls a public meeting to sell the neighbours on the plan that’s already a fait accompli.

In other words: The Dog and Pony Show is the public meeting that MORE PROPERLY should have taken place before any decisions were made so that the stakeholders — the neighbours — the community — the taxpayers — his own constituents — understand the issues. However, Marc D. Sarnoff prefers people are kept in the dark until it’s too late.

As Miami New Times writer David Villano tells us in his groundbreaking story City Quietly Labels Toxic Parks “Brownfield Sites,” Limiting Neighborhood Input In Cleanup:

Ken Russell of the Friends of Merrie Christmas Park, is outraged that he and other nearby residents were not notified of the proposal to re-label the park as a Brownfield — a move he believes could greatly impact property values.

“It’s hard to believe they didn’t make an effort to tell anybody,” he says.

[…]

City officials say an ad publicizing the hearing was placed in three local publications — the Miami Times, the Daily Business Review, and Diario Las Americas.

You might be forgiven if you don’t understand this notice. In
fact, it’s what [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D.
Sarnoff was hoping. Image swiped from The Crespogram Report

How could the city say it notified the residents when no resident remembers being notified?  Al Crespo of The Crespogram Report, shows how this hocus pocus was performed. In a story called The Miami City Commission Will Always Try To Screw You In July, he reports the city did this by deliberately NOT naming the parks, just listing the various addresses:

Skimming through the agenda, or skimming through the notices published in the Public Notice section of Miami Times, The Daily Business Review and Diario Las Americas, one’s eyes could easily have slid over a bland notice listing a handful of addresses.

Further proof that this was intentionally done so as to minimize the ability of the residents living close to these parks to speak at the Public Hearing, was the failure of the City to post notices around these Park properties, thereby minimizing the possibility that the residents would find out and attend the Public Hearing.

A dollar to a donut says that all of this can be attributed to decisions and instructions issued by Commissioner Sarnoff to Assistant City Manager Alice Bravo.

Why Sarnoff?  First, because 4 of the 6 parks included in this agenda item are in his District, and secondly because he, along with Alice Bravo, his ever present sock puppet on all of these kinds of issues have been at the center of all issues and schemes dealing with how the city dealt with the discovery, testing and now with the clean up of the contamination in these parks.

Sarnoff again!!! He keeps turning up like a bad penny.

IRONY ALERT III:  The Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog
Park, also known as Blanche Park, was also found to contain toxic soil.
This is ironic because Sarnoff not only lives across the street from the
park, but the park had been renovated SEVERAL times prior to the toxicity becoming known. One of those previous renovations was to take 2/3rd of the
park away from CHILDREN and letting it go to the dogs, literally, by turning it into a dog park.
Sarnoff has no children, but he does have dogs. And, he managed to ram a
dog park through across the street from his house, before anyone knew
what happened, children be damned.

IRONY ALERT IV: The Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park is the only park closed because of toxic soil that has ALREADY been remediated and reopened. How about that? I’m sure it has nothing at all to do with the fact that [allegedly] corrupt Marc D. Sarnoff lives across the street.

However, and this is DAMNED important, it was closed, remediated, and reopened SEVERAL TIMES!!! What was wrong with the first remediation? What was wrong with the second remediation? What did all those children — and, okay, dogs, too — ingest in the various times the park was open before and between various remediations?

TRYING TO MAKE A VERY LONG STORY SHORT: What’s happened at Merrie Christmas Park since the latest Sarnoff Dog and Pony Show is almost a repeat of previous Sarnoff Comedy Capers. First he tries to set one neighbour off against another, by blaming the activists (who hired a lawyer to make sure their rights are not further abrogated by the meddling of Sarnoff) for the project being stalled. Once he saw which way the toxic wind was blowing, Sarnoff agreed to remove ALL the toxic soil, but only if the nearby residents would kick in a portion of the clean-up costs.

I need to repeat that because it’s so outrageous:

Marc D. Sarnoff thinks the residents should help pay the cost of removing the toxic soil that the City of Miami put in the park in the first place. 

Once the idea that residents pay for their own remediation was rightfully laughed at by all intelligent people, Sarnoff still got his way. In the end, an angel ponied up the private costs of removing the toxic soil. All that is know about this anonymous donor so far is that it is a male, he lives in Coral Gables, which is just on the other side of Le Jeune Road from Merrie Christmas Park, and has fond memories of playing in the park as a child.

However, the remediation appears to be stalled, despite several promises by Sarnoff that it would be cleaned up by now.

And, that’s just one park. 

There were 15 people at this meeting. Two were reporters. One
was a rep from the Coconut Grove Village Council. At least 2
live in other neighbourhoods.That leaves 11 concerned citizens.

SKIP AHEAD TO LAST SATURDAY: One of my sources sent me a notice of a Douglas Park Meeting on Clean-up and Re-Opening. Because the issues are virtually the same as those at Merrie Christmas Park, I thought I’d attend.

This meeting provided good news and bad news for [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff. First the good news: It was poorly attended. It was so poorly attended, Sarnoff didn’t even bother showing up, like he had the better-attended Merrie Christmas Park Meeting. The bad news? One of those that showed up was lawyer Michelle Niemeyer.

Niemeyer is the lawyer who has been advising and working with the Friends of Merrie Christmas Park. She’s managed to help them understand and negotiate the extremely complicated thicket of Miami, Miami-Date, Florida and U.S. environmental laws that go into effect once a neighbourhood has been designated a Brownfield site.

According to Niemeyer, the entire process for designating the 6 neighbourhoods around the toxic parks Brownfield sites was flawed from the get-go. The Brownfield designation was slapped on these neighbourhoods without the proper notification, no matter how many publications in which the city claims it was published. There are supposed to be public meetings before any decisions made and none were held.

Another concern expressed at the Douglas Park meeting was one I hadn’t heard before. Folks are not much happier with the artificial turf and rubber mulch the city proposes to use to cap, but not remove, the toxic soil. More and more communities are waking up to the dangers of artificial turf. The Poughkeepsie Journal is just one paper around the country reporting Fake Turf Poses Health Risk: 

Four of the constituent chemicals in these “tire crumbs” (or “tire mulch”) as they are called — arsenic, benzene, cadmium and nickel — are deemed carcinogens by the International Agency for Cancer Research. Others have been linked to skin, eye and respiratory irritation, kidney and liver problems, allergic reactions, nervous systems disorders and developmental delays.

While the risk came to light recently when a University of Washington women’s soccer coach began to think it might be more than a coincidence that two of her goalies were stricken with cancer, researchers have known about such potential links for years. A 2007 report by the Connecticut-based Environment & Human Health Inc. looked at several scientific studies and found definitive connections between various health problems and exposure to synthetic turf.

Environment & Human Health Inc. also reported that kids on playfields are likely to face similar risks as line workers in the rubber fabrication and reclamation industries, where they say health reports show the presence of multiple volatile organic hydrocarbons and other toxic elements in the air. “Studies at tire reclamation sites report leaching of similar sets of chemicals into the ground water,” says the group.

Yet, the city of Miami, is gung-ho on the use of artificial turf, such as they used for Armbrister Field.

When I went to the Armbrister Field Ribbon Cutting, I took note that the BRAND NEW artificial, rubberized cap over the children’s playground was already flaking. I was able to pick pieces of it up. Some of the small pieces are brightly coloured. I could easily see toddlers picking them up and putting them in their mouths, which is how toddlers sample their world.

HERE’S THE PUNCHLINE: Just as people were leaving the Douglas Park meeting someone passed out the flier at right, which looks almost exactly like the flier that called for a meeting on the toxic soil at Merrie Christmas Park.

Someone said, “Oh look. Sarnoff is holding another Dog and Pony Show.”

Someone else replied, “I hope he saved his script from the last one.”

And, this time, neither of those someones was me.

Another Charles Avenue Bad Neighbour Update

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The empty residential lots are immediately
behind the Charles Avenue Historic Marker.

One of the things the folks who live along Charles Avenue were promised was the valet parking at The Monstrosity would not increase traffic on Charles, designated a Historic Roadway.

Another thing the residents along Charles Avenue were promised is that the two empty lots on the north side of Charles Avenue, across from the E.W.F. Stirrup House (and also controlled by Aries Development) would not be used for parking.

Both of these promises are being broken on a regular basis. Worse still: The residents on Charles Avenue tell this reporter that complaining to the City of Miami has been a waste of their time.

The valets (who — I wish to stress — are innocent freelancers caught in the middle) zip in and out Charles Avenue to get to the lot behind the Coconut Grove Playhouse. Making traffic matters worse, Miami Parking Authority painting an arrow on the ground, directing traffic to an exit on Charles Avenue.

Last night, as the photo on the right depicts, cars were being parked on the empty lot behind the Charles Avenue Historic Marker. This was overflow from the 45 spaces Aries already rents from the Miami Parking Authority behind the Coconut Grove Playhouse.

In addition, I watched a valet park a car in an empty space on the Regions Bank parking lot, where there were 9 other cars parked. It is unknown what arrangements Aries Development has made with Regions Bank, but after my recent dust up with Regions, I may just ask some pointed questions the next time I go in and ask for change for the parking meter.

That all these promises are being broken is important for reasons beyond the additional parking and the traffic problems. I have been assured that the zoning on the two vacant lots across the street from the E.W.F. Stirrup House, on which cars are now being parked, are zoned residential. I’ve been further told that this is the type of zoning that can never be changed. It will always be zoned “single family.”

However, 1). This same official (speaking off the record) who also told me there would never be parking on those residential lots and, if there was, the neighbours should complain [see above]; 2). That’s exactly what everybody said about the E.W.F. Stirrup House, before Aries managed to get the zoning flipped to commercial. Just another example of of how developers get whatever they want in Miami.

TO MAKE A SHORT STORY LONGER: Before Aries Development got its rapacious, grimy hands on these two lots there were cute, little shotgun houses on each. Aries knocked them down to use these lots as a marshaling yard to build The Monstrosity. Later it, apparently defaulted on a loan it had taken out using these lots as collateral. As a result they were sold at auction. However, in a supposedly arm’s-length sale, the property appears to be back under the control of Aries Development. How does that ever happen, except illegally?

Anywho . . . it’s just another example of Aries Development being The Worst Neighbour Ever!!!

Aries Development: Bad Neighbour Or Worst Neighbour Ever?

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Gino Falsetto, the Anti-Midas

I’ve written so many times here about Gino Falsetto, that I should rename this joint The Falsetto Voice. Gino, who ran away from a string of bankrupted restaurants in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, has the Midas touch in reverse. Everything he touches turns to crap.* And now he’s working his special brand of magic on Coconut Grove.

Bad enough that he is allowing the historically designated, 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House to undergo nearly a decade of Demolition by Neglect. Now Aries Development (Gino’s front company) is allowing a much more visible property on Main Highway to go to wreck and ruin.

Earlier this year Aries Development was gifted the structure known as the Bicycle Shop on Main Highway at the far side of the Coconut Grove Playhouse parking lot. It was a complicated property swap, told more fully in the posts The Bicycle Shop The Latest In The Cultural Plunder of Coconut Grove and The Coconut Grove Playhouse Deal Begins to Unfold.

TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT: The very first thing Aries Development did was remove the roof of the Bicycle Shop. The very last thing Aries did was remove the roof of the Bicycle Shop.

See the Bicycle Shop? See the roof?

Well, not exactly. At first the Bicycle Shop was left as an open and unsecured construction site. After several complaints to the City of Miami By-Law Enforcement by this reporter, a gate was finally erected, making the construction site as secure as a 6 foot fence allows.

Incidentally, removal of the roof was allegedly done without benefit of a demolition permit, which is how Aries seems get away with a lot of skullduggery.

The Google satellite view at right shows several things. Firstly, it shows how the Bicycle Shop had a roof in the most recent snapshot. It also shows the Coconut Grove Playhouse, the large structure in the middle. Lastly, it shows how close the Bicycle Shop is to the E.W.F. Stirrup House (3242 Charles Avenue), which has been undergoing nearly a decade of Demolition by Neglect at the hands of Aries Development. So far the Bicycle Shop has ONLY undergone 10 months of Demolition by Neglect at the hands of Aries Development.

With the Farmers’ Market returning to the Coconut Grove Playhouse parking lot every Thursday, this is the structure that will greet buyers and vendors alike, and they have Gino Falsetto to thank.

Is this merely another case of Gino Falsetto hoping that Demolition by
Neglect will take care of another one of his properties so he doesn’t have to? Is this more of the same indifference to his neighbours that’s been eating
away at the E.W.F. Stirrup House for nearly a decade?

When will Aries’ neighbours finally get angry and make the City of Miami sit up and take notice? When will the City of Miami step in and FORCE Aries development to maintain and upkeep its holdings?

When will Aries Development and Gino Falsetto just do the right and proper thing, as all good neighbours should?

Here are pictures of the current state of the Bicycle Shop, taken November 1, 2014:

* Except for the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums and the restaurants on the ground floor, Calamari, La Bottega, and The Taurus. Those were made a showplace. The E.W.F. Stirrup House and the Bicycle Shop? Not so much.

Shocker!!! E.W.F. Stirrup House Plans Are Finally On File

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CLICK TO ENLARGE: This is the overall plan for the
E.W.F. Stirrup
House and Property. Charles Avenue runs
along the top and
Main Highway is the angled street at the
right. The irregular shape on the bottom half is the Grove
Gardens Residence Condominiums, known in these pages
as The
Monstrosity. To the left of that are two other buildings
belonging to The Monstrosity. What the rest of this post will
concern itself with is the 100′ x 100′ square at the top of the
plan. Of note is how this plan shows a continuous flow from
The Monstrosity through the Stirrup Property to Charles Avenue.

While there has actually
been no approval given to create one
large property from Franklin through to Charles Avenue, the
developer has already removed the 8 foot wall that once separated
the
two properties. It was done without a demolition permit, as
Aries seems to do
everything: without the proper permits.

It took a FOI request, but Not Now Silly has FINALLY acquired the plans for what Aries Development (read: Gino Falsetto) intends for the E.W.F. Stirrup House — and it’s not good!

These plans are a disaster for those who care about historical preservation. These plans do nothing to maintain the quiet, residential ambiance of Charles Avenue.

A short history lesson: Charles Avenue, originally called Evangelist Street for its many churches, was the first street in Miami. It was laid out by E.W.F. Stirrup himself, slightly off true east/west because he had no surveying tools. Charles has been designated an Historic Roadway and Stirrup’s house has been made an historic site.

Like a bookend, at the far end of Charles Avenue, is the Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery, named after E.W.F.’s childhood sweetheart. It was once the only place in Miami where Black folk could be buried. To put it simply: The history of Charles Avenue is the beginning of Miami’s history, but it also tells a story unique to this country. Because of the almost single-handed efforts of Mr. Stirrup, Coconut Grove once had the highest percentage of Black home ownership than anywhere else in this country.

These architectural plans take a figurative bulldozer to that rich legacy.

Let me state upfront, in case I’ve not made it abundantly clear in previous posts, that I am totally opposed to turning the E.W.F. Stirrup House into a Bed and Breakfast. A Bed and Breakfast does nothing to honour the legacy of Mr. Stirrup. Furthermore, these plans do nothing to honour the legacy of a Black neighbourhood that’s been
struggling since the very beginning. However, these plans do everything for Aries Development and the continued gentrification of West Grove. To truly honour Ebenezer Woodbury Franklin Stirrup, his house needs to relate to its neighbours on the west, not those in the other directions.

Plans for the E.W.F. Stirrup House have been hard to come by.

The last time this reporter spoke to anyone about plans for the E.W.F. Stirrup Property was around the time of The Great Miami Tree Massacre. Talking to the City of Miami, I learned there were no plans whatsoever on file for the E.W.F. Stirrup House. Of greater concern was that there were no plans on file to cut down the trees on the property. Miami takes its canopy seriously; more seriously than it takes its historic buildings, ironically enough. It’s illegal to cut down trees without the proper permits, which are only issued after a landscaping site plan has been submitted and approved. Because no landscaping plans had been filed, and no permits issued, the city cited and
fined the property owner* $1,000.00 per tree, or $4,000.00 total, and ordered a remediation plan.

CLICK TO ENLARGE: The landscaping plan that was approved after
the fact. This square is all we are going to concern ourselves with.

NB: A landscaping plan was eventually submitted — after the fact — which was eventually approved — after the fact — and all the fines were eventually expunged — after the fact. After all, this IS Miami, where developers get whatever they ask for.

As a result of a Freedom Of Information request, I finally have schematics of what Aries Development intends to do with the E.W.F. Stirrup Property. Gino Falsetto has been saying for years that he intends it to be a Bed and Breakfast. However, “some people say” the original promise was to turn it into a neighbourhood museum. TO BE FAIR: Another neighbourhood faction remembers it always being proposed to be a B&B. Interestingly, neither promise can be found in the City of Miami records. [However, Not Now Silly has recently been given another source of Miami documents to search. There may be more on this aspect of the development coming soon.]

As a novice in studying architectural plans, I took these to an architect who also renovates properties under historic protection. While I thought I had pure gold, I was cautioned not to put too much credence in these plans:

The plans are conceptual at this point and not yet fully compliant with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation of Historic Properties. A process needs to be initiated to designate the property properly if that has not been done yet so that it will be eligible for Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits. There is a note on the plans that the developer is seeking compliance with these Standards so that they can access federal historic tax credits and incentives as a part of the financing but there is no evidence that this process has been initiated. The process includes designation as a property individually listed on the National Register or a contributing building as part of a Historic District, then a 3-part application for the Historic Tax Credits through local, state and federal agencies.

This is the note referred to above. It’s the only thing on the entire plan that gives me any hope
that, after almost a decade of Demolition by Neglect, the developer MIGHT do the right thing.

What makes the E.W.F. Stirrup House significant? Read: Happy Birthday Coconut Grove!!! Now Honour Your Past

The E.W.F. Stirrup Property plan

A detailed explanation of the E.W.F. Stirrup property plans:

The E.W.F. Stirrup House is the irregular grey structure at the upper left. Currently, it’s the only structure on the property. It’s been undergoing nearly a decade of
Demolition by Neglect. It has still yet to be sealed from the elements and is never secured. [More about that later.]

On the plan the Stirrup House retains its current footprint. However, there is nothing in these 14 pages of plans that speak to what is intended for the renovations that need to take place inside of the house to turn it into a Bed and Breakfast and bring it up to code, while retaining its historical significance. That will remain a mystery until Aries eventually files those plans. I won’t hold my breath.

Bisecting this plan from top to bottom is a paved driveway. I have been
told this won’t be used as a driveway. I don’t believe it for one second. It’s as wide as the
front gate on Charles Avenue, a gate large enough to allow container trucks through. I do not for one minute accept the proposition that cars won’t
be parked along this driveway in the fullness of time. However, if it
pleases you to call it a footpath, who am I to disabuse you of that
silly notion?

The plan indicates a desire to build four additional ‘structures’ on the property. Five, if you include the new fountain. Let’s take them one by one:

CLICK TO ENLARGE: This drawing shows
the New Guest Suites Pavilion as it relates
to the E.W.F. Stirrup House. TO BE FAIR:
At least they are making it look as much like
a Bahamian Conch Style House as possible.

1). Immediately behind the E.W.F. Stirrup House is a brand new proposed structure. On the plans it’s labeled the “New Guest Suites Pavilion.” I’m sure when the preliminary approval was given for a Bed & Breakfast no mention was made of a separate structure on the property to hold bedrooms.That being said, the New Guest Suites Pavilion is composed of, essentially, two 22′ 2″ x 11′ hotel rooms, side by side, under the same roof, with two storage areas along the west wall.

TO BE FAIR: The New Guest Suites Pavilion have been designed to imitate the Bahamian-style Conch house architecture of some other homes in Coconut Grove.

However, these questions needs to be asked: A). Why does Aries Development need two additional guest suites to add to its Bed & Breakfast? B). Isn’t there enough room in the 2-story, historically designated, E.W.F. Stirrup House that Aries already promised to restore?

2). To the east of that structure, past the new fountain, is a small 12′ x 12′ storage shed.

While everyone always needs more storage, isn’t there any place in the 5-storey Monstrosity for storage? Why does Aries need to dump a storage shed on the Stirrup Property?

TO BE [SARCASTIC AND] FAIR: At least they are tucking it out of the way, next to the air conditioners that cool the restaurants in The Monstrosity, which were dumped on the Stirrup Property years ago. In point of fact: The Stirrup Property has always been where Aries dumped whatever it didn’t want to spoil the perfect ambiance of The Monstrosity.

3). Just north of the storage shed is an area called “Terrace” on the plans. It appears to be a large tree surrounded by 4 tables for restaurant seating. No doubt this is related to:

4). The Grill. On the drawing it is called a Parillada [sic] Grill. Not only is it misspelled, but it’s a redundancy since “parrillada” translates to “grill.”

It’s this last feature I find the most offensive, but it’s the clue that everything about this plan has been designed to line the developer’s pockets. Nothing about this plan speaks to the rich history of the original Bahamian community. To my thinking, this plan screams Rich White Hipster, while it doesn’t even whisper Black Historic Preservation.

The Parrillada Grill, as it relates to the E.W.F. Stirrup House (far
left). The floor plan is counterclockwise to actual orientation.

The drawing shows an open-air structure with a roof. Inside there appears to be everything needed for an indoor/outdoor kitchen, including what appears to be BBQ cookers, stovetops, ovens, and fridges.

Surrounding three sides of the Parrillada Grill is a waist-high counter, over which food can be served, with bar stools surrounding it.

How does a Parrillada Grill fit into the overall Charles Avenue Historic Roadway? How does adding all of these amenities to the Stirrup Property benefit the neighbours to the west? It’s clear how it benefits the bad neighbour to the south.

Not Now Silly is filled with five years worth of stories about Aries Development and Gino Falsetto. Each one demonstrates how Aries has been a bad neighbour, failing to maintain the grass on the property and demolishing the interior of the E.W.F. Stirrup House without benefit of a historic preservation plan or demolition permit. Then there’s the removal of the wall and the clear-cutting of the old trees, both also done without permits. Not just a bad neighbour, but a scofflaw besides.

If I were making the decisions, and clearly I’m not, I would refuse to allow Aries Development to expand its little empire before Gino Falsetto has made good on his original promise to RESTORE the E.W.F. Stirrup House.

Lookie: Newly sodded!!! The E.W.F. Stirrup House still ignored.

Why should Gino Falsetto be rewarded with approval for these grandiose plans to turn the E.W.F. Stirrup Property into his own personal fiefdom when he has yet to do the barest minimum to preserve the E.W.F. Stirrup House, the 2nd oldest house in Miami?

However, when Aries needs to pretend there has been some progress, it does something superficial. A few years back, in anticipation of a Charles Avenue Historic Preservation Committee meeting, it removed all of the vines growing up the back of the house and across the roof. However, in the process it destroyed parts of the house. Now that people have started sniffing around about its plans for the property, Aries laid down sod. Once again, Aries will be able to point at something and say, “See? It’s getting better.”

But, “better” would also mean that Aries is PROTECTING the house. All available evidence points to the opposite. The house has been empty and undergoing Demolition by Neglect for the entire time Aries has held the lease. Aries has yet to even seal the Stirrup House from the elements, which are extremely hard on wooden structures. Water, mold and mildew are its worst enemies and it rains here almost daily.

Front gate left open at 7:15 AM

Furthermore, Aries Development does not even secure the house or the property. This past Saturday morning, at 7:15 AM, this reporter was able to walk right in the unsecured front gate of La Bottega, one of the restaurants on the ground floor of The Monstrosity.

However, even if that front gate were left locked, the fence behind it
is only waist-high and provides no deterrent to those with nefarious
intent. [Original renderings show the waist-high fence was to be as tall as the 6′ gate.]

As I walked through the gate, I stopped several times to take pictures. I did not hide or act furtive. Nor did I rush. No one stopped me. No one challenged me. In fact, I did not see another person the entire half hour I wandered around.

Access to La Bottega’s patio seating.
The E.W.F. Stirrup House is to the right.

Once this gate is navigated, one has free access to The Stirrup Property, through the patio seating at La Bottega. It’s not just early in the morning when no one’s around. It’s all day long. When Calamari, La Bottega and The Taurus are open for business, any of their patrons can access the Stirrup Property.

And, not just patrons. Absolutely anyone. Later in the day, at around noon, I strolled in and walked past the hostess saying, “I need to use the washroom.” But I didn’t. While still within her sight lines I walked past the washrooms, through to La Bottega’s outdoor patio, to the very back of the Stirrup House. There I met a guy who worked for the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums. We had a 15 minute conversation about the house and his boss, Gino Falsetto. I think I told him that his boss is the devil incarnate, but I may have just called him evil. At no time did he ever challenge me for being there and happily engaged in conversation until I excused myself.

7:15 AM: The back door is open. At noon it was open wider.

The back door of the E.W.F. Stirrup House is never locked!!! 

It’s almost as if Aries Development doesn’t REALLY care about the E.W.F. Stirrup House. For all it knows people have been sneaking inside to sleep or smoke crack.

A developer who cares about his investment will make sure it is kept safe. A developer who doesn’t care turns a blind eye to what’s going on, with the hopes that somehow the house, an impediment to his larger plans, might just disappear when no one is looking, either by Demolition by Neglect or fire. Aries Development seems to think that proposing a white picket fence at the front of the property will make people forget nearly a decade of Demolition by Neglect.

I’m here to see that doesn’t happen.

Join the Facebook group Save the
E.W.F. Stirrup House. Let’s pressure the
city and developer to do the right thing.

[Pictured above are details of the architectural drawings. See the full documents below.]

* The property owner of record is not the rapacious developer who got his grubby mitts on a 50-year lease on the E.W.F. Stirrup House. However, whenever the lessee is delinquent in its commitment to provide upkeep on the property, it’s the owner of record which is cited and fined.

Full architectural drawings:

Where The Sidewalk Ends, Racism Begins ► Chapter Three

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CLICK to enlarge: Red lines represent streets
never built, despite being on original planning maps.

I’ve written about Marler Avenue previously (Read Part Two of Where The Sidewalk Ends, Racism Begins). However, a (not so) quick history lesson here will better help you follow today’s bouncing ball:

Marler Avenue is a street in Coconut Grove just one block long, that connects to no streets, other than Hibiscus and Plaza, the two that feed it on either end. But, Marler was never supposed to just one block long. On the earliest planning maps of Coconut Grove, Marler is shown to have 3 other access points. Plaza Street, after a slight dogleg at Marler, was supposed to have extended south past Loquat Avenue. Likewise Hibiscus was supposed to continue past Marler and connect to Hibiscus in South Grove.

When and where the land grab was codified.
The Miami News – May 11, 1984

Most egregious, however, is Marler itself. It should have continued westward to connect to 37th, aka Douglas Road. However, the Loquatians (as those on Loquat call themselves), who lived along that stretch backing up onto Marler west of Plaza, just extended their backyards into the right of way, closing off direct access to Douglas. When, years later, the City of Miami figured out these White homeowners illegally squatted on city land, it chose to ‘grandfather’ the illegal land seizure, tax the larger parcels, and allow the building of a gated community — St. Hugh Oak — on the west end. However, no one seems to have considered what practical effect this might have.

The removal of these three lines on the street grid had an intended effect. It closed off Black Grove from White Grove. That this hemming in of Marler Avenue was Racism in Action is not even in dispute. It’s just a small part of the history of Race Relations (or lack thereof) in Coconut Grove that I’ve discovered since I began my research on E.W.F. Stirrup.

CLICK to enlarge: A 1947 planning map show
the three streets that were, eventually, never built.

I was alerted to Marler Avenue in an article in the Miami New Times called The Wall and have been fascinated by it ever since. I visit Marler as often as I do the E.W.F. Stirrup House, whenever I am in Coconut Grove. I have become such a fixture that neighbours invite me onto their porches for tea. I’ve been told of their struggles keeping children on the straight and narrow. Conversely, others have railed against cops at the new(ish) Miami police substation in Coconut Grove, because they treat all the kids alike, the good ones as well as the bad. Pastor Edmond Stringer, of Sweetfield Baptist Church on the corner of Marler and Plaza, proudly gave me a tour of his simple place of worship, telling me about the few pastors who preceded him and showing me their pictures.

The point I’m trying to make is I am no longer a stranger on Marler Avenue. The folks along the street approach me, freely sharing information, whereas they are, more often than not, wary of White folk who come ’round asking questions about race relations in Coconut Grove.

When Google Maps stands at the corner of Marler Avenue and Plaza Street
looking east, it can see THE WALL on the right, with the Sweetfield Baptist
Church on the far left. This is how THE WALL looked until this week.

One of the more interesting aspects of this short street, once you get over the whole racial angle that hemmed it in on all sides, is Marler Avenue only has one side to the street. Every house on Marler faces The Wall, which is set back about 4 feet from the curb. On the other side of this wall are the backyards of the houses on Loquat. In the most literal sense White Coconut Grove turned its back on Black Coconut Grove decades ago and never the twain shall meet.

And this is how it has been for the residents on Marler Avenue almost as long as anyone can remember. Until this week!!!

Not only did they bump out the wall, but stole one of
the trees. I wonder why they didn’t just take them all.

On Saturday I cruised along Marler Avenue and saw a work crew with a small CAT bulldozer with a pneumatic drill on the end. Wondering what was going on, I pulled over. When the work crew started up the drill, one of the White family came out to see what was going on as well. We talked for a minute or two. I told him it appeared as if they were moving the fence to abut the the curb, Mr. White assured me that would never happen, as that would be illegal.

Guess what I found when I went back yesterday, dear readers? I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.

For reasons that are, as yet, unexplained. A property owner decided to bump out a portion of their backyard 4 feet. Originally there was a never-used gate there. However, because there is a tree there, it would have been useless to pull a car in and out. The gate section was moved east a few fence posts, which would allow for a car to go in and out. That part of ‘fixing’ the fence makes perfect sense. What makes no sense whatsoever (as yet) is this bump out.

Here’s a Google Maps image from March 2014. Note the new
garage [above left] that is not in this picture. I wonder if they
got a building permit for that structure.

How is this any different to the land grab made decades ago along the western extension of Marler Avenue? That was eventually forgiven, codified and part of it turned into a gated community.

As soon as I saw this bump out I went to talk to Mr. White. No one was home, so left a note and scooted over to Loquat to see which house owner decided he was entitled to more land than they purchased.

However, I need to stress this: the word “scooted” is a misnomer. Even though I was only a few dozen or so feet away from this house, the only way I could get to it is drive west on Marler, north on Plaza, west on Franklin, out to Douglas Avenue, make a left, drive one block south to Loquat — past the gated community of St Hugh Oaks — make another left and drive along Loquat, a number of houses past what once might have been the southern leg of Plaza Street. When I got there I realized I could have walked it easier through the Plaza Path. [See Part Two of Where The Sidewalk Ends, Racism Begins for a full explanation of the Plaza Path.]

While taking a picture of the house (really a duplex, two low-slung units side by side) I got a call from a different Mr. White, who lives with his brother. Having got my note, he saw the bumped out portion of the wall I referenced and called right away. Even though he was only a few dozen or so feet away from me,  I had to totally reverse the trip described above. Because it was afternoon rush hour, and Douglas is such a thoroughfare and hard to turn onto, I told him I’d be by in 3 minutes. Had I not been illegally parked on Loquat I would have walked.

Mr. White had not noticed the change in the wall until he read my note and looked across the street. He assured me he would tell his brother about my latest visit. After that we talked generally about Coconut Grove history, the systemic racism, the E.W.F. Stirrup House and the Not Now Silly Newsroom. Or, rather, I did. However, for me the biggest thrill of meeting the White Brothers over the last few days is that, vicariously, I knew their father.

That article I mentioned way up there, The Wall, in Miami New Times; the article that led me to care about Marler Avenue, begins:

When David White was a boy back in the 1930s, he and his family used to walk the three blocks from their one-story house in the Bahamian section of Coconut Grove to Plymouth Congregational Church in the white neighborhood, just through the trees to the south. The Whites’ house was on the middle of the block on Marler Avenue, which shared a tree line with that wealthier white area. From their front yard the Whites would meander a half-block to the end of Marler Avenue, then turn right onto a footpath that led to Hibiscus Street, which was then a dirt road. Two blocks more would bring them to Plymouth. For decades the majestic coral stone church was the only racially integrated house of worship in Dade County; it still towers over Main Highway.

In those days residents of the Bahamian Grove, now known as the black Grove, routinely walked to and from the white neighborhood — the adults to work, the children to play. White’s parents, who moved to Coconut Grove from the Bahamian island of Eleuthera in 1901, were no exception. His father worked as a gardener and his mother as a maid. As a young man David also worked as a gardener and made the same brief commute, on foot, as his father.

White and his wife Tessie still live on Marler Avenue, in a house next to the one he was born in. But nowadays he would have to climb a ten-foot chainlink fenced topped with strands of barbed wire to take that first right onto Hibiscus Street into the predominantly white section. Not too easy for a 66-year-old retired public school administrator who is moving kind of slow these days.

At the very least, it seems I made some new friends on Marler Avenue and at least one enemy on Loquat.