Tag Archives: Coconut Grove Playhouse

Does The White Hand Know What The Left Hand Is Doing?

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At the east end of Charles Avenue in Coconut Grove, Florida are two festering, open wounds: The Coconut Grove Playhouse and the E.W.F. Stirrup House.

I’ve written extensively about the historic 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House, but far less about the 86-year old Coconut Grove Playhouse. In the beginning, despite them being catercorner from each other, I assumed they were two separate stories. My focus has always been in saving the E.W.F. Stirrup House, so I just put the Playhouse out of my mind. I concentrated on learning everything I could about the E.W.F. Stirrup House and Mr. Stirrup’s amazing legacy.

That the Coconut Grove Playhouse was undergoing the exact same kind of Demolition by Neglect as the Stirrup House, seemed like a bizarre coincidence. However, through my research I’ve come to realize two things: 1). Many of the same people are involved in both the Stirrup House and the Playhouse; 2). There are no coincidences in multimillion dollar real estate deals.

While the same rapacious developer claims effective control of both properties — and the same I’ll-do-anything-for-any-developer-City-of-Miami-Commissioner appears poised to help any way he can — something far more important connects the Coconut Grove Playhouse and Mr. E.W.F. Stirrup.

History is complicated: In the years just before Miami annexed the sleepy little village, the power-brokers of early Coconut Grove (read: White folk) drew up the Bright Plan, an ambitious building project that would have transformed the downtown area with Mediterranean-style fountains, a Mediterranean-style town hall, and a large golf course. Nothing ever came of the Bright Plan because the bottom dropped out of the Florida real estate market and Miami annexed Coconut Grove. However, one building from the Bright Plan was actually built: The Coconut Grove Playhouse, hence the faux Mediterranean-style architecture. E.W.F. Stirrup may have felt it was worth selling off a sizable plot of land (of what had traditionally been the Black Grove) to bring culture to Coconut Grove.

Mr. Stirrup had to walk less than 250 feet from his front door to the box office of the Playhouse. I wonder, as I always do in cases like this, whether Mr. Stirrup was allowed to go inside the movie theater he allowed to be built. Movie theaters in those days, if they allowed Black folk at all, were strictly segregated. Black seating tended to be in the upper balconies. I have yet to find the information that would answer these questions for the Coconut Grove Playhouse, but it’s interesting to speculate based on what is known about the period.

White hand, Black hand; Left hand, Right hand

Members of the Coconut Grove Chamber of Commerce in front of the
Coconut Grove Playhouse, 1946, when the building was already 20 years old.

Tonight the right hand and the left hand might as well be in two separate time zones. At 6:00 PM, in White Coconut Grove, Richard Heisenbottle will be presenting architectural drawings of a renovated Coconut Grove Playhouse at a private yacht club. Heisenbottle is well-known for his historic renovation work, which includes the Trapp Homestead in Coconut Grove. Heisenbottle also took part in a Coconut Grove Playhouse Charrette of several years back. No telling whether these designs sprung out of the charrette or are wholly new designs and ideas for the site.

Almost as if there is a competition, at 7:00 PM, in Black Coconut Grove, the Charles Avenue Historic Preservation Committee meets. Among the topics that will hopefully come up at that meeting are the E.W.F. Stirrup House and historic design elements for the Charles Avenue Historic Designation Roadway, a title the street picked up last year.

There’s just one problem: The Coconut Grove Playhouse and the E.W.F. Stirrup House are both on Charles Avenue. These two historic community resources have to be part of the same holistic vision in order to save the unique character of West Grove. However, that will never happen if these groups don’t start talking to each other. The Playhouse people seemed unaware of the Charles Avenue Historic Preservation meeting and the Charles Avenue Preservation people were unaware of the Playhouse meeting.  

IRONY ALERT: The Coconut Grove Village Council was unaware of both meetings. It’s been a well-established pattern for the City of Miami to keep the Coconut Grove Village Council in the dark. It didn’t learn about Trolleygate until the ground had already been broken and the foundation poured. Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff admitted to purposely making an end run around the Village Council during Trolleygate, and that wasn’t the first time either.

Looking west along Charles Avenue from the back of the Coconut Grove Playhouse. The Charles Avenue historical marker is on the right and the stately, 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House on the left.

Coconut Grove could become the jewel of south Florida, if only the Right Hand knew what the Left Hand was doing and if only the White Hand knew what the Black hand was doing. I’m learning that Coconut Grove is just segregated that way, the way it has always been.

Inside The E.W.F. Stirrup House ► Before and After

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The E.W.F. Stirrup House on February 22, 2013

I’ve been documenting the E.W.F. Stirrup House since July of 2009, during which time I have researched its rich 120-year old history. In those 4 years absolutely nothing has changed. The house has been allowed to undergo Demolition by Neglect, while the developer that controls the property has done nothing to preserve this architectural jewel. In this follow-up to my recent blog post The E.W.F. Stirrup House ► Before and After, I get back inside the E.W.F. Stirrup House.

Anticipation of Wednesday’s upcoming Charles Avenue Historic Preservation meeting must have rapacious developer Gino Falsetto scrambling to give the appearance that he actually cares about historic preservation. It would be most awkward if, at Wednesday’s meeting, anyone questions whether his stewardship of one of Coconut Grove’s historic landmarks has been a monumental 8-year mistake, even if it has been.

After the vines were ripped away. This is what
happens when a community asset is ignored
for 8 years. February 22, 2013

Efforts this past week to ‘pretty up’ the property — by cutting back the plant growth that has had 8 years to attack the house — is the
equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. When you’ve allowed a house to
rot for 8 years without even bothering to seal the windows from the
elements, anything done now is only being done for purely cosmetic
reasons. IRONY ALERT: When Falsetto’s work crew indiscriminately ripped out the vines that
had been allowed to penetrate the house, it exposed the damage Falsetto’s 8-year control of the E.W.F. Stirrup House has wrought.

“Some people say” my blog posts have placed Falsetto in an uncomfortable position. Until I happened along, his real estate manipulations were hidden in plain sight. However, as I researched the long history of the E.W.F. Stirrup House, I couldn’t help but learn why the house has been empty for these past 8 years. Posting my research (as I discover it) has built up an awareness in the local community and a trust in my reporting. Community leaders in West Grove were unaware of some of the history I’ve uncovered. Now they come to me for accurate information about the Stirrup House.

Even the immediate neighbours of the E.W.F. Stirrup House are slowly coming to the realization they were hoodwinked 8 years ago. The developer of the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums promised to save the E.W.F. Stirrup House. No one recalls anyone ever mentioning a Bed and Breakfast at the time. Yet, with the help of Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff, Aries Development (aka Gino Falsetto) was able to get a change of zoning for the Stirrup House to Commercial from Residential. This only happened within the last year. That couldn’t have been what was proposed 8 years ago, could it? If so, why did it take so long?

What about the inside of the house? 

I’ve now been lucky enough to get INSIDE the E.W.F. Stirrup House on 2 separate occasions. The first time was August 17, 2012 and just last Friday, February 22, 2013. In the post Unpacking Coconut Grove ► Part Four ► Open Houses and Broken Laws, I documented how (allegedly) illegal demolition work was being done inside the Stirrup House without benefit of a building permit.

The inside of the house on Friday proved that Falsetto learned nothing from my earlier post. He continued to have (allegedly) illegal demolition work done inside the house without having a proper building permit issued by the City of Miami. There was a bathroom on the second floor in August. It has since disappeared. It’s just another example of Gino Falsetto getting away with something in plain sight.

BEFORE – August 17, 2012:

No one is claiming it was an attractive bathroom
and, to be fair, it would have had to come out anyway.

AFTER – February 22, 2013:

And, poof, it’s gone. No building permits were harmed, or issued, during the making of this documentary.

Not obtaining a building permit is just more proof that Gino Falsetto feels the rules are for other people, not himself. I have already documented how he left a string of bankruptcies behind in Ottawa, Ontario. Stiffing the Canadian taxpayers may very well have been how he was able to financially insinuate himself in the Miami real estate market as a player. That takes big money.

However, Gino Falsetto seems to have a pattern of turning his bankruptcies into his own financial gain. Furthermore, not all his schemes seem to be 100% legal. Two posts by an anonymous blogger, if true, appear to show that Gino Falsetto made out like a bandit — both literally and figuratively — on another one of his foreclosures:

Gino Falsetto (1) developed the Grove Garden Residences condominium in Miami’s Coconut Grove.

With his eyes on the financially strapped, closed Coconut Grove Playhouse for acquisition and development into a commercial complex, he aimed for the two vacant lots behind the theater. These two lots totaling 10,620 square feet, zoned single-family residential are located at 3227 and 3247 Charles Avenue in Coconut Grove.

The deal sounds wonderful. The sellers of the two lots took title to two Grove Garden Residences condo units which financial whiz Gino valued at $500,000 each — that’s one million dollars for two overgrown lots that generate no income, not even legitimate parking fees.

Gino Falsetto (2) is now the proud owner of real estate abutting the Coconut Grove Playhouse and promptly secures a $700,000 mortgage loan. After all, the two lots overgrown with weeds are worth a million smackers. Right?

What about the bank? They want to get their money back, don’t they? But Gino Falsetto didn’t repay and the bank initiated foreclosure proceeding just 21 months after they had filled Gino’s pockets with $700,000.

Gino Falsetto didn’t put up a fight and didn’t deliver an offer to make good on his loan obligation. Why should he? Gino’s no fool. The judge handed down a final judgment of $720,546.28; and the two empty lots were picked up by Pierre Heafey (3) for $200,100 in the foreclosure auction.

Just nine months later, Pierre Heafey sold the property to Gino Falsetto (4) with a quitclaim deed for $215,800. Please note, it’s now a different company that owns the property. Is it to fool the creditor, the bank that handed Gino $700,000 and got back $200,100? Does the IRS not tax such windfall profits? Perhaps they don’t know what’s happening here.

That reads like a real estate scam to me, but what do I know? I am new to the world of high finance where all these sleazebags do business. Maybe there’s a legitimate way for Gino Falsetto to default on a property, yet still wind up owning it. But I doubt it.

Remember: This is the man that has effective control over the E.W.F. Stirrup House, the two vacant lots across the street, the Coconut Grove Playhouse, the Taurus Bar, Calamari’s, the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums and, quite possibly, Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff. In fact, Gino Falsetto has managed to gain control of every property surrounding the Stirrup House, except for the Regions Bank on the corner and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn he’s got an offer to buy that as well.

But what about the rest of the inside of the house already?

Most of the changes inside the Stirrup House seemed superficial to this reporter. However, a subsequent interview with a developer disabused me of that notion. The whole reason there is a requirement for a building permit is to ensure that all demolition, not to mention renovation, conforms to Miami’s historic preservation laws. IRONY ALERT II: What’s been done inside the E.W.F. Stirrup House so far might not only contravene City of Miami by-laws, but also go against the standards established by very people gathering this Wednesday at the Charles Avenue Historic Preservation meeting, of which Gino Falsetto is listed as an “historic asset.” You can’t make this stuff up, people.

Meanwhile, all the junk cluttering the rooms seen in my previous post has been removed. Except for various doors, and a very small pile of construction materials (which might even get used if there is ever any construction), every bit of crap that had called the E.W.F. Stirrup House home has been removed. That’s progress of a sort, I guess. But it’s not a lot to show for 8 years of stewardship.

Read Part One of this two part series: The E.W.F. Stirrup House ► Before and After

All my posts on the E.W.F. Stirrup House can be found at Unpacking Coconut Grove ► A Compendium.

What follows is a small gallery of pics, all taken on February 22nd. They can be compared at your leisure to those taken last August. How much history has been destroyed is anybody’s guess.

Is Marc D. Sarnoff Corrupt Or The Most Corrupt Miami Politician?

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His Excellency
Marc D. Sarnoff

In researching the long history of the E.W.F. Stirrup House, one name that never came up was Marc D. Sarnoff, unofficial Emperor of Coconut Grove. 

However, that changed once I started investigating the current state of Coconut Grove. The name “Marc D. Sarnoff” started cropping up with some regularity. The more I uncovered of Gino Falsetto‘s real estate deals, the more I saw the Sarnoff name. When I
started looking into the Coconut Grove Playhouse, I encountered the
Sarnoff name again. It didn’t matter where I turned, Sarnoff always
seemed to be RIGHT THERE. On one level that’s not surprising; Sarnoff is the Commissioner for Miami’s District 2, which takes in Coconut Grove. 

However, it was how his name kept coming up that intrigued the journalist in me. Whenever I read about a new development, I would read about how Marc D. Sarnoff was supporting it, often against neighbours’ objections. The Sarnoff name also came up often when interviewing people on deep background about the history of the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums behind the E.W.F. Stirrup House in Coconut Grove. The prevailing opinion seems to be that if you are a developer, Marc Sarnoff is on your side. If you live in White Coconut Grove, Marc Sarnoff can be your best friend. If you live in Black Coconut Grove, Marc Sarnoff is the invisible man.

Nothing illustrates this better than last week’s hastily scheduled Town Hall meeting on Trolleygate. Sarnoff only called for this community meeting once the shit hit the fan, not when this diesel bus garage was still on paper. Trolleygate can be a complicated story if one gets too deeply into the weeds. However, clearing away the clutter — and narrowing the focus to a single issue — it is easier to see what’s at stake. In a nutshell:

Diesel bus disguised
as an old-tyme trolley.

On one hand: Marc Sarnoff claims Astor Development complied with all legal requirements and had every right to build a diesel bus garage in the middle of West Grove. 


On the other hand: Lawyers for West Grove say that the Miami21 Plan specifically prohibits a “government vehicle maintenance facility” along Douglas; therefore, building permits never should have been issued. 

They both can’t be right.

True to form, residents say, Sarnoff couldn’t be bothered to look for any reasons to deny a developer, even though West Grove lawyers say many exist. The courts will now sort this mess out, at a cost to all Miami taxpayers (the West Grove lawyers are working pro bono). However, Sarnoff clearly thought his time and energy would be better spent working with the developer, as opposed to the neighbourhood groups that came out against the diesel bus garage.

By his own admission: Once he decided that Astor had every right to build a diesel bus garage on Douglas, that’s when Super Sarnoff sprang into action to get the best possible deal for the neighbourhood. To that end, he claims, he convinced the developer to change the exterior of the building to give the diesel bus garage a Bahamian feel. Sarnoff also claimed that he convinced Astor to donate $200,000 to improve the football field at Armbrister Park. Sarnoff insists the developer did this because “[t]his particular developer, his wife is very charitable. He’s very charitable,” according to what he told the Miami Herald. Of course, it has nothing to do with the fact that Astor Development stands to make several millions of dollars developing the current diesel bus garage property in Coral Gables.

Google Street View showing 3 of the 4 tax-paying buildings along Douglas Road (at Oak Avenue) destroyed to make way for the Coral Gables diesel bus garage, which won’t be paying taxes. Nor will the buses be picking up passengers in Black West Grove. That might allow them to get to Coral Gables, which is 98% White.

West Grove neighbours describe Sarnoff’s bad faith:

But
residents say when he encountered opposition, Sarnoff simply moved on
to another group. In April, he attended a meeting of the Coconut Grove
Ministerial Alliance and, in October, a gathering of football coaches at
Armbrister Park, according to those in attendance.

“He wanted us
to say it was a good project and we were behind it, considering they
were going to renovate the playing facility,” said Rondy Powell, a coach
at the park for 20 years. “I kind of figured when they came, it was
kind of like a back-room deal.”

An artist’s view of Bahamian-influenced diesel
bus garage on the same corner of Douglas and Oak.

If I were Marc Sarnoff’s Day Timer, I would know how much time Marc Sarnoff spent on Trolleygate, both before and after it became a controversial project. I would also know how much time Sarnoff spent negotiating with Astor Development and how much time was spent negotiating with West Grove residents. However, maybe Marc Sarnoff doesn’t put down all his meetings with developers in his Day Timer because the most often used adjective when discussing Marc D. Sarnoff appears to be “corrupt.” 


How long has Marc Sarnoff been corrupt?

That’s up for debate. According to Sarnoff’s own biography at the City of Miami web site, bad grammar and all:

In 1987 I made the big move to paradise: Miami. I settled in Coconut Grove and established my practice as an Aviation Attorney, specializing in representing passengers’ families and airline staff, and pilots, who were wrongfully killed or suffered life threatening injuries in airline crashes. In 1991 I had the honor of representing Eugene Hasenfus, the former Marine whose C123 Maulewas shot down over Nicaragua while delivering guns to the Contras. I also had the honor of representing, Kassenee Sawyer, who was the widow of the pilot in the Hasenfus plane. For those too young to know, this downing was the beginning of the Iran Contra Affair.

While I think we can all agree that even the worst criminals deserve a defense, this was not a defense. Hasenfus was suing because, after he got caught, his CIA handlers and the government cut him loose. Regardless, Sarnoff seems inordinately proud of his association with the criminal Hasenfus, who was serving a 30-year sentence before being pardoned by Nicaurguan President Daniel Ortega. I wonder why Sarnoff doesn’t mention that he lost that case. 

It might not be a good idea to put much credence in Sarnoff’s official biography. It used to be longer, but he was forced to remove the section where he claimed General David Sarnoff was his grandfather, after the real Sarnoff family said it wasn’t true. 

Then there’s the Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park and Traffic Circle

The Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park and Traffic Circle can be seen from space.

If you are one of those North Grove residents lucky enough to live near His Excellency Marc D. Sarnoff, then you will have no doubt seen your property values rise due to improvements right across the street from where he lives, and used to do business. According to recent reports the city is spending ANOTHER $190,000 on Blanche Park (that’s the name of the Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park on paper, but the dogs know who to thank). The bulk of this cost is to replace the grass with astroturf. Back in my day dogs shit on the grass and liked it.

The Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park
Photo by author Feb 6, 2013

How was Marc Sarnoff able to take a small park dedicated entirely to children and turn 2/3rds of it over to dogs? No one is quite sure because all the formalities seem to have not been followed. The same way that no one is quite sure how The Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Traffic Circle circle came to be located in the middle of the intersection of Shipping Avenue and Virginia Street, right next to the Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park. When you’re the Emperor of Coconut Grove good things drop into your neighbourhood, just like a real life version of Sim City. This will be the third time good money has been thrown after bad; Blanche Park appears to undergo regular upgrades. 

Illegal offices and bar closing hours

The Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park
Feb 6, 2013

To be fair: it’s just within the realm of possibility, of course, that Sarnoff’s corner really needed a traffic circle. Any increased traffic, however, might have been due to Sarnoff’s illegal law office, located right next to his residence. And, from beginning to end, the story of the illegal law office provides another taste of Sarnoff Scandal.

That Sarnoff had an illegal law office appears to have been an open secret. While references can be found to it on blog comment threads, the home office was never reported to the City of Miami until Coconut Grove bar owner John El-Masry decided to exact a little revenge on Sarnoff. El-Masry, owner of Mr. Moe’s, was angry because Marc Sarnoff had rammed through a new law, which only affected bar closing hours in Coconut Grove. Whereas bars in the City of Miami could stay open until 5AM, suddenly all bars in “Center Grove” were forced to close at 3AM. An active nightlife in downtown Coconut Grove dried up overnight. In addition to launching a lawsuit against the city, El-Masry reported Sarnoff’s illegal law office to City of Miami staff. City of Miami staff promptly ignored the complaint, tipping off Sarnoff in the process. 

Possibly the Miami Department of Code Enforcement viewed Sarnoff as their boss and didn’t want to rattle any cages at City Hall. However, long-time-Sarnoff foe and Miami Muckraker Al Crespo wasn’t going to let the complaint go, and neither was (then) Coconut Grove Village Councilor Stephen Murray. In a letter to City Manager Carlos Migoya, dated August 31, 2010, Murray reminded the city manager of his duty:

I understand you are a public service rookie, so I’d like to take the time to explain something critical to you. Unlike in the private sector, where you have a clear-cut executive, Board of Directors, and stockholders who need to be answered to, as the City Manager you are a public servant. A public servant has one real boss – the public. You, as a public servant, took an oath to protect the residents of the City of Miami. You did not take an oath to allow yourself nor your subordinates to protect crooked politicians who believe they are above the law.

When I recently asked Stephen Murray if he would go on record for this article, Murray replied:

The only on the record thing worth saying is the following: “Commissioner Sarnoff is a scumbag corrupt piece of shit that doesn’t give two fucks about the people of the West Grove.”

It’s easy to find people who agree with that assessment, especially these days. 

Sarnoff eventually moved his illegal office and Mr. Moe’s eventually won its lawsuit against the city, which was forced to fork over $10,000 of taxpayer money to cover the costs of El-Masry’s lawsuit. Mr. Moe’s remains the only bar in “Center Grove” allowed to stay open until 5AM.

The calm before the meeting. Sarnoff preparing
to meet with the community on Trolleygate.

Dog parks. Traffic circles. Bar hours. Illegal offices. This shows how much power Commissioner Sarnoff wields in Coconut Grove, power that he’s not afraid to use openly to his own benefit. While Sarnoff controls just about everything that happens in the Grove, he claims there is no way he could have stopped the building of the Trolleygate garage.


My first Sarnoff encounter

As mentioned above, the name Marc D. Sarnoff kept popping up once I started investigating the recent history of the E.W.F. Stirrup House. According to (unconfirmed) reports Sarnoff worked closely with Aries Developers, and owner Gino Falsetto, in getting the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums built. This apparently included meetings and accommodations by the developer to mollify neighbourhood concerns. One of those concerns was what would happen to the historic 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House, which would be dwarfed by the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums. Whatever promises were made by Gino Falsetto and Aries Developers concerning the Stirrup House, to both the neighbourhood and Commissioner Sarnoff were broken. [See my ongoing series on the E.W.F. Stirrup House.]

This explains why Marc D. Sarnoff was already on the very periphery of my radar. That all changed a few weeks ago while I was interviewing a West Grove resident about the E.W.F. Stirrup House and Sarnoff’s name came up again. The resident asked, “Did you hear what he did this time?” While he described the broad outline of Trolleygate to me, the story sounded very similar to what had happened with the E.W.F. Stirrup House (Stirrupgate?): A redevelopment project is proposed, neighbours complain, Sarnoff steps in to help the developer, in the end the developer gets what it wants, the immediate neighbours get the shaft.

Trolleygate diesel bus garage; Feb. 6, 2013

I discounted this story almost immediately. While the pattern sounded familiar to what I had discovered in my E.W.F. Stirrup research — not to mention my research into the Coconut Grove Playhouse — I thought, “No one can be that nakedly stupid, can they?”

However, after a few hours of working the phones, the answer came back “YES!” Commissioner Marc Sarnoff is stupid enough to use the same tactics to, once again, help a developer and screw the neighbourhood he represents. That’s when I decided to go to the emergency Town Hall meeting, which I describe it in my previous post The Trolleygate Dog and Pony Show. However, it was only after watching Sarnoff’s performance at that meeting that I decided I needed to do some research on Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff. I fired up the Googlizer and it’s not a pretty picture. Each headline just makes you want to shake your head that Sarnoff was ever reelected.

View of Trolleygate diesel bus garage from
its closest neighbour’s backyard; Feb. 6, 2013

My favourite two headlines are Marc Sarnoff: ‘Reid Welch Called Me a Cop Cock Sucker!’ and Marc Sarnoff (Allegedly) Told Reid Welch: ‘I’ll Kill You!’ These were just two of the dozens of headlines that arose out of a bizarre incident adjacent to the Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park, just across the street from the Sarnoff’s residence.

I’m the first to admit there are two sides to every story. One side says the Commissioner jumped into his metaphorical phone booth, changed into Super Sarnoff, and flew into action, saving a neighbour lady from imminent harm. This is countered by the actual police report and the witness statements, which tell a very different story than the one Sarnoff told. In fact, witnesses allege Sarnoff sucker-punched Reid. Francisco Alvarado, of Miami New Times, makes the undeniable point:

Call us crazy. But if two people saw Banana Republican approach someone, sucker punch him or her, and then pin our victim to the ground, chances are we’d be taking a ride down to Miami-Dade County jail. In fact, any Joe Schmo would have been arrested for assault or battery. But Marc Sarnoff is no regular citizen. He is a Miami city commissioner who has apparently gotten away with beating up his former pal and current nemesis, Reid Welch. 

Sarnoff was never charged in that incident. However, it’s almost as if the Sarnoff Beat is a full time job for Alvarado. Among other stories he’s written about Sarnoff:

Some other random headlines I discovered include some other random Sarnoff scandals:

Cast of Burn Notice. Left to right: Sharon Gless as Madeline
Westen, Bruce Campbell as Sam Axe, Jeffrey Donovan
as Michael Westen, Gabrielle Anwar as Fiona Glenanne.

And, don’t even get me started on Sarnoff’s whacky intervention in the “Burn Notice” lease, which produced weeks of international headlines. The USA Network’s hit show is shot in Coconut Grove and uses the former Convention Center (where Jim Morrison whipped it out) for its production offices. The controversy that Sarnoff instigated, not the Commission, made Miami look small-time and bush league. More specifically Marc D. Sarnoff came off like an uninformed jerk. He even attempted to write the last “Burn Notice” episode. The producers were forced to explain to him, slowly I assume, that they don’t really blow shit up on tee vee when they blow shit up on tee vee. Consequently, Burn Notice wouldn’t accommodate the city and blow up the Convention Center for the show’s finale.

To his credit, Sarnoff was able to squeeze more money out of “Burn Notice.” I’m sure it felt more like extortion on the other end. Why would any other Hollywood production want to locate in Miami if this is the treatment they get? Especially since the weather is not local to Coconut Grove.

Developers Win; Miami Taxpayers Lose

Everywhere you look it appears Sarnoff is acting against the best interests of his constituents and in the best interests of developers. And, in the end, it always seems to cost Miami taxpayers money to support the developer. Take Trolleygate, f’rinstance. Miami taxpayers have already footed the bill for the environmental study produced to justify building the diesel bus garage; a study ordered after the emergency Town Hall meeting had been called. Miami taxpayers also footed the bill for the preparation of Sarnoff’s part of the Trolleygate Dog and Pony Show in which he defended himself against charges from West Grove residents that he doesn’t do anything for them. There are also the various costs associated with holding an emergency Town Hall meeting, from the many police officers who were in attendance to the several City Hall employees who seemed to be there to run the fancy slide show. The biggest expense is yet to come. Now Miami taxpayers have the privilege of paying lawyers to defend Astor Development against the lawsuit launched by West Grove residents.

Meanwhile, Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff is free to befriend new developers and to create more mischief.

Welcome Back Coconut Grove Grapevine

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Despite my minor feud with Tom Falco, it was with great interest that I noted that he’s fired up the Coconut Grove Grapevine again. For those not paying attention, Falco wrote back in September: 


I have decided to end the Grapevine, but maybe not totally end it, I don’t know yet. What I am doing is stopping daily publication for now, only because I feel that I have other things I need to do and I believe that you physically have to shut one door to have another door open. I want to immerse myself into the cartooning world and so that is what I am going to do. I plan on traveling often, my first trip is to New York for the New York Comic Con, where I can mix and mingle and pick up tricks from other cartoonists. I need to promote myself and my comic, Tomversation, full time. While I bought a 4-day pass, I was also given a press pass, so I will be covering the event for publication, maybe for the Huffington Post.

I could keep the Grapevine up and running, but not on a daily basis, but I feel that would be doing it in a half-assed way. I don’t want to do that. I have tried hiring photographers and writers but it doesn’t seem to work. So rather than run the thing into the ground, I will take this break, most likely it will be final, but I am a Gemini and I change my mind often, so maybe I’ll start it up again in a few months, we’ll see. [Editor’s note: That’s a hell of a run-on sentence, Tom.] There are almost 9000 stories here believe it or not, all done in the 7.5 years we’ve been up and running, so you can always go back into the archives and have a laugh or two if you feel like it. [And, again.]

Tomversation, Falco’s cartooning site,
is also part of his vast publishing empire.

However, 4 months later comes word that it’s all been a terrible dream and Bobby was just in the shower for the season. The other day Coconut Grove Grapevine announced:

I’m a bit rusty, but I am thinking of returning to the Grapevine. Why? I need the money. My business has been floundering, like many in this economy, I assume, and I am stopped daily, literally daily, on the street, and asked by people to come back. [Same Ed. note] I am thinking of doing so, but with some changes.

One big change — no politics. I don’t want to get back into that. I really don’t I never enjoyed that part of it and sort of got sucked in years ago and never got out. Most people who stop me on the street tell me they want news but news of what’s going on around the village, you know, what’s new? what’s coming in, what’s going out, etc. I’ll do that. I will also cover events and such, but this is going to be a money making venture now. In the past, I had ads, but 99% of those ads were not paid for.

I’ve been cheated by people, one prominent restaurant still owes me lots of money, oh wait, I said I wouldn’t go there. But most of the ads were friends or trades or things like that. I didn’t make money in the past. I honestly didn’t. Now I plan to make money. I am going to charge for coverage.

No politics? That’s really a damned shame, Tom. As I have been trying to get you to understand since we first made contact, you have (had?) a strong voice in the community and could use it for good. When you gave my blog just ONE mention, I received 122 visits from your readers. That’s still the largest referring URL to my blog (discounting my own front page). That’s a testament to the influence you have (had?).

And it’s not like there are no serious political issues to explore in Coconut Grove, Tom. Certainly the E.W.F. Stirrup House (my own pet project) is one. The Coconut Grove Playhouse is another. That Marc D. Sarnoff runs Coconut Grove like an Imperial and Imperious Emperor is another. You almost touched on politics this morning when you mentioned Emperor Marc Sarnoff’s upcoming meeting on Trolleygate. You’re really missing a trick here, Tom. Trolleygate is a scandal that’s tailor-made for a good muck-raking journalist working for the interests of ALL the people of Coconut Grove. Too bad you aren’t that guy. Hopefully, someone will come along and take up the mantle of Coconut Grove Muckraker, but it won’t be me. I am too far removed geographically from the Grove to do an adequate job, as much as I have fallen in love with the West Grove and would love to be that guy.

SPOILER ALERT: However, I will tackle Trolleygate, Tom, so stay tuned for my new series on the so-called Trolley Garage. Overall it will be about the wisdom of putting a mechanical garage for diesel buses smack dab in the middle of a residential neighbourhood that’s trying to rehab itself with several urban renewal projects — literally — on the drawing boards pending approval. It’s a story I will be able to use to prove my original thesis about Coconut Grove: That its curious development over the years, from Mariah Brown right up to today, is the result of systemic racism. Same as it ever was.

IRONY ALERT: During my previous criticism of the Coconut Grove Grapevine I accused Tom Falco of only writing about topics that would help his bottom line, such as stores in the Grove and community events with an advertising budget. I also accused him of not writing about topics that might hurt his bottom line. F’rinstance, as just one example: writing about the Coconut Grove Playhouse and/or the E.W.F. Stirrup House might anger the rapacious developer Gino Falsetto, who controls both and owns restaurants that advertise in the Coconut Grove Grapevine. Accused (by me) of not wanting to bite the hand that feeds him, Falco denied this most vociferously. However, it appears I gave him an idea. You’re welcome, Tom:

So I’ve come up with a price schedule for coverage, also for running regular, good old fashioned ads that will surround the content.

I am going to offer actual ads in the content area, you know, event flyers, then, there is a price for press releases, photos and also having me actually come out and cover an event. I feel these prices are fair. I went by the monthly circulation to see how many eyes will see the content, keeping in mind that various other publications also pick up and share my content. The Huffington Post links to the Grapevine and also the actual stories are picked up, so many eyes see these Grapevine posts from other publications, too. And keep in mind that once your name or business name is posted, it is picked up by the search engines, which gives you extra cache.

I think by now that we all know that everyone reads the Grapevine and if you want to get your event, business or party noticed, this is the place to be seen. All the other Grove publications are now gone and Community Newspapers and Neighbors stories are few and far between. By the way, you’ll notice the Herald ran a story on the new Pan Am Museum/store last week and it is running in today’s Neighbors in print. My content (your content) gets around.

So, if you want to learn about what all the cool, groovy White hipsters in The Grove are doing, read the Coconut Grove Grapevine. If you care about what’s really happening in the Grove, you may have to go elsewhere.

Welcome back, Tom. Hopefully Coconut Grove politics will get along fine without you.

Happy Birthday Coconut Grove!!! Now Honour Your Past

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Peacock Inn circa 188?.
Courtesy State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory

Dateline January 6, 1874 – Dr. Horace P. Porter establishes the first post office in Cocoanut Grove. In the 138 years since, Coconut Grove dropped the “a” and became one of the most exclusive areas in the country, as it continues to bury its past in a way that can only be viewed as racist.

One of the first tourist attractions in south Florida was the Bay View House, built in 1883 by Charles and Isabella Peacock. It was later renamed the Peacock Inn (and is now the site of Peacock Park). Ralph Middleton Monroe also began building The Barnacle (now Barnacle Historic State Park) around the same time and Camp Biscayne a little later. While Cocoanut Grove (it didn’t lose the “a” until it was annexed by Miami in 1925) was still a virtually swamp infested wilderness, all of this development required staffing. Consequently, a parallel service industry grew around this progress and, as has always been the case in ‘Merka, these people tended to be Black.

“Black citizens of Coconut Grove”
The entire Black community of Coconut Grove gathered
together in front of Commodore Ralph M. Munroe’s
boathouse. Photo taken 189?
Courtesy State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory

A Black population requires a Black enclave, of course; a place where White people don’t want to live, mostly because any Black person is welcomed. What is now known as West Grove became the area where Blacks, mostly from the Bahamas, congregated. One of the first was Mariah Brown, a Bahamian who lived in Key West. She had been hired by The Peacocks and, as “Mary the Washerwoman,” originally lived at the Inn. However, after she married Charles Brown they purchased a lot from Joseph Frow (who sold the Peacocks their plot of land as well), and built a house on Evangelist Street (now Charles Avenue) around 1892.

Joseph Frow was the first person to buy property off Biscayne Bay, in what later became Cocoanut Grove. His father Simeon had been appointed Cape Florida Lighthouse keeper in 1859. His brother John became lighthouse keeper in 1868. The lighthouse is on the southern tip of Key Biscayne and is the oldest standing structure in Miami-Dade county, even though it had to be rebuilt in the 1840s. Well familiar with the area, Joseph Frow bought up a very large chunk of land which he parceled off over the years.

1774 Map of Biscayne Bay, with Key Biscayne almost dead center.
Note: Where Coconut Grove would be located 100 years later
is labeled Grand Marsh. It was one. Map courtesy of Janthina Images,
which sells beautiful photo cards of the Cape Florida Lighthouse.

One of the men who worked in Cocoanut Grove was Ebenezer Woodbury Frankin
Stirrup, another Bahamian who came up through Key West. Being a carpenter
by trade, Stirrup’s skills were probably in high demand. It’s likely
that he worked for a variety of employers, Joseph Frow undoubtedly among them. Stirrup cleared land for Frow and it was backbreaking work. The area was little more than swamp land with occasional dry hummocks. Frow repaid Stirrup with land; for every plot of land Stirrup cleared, Frow deeded him a plot of land. Eventually E.W.F. Stirrup became one of the largest landowners in Coconut Grove and, eventually, one of Florida’s first Black millionaires.

From Black Miami . . . a brief look back

E.W.F. Stirrup was a man well ahead of his time. He believed that home ownership was important to growing Black families. To that end he used his land on which to build more than 100 houses on the streets surrounding Evangelist Street, which he sold or rented to the families that had emigrated to serve the growing tourist trade. This is also what made Coconut Grove unique. It had a higher Black home ownership than any other Black enclave in ‘Merka.

Over the years the neighbourhood has remained predominately Black, as families passed the homes down from one generation to the next, the way some families pass down precious jewels. This is also what kept the neighbourhood intact, as one urban renewal plan after another faltered when the City of Miami and developers couldn’t convince the homeowners to sell their most prized possession for peanuts.

Stirrup built his own home, of course, in late 1890s. The E.W.F. Stirrup House is the showplace he built for himself near the corner of Charles Avenue and Main Highway. Unlike most of the other houses in the West Grove, the Stirrup House is 2 stories. While it’s based on the simple Conch Style that informs the Mariah Brown House, it has been elaborated upon and added to over the years. At one time the house looked out over Stirrup’s substantial holdings. According to a report prepared by the City of Miami [PDF] to consider an historical designation for the E.W.F. Stirrup House:

The contributions of the African-American community to the City of Miami actually predate the City’s incorporation in 1896. As early as 1880, Black Bahamians arrived in Coconut Grove and began a community that still thrives today. Ebenezer Woodbury Franklin Stirrup migrated from the Bahamas to South Florida in 1888 and worked as a carpenter’s apprentice in Key West, and then as a laborer in a pineapple field in South Dade. He ultimately became a millionaire Coconut Grove property owner. Stirrup built his home in Coconut Grove, using all his construction skills to create an impressive, yet understated, residence for his family. Mr. Stirrup lived in the house until his death in 1957, a total of 58 years.

Mr. Stirrup is remembered today as an extraordinary example of entrepreneurship, a man who made the transition from immigrant to enormously successful Coconut Grove landholder, and who built more than 100 houses for African-Americans. His is an amazing legacy, as his success is all the more incredible when it is remembered that his accomplishments took place in an overwhelmingly segregated and discriminatory environment. When Ebenezer Woodberry Franklin Stirrup died in 1957 at the age of 84, he was not only one of the largest landholders in Coconut Grove, but also had done much to improve the housing conditions of the African-American community.

Panorama by author of E.W.F. Stirrup House with the Charles Avenue Historical Marker in foreground

Meanwhile, the E.W.F Stirrup House — the last remaining symbol of an important man who once shaped what is now one of the most exclusive areas in the country — is allowed to undergo Demolition By Neglect by a rapacious developer who hopes to develop the property.

There can be no doubt that if Mr. Stirrup were White, his home would have been a shrine by now. The Barnacle, Commodore Monroe‘s old homestead just a block away from Stirrup’s, is now a state park and the house restored to its earlier splendour. Commodore Plaza, which begins two blocks north of the Stirrup House, is named after him. However, try and find something named after E.W.F. Stirrup, aside from E.W.F. Stirrup Elementary School, which is 10 miles from the community in which he made his fortune. Not even the historical marker across the street from his property, which honours the original Black Bahamian immigrants, mentions E.W.F. Stirrup by name.

Likewise the Mariah Brown House. If Brown were White, and owned the first house in an important historical district, her house would not sit empty and boarded up today. Even worse, the Mariah Brown was slated to have been renovated as a museum and community/historical resource. That project started in 1995 and has been stalled since 2000!!! However, unlike the Stirrup House, the current Mariah Brown house is not even the original structure. According to GrandAveNews:

The original house, 3298 Charles Ave., was built in 1889. The Coconut Grove Cemetery Association bought the home, which was in severe disrepair. The group razed it in 1999 and built a replica in 2000.

However, the E.W.F. Stirrup House is the real deal. While there appears to have been been several additions over the years, it’s still the original house, much of it built by Ebenezer’s own hands. As it continues to undergo Demolition by Neglect, the E.W.F. Stirrup House is also a symbol of something else in Coconut Grove: the quiet racism that has kept West Grove impoverished right from the beginning. Despite the The Grove’s reputation for more than a century as a laid-back, funky, village which attracted painters, Bohemians and later Hippies, Black Coconut Grove has been allowed to slowly slide into disrepair as White Coconut Grove has become one of the ritziest in the country. The 33133 Zip Code is now considered one of the most exclusive in the country. Within a mile’s radius of the Stirrup House today one can find homes, condos, and townhouses priced from a million dollars all the way up to $22 million, or so.

Developer Gino Falsetto controls the Stirrup property through a 50-year lease. However, due to provisions in Ebenezer Stirrup’s will the Stirrup House must remain in the hands of the Stirrup Family. Ever since he wrested away control from E.W.F. Stirrup’s descendants several years ago, Falsetto appears to have conducted a deliberate campaign of Demolition By Neglect. It has been empty for many years now and he has not even done the barest minimum to ensure the house doesn’t fall apart. The house is entirely exposed to the elements with glass not in several of the window frames facing the ocean, where the prevailing winds come from. Vines have been allowed to grow up the walls and across the roof, with roots no doubt causing damage to those areas of the house. There is exposed wood rot all around the outside of the house, mold and mildew being one of the greatest concerns for any wooden structure in south Florida, which is why wood is no longer used as a building material here. The mold continues inside the house as well, living along side the termites that are eating the structure away from the inside. The property has been cited several times by City of Miami inspectors because of a lack of upkeep, in contravention of several Miami by-laws. Between citations by the City of Miami, the E.W.F. Stirrup property is allowed to become a trash heap, until it’s cited all over again.

Eventually City of Miami building inspectors will come along and condemn
the structure, saying it’s too far gone to save. No doubt this is what
Aries Development, the company that holds the Stirrup lease,
wants. The E.W.F Stirrup House stands in the way of Aries making mega-millions of moolah.

From the large white structure on the bottom (Grove Gardens Residence
Condominiums) to the larger white structure at the top (Commodore Plaza)
is a massive area that could be developed for mixed-use by Aries if only
that pesky E.W.F. Stirrup House didn’t stand in its way. Click to enlarge.

Follow the bouncing ball: Aries developed the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums, the white building immediately south of the E.W.F. Stirrup House (yellow rectangle in map on the right). Right across Charles Avenue are two vacant lots (the orange rectangle) that also appear to be controlled by Gino Falsetto and/or Aries Development and/or a shell company. Aries had owned these lots previously, but defaulted and the bank took them back in foreclosure. However, who should win the auction, but Gino Falsetto’s long-time partner-in-(alleged)-crime Pierre Heafy. It hardly appears to be a hands-off sale. Lastly, Immediately to the east of those vacant lots is the Coconut Grove Playhouse, which the state of Florida just recently took back from the bankrupt board that ran it into the ground 7 years ago. Through a loan that Aries claims it made to the board several years ago in an attempt to keep it solvent, Aries has always claimed a legal control of The Playhouse as well. Until recently that has stalled any progress on the Playhouse being renovated. Aries doesn’t appear to have dropped its claim, so it might have to be tested in a court of law no matter what happens to the Playhouse down the road. The state of Florida has put the property up for sale as surplus.

As tangled as all of that sounds, here’s the simple takeaway: The E.W.F. Stirrup House is the only remaining impediment to Aries Development (Gino Falsetto) having one of the last sizable properties that could be zoned for mixed-use in Coconut Grove. No doubt that’s the reason Gino Falsetto has done nothing to protect the E.W.F. Stirrup House. It stands in the way of progress and a huge profit.

It’s time for Coconut Grove to honour its entire history — the Black as well as the White that’s already been memorialized — and say no to a developer who is trying to destroy an important part of Coconut Grove history.

SAVE THE E.W.F STIRRUP HOUSE!!!

 

Read my entire “Unpacking Coconut Grove” series by clicking the link below:

Unpacking Coconut Grove ► A Compendium

Unpacking Coconut Grove ► Part 9.1 ► A Bad Neighbour Photo Essay

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The Charles Avenue historical marker,
Sept. 14, 2012

In my efforts to save the E.W.F. Stirrup House, I have had to do a great deal of research, with still far more to go. It seems like it might never end. However, it has allowed me to meet both good neighbours to bad neighbours.

This quixotic quest began in 2009 when I stumbled across the Charles Avenue historical marker (at left) on my first ever trip to Coconut Grove. See how the marker is currently being maintained — or not being maintained, as the case may be? Grass and weeds have, once again, been allowed to grow 3 feet high around the marker. One can barely see the flowering plant that was added to decorate and beautify the spot. That tiny splash of red to the right of the marker is not a flower; it’s the informational card from the nursery attached to the plant showing what the flowers will look like if the plant is ever allowed to mature.

The E.W.F. Stirrup House, Sept. 14, 2012

In 2009, after I read the sign honouring the original Bahamians who
settled the area, I turned to see the E.W.F. Stirrup House for the very first
time. The house was so beautiful that it captured my heart the moment I saw it. It looks nothing like any of the other houses in the area and was clearly older than the rest of the neighbourhood. I had to find out why such a beautiful house was sitting empty and being allowed to rot away.

That was more than three years ago. Since then, my research has taken me down some very strange paths, none of which could have been predicted when I began. On the positive side, I have made some very interesting friends along Charles Avenue, who provide me with first-hand accounts of what the neighbourhood was like in times gone by. On the negative side: I have also made some very powerful enemies within the power structure of Coconut Grove and the City of Miami.

Charles Avenue is 30 miles due south of where I live, but I try to get down to record the changes, or lack thereof, at least once a week, if not more. What follows is a photo essay of my most recent visit on September 14, 2012. I’ll start at the Grove Garden Residence Condominiums and work my way around this multimillion dollar condo complex.

The Taurus Bar sits in front of the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums and was apparently saved from the wreckers ball by the good citizens of Coconut Grove, who didn’t want to lose their venerated drinking establishment. The building began it’s life around 1906 as a tea room, but only later became a bar. One of the reasons the Taurus Bar was so popular with the residents was because it had a parking lot, as most of the other bars in Coconut Grove did not. Since parking in Coconut Grove can be costly, the Taurus became popular almost by default. [We’ll just try and forget that whole drinking and driving thing that the parking lot may have encouraged.] However, the parking lot is also what made the plot of land attractive to developers, who managed to acquire it, and 2 contiguous lots along Franklin Avenue, in order to build the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums.

As the story goes, when the first plans were submitted to the City of Miami to build the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums, the drinkers who frequented the Taurus Bar rallied to save it from the wreckers ball, and so it was. There is no other logical explanation as to why a multimillion dollar condo complex was built around a crappy little 100-year old building.

From Main Highway the multimillion dollar Grove Garden Residence Condominiums, with its two high-end restaurants, Taurus Bar, and valet parking, mimics (to my eyes) Cape Cod architecture. From the street it looks clean and beautiful. If you had the money, or could borrow it, you might be happy to pay nearly a million dollars to live on the upper floors. Looking east you would be able to see over the multimillion dollar houses on the other side of Main Highway in the very exclusive gated community of Camp Biscayne (which I keep meaning to write about). You would have an unobstructed view of Biscayne Bay and Key Biscayne, with Miami Beach way off in the distance. To look out over the Atlantic Ocean, especially at sunrise, would almost be worth paying that kind of money for.
However, you wouldn’t want to look out your side windows, or off your balcony, towards the E.W.F. Stirrup property immediately to the north of your million dollar condo. These windows would not have the same million dollar Atlantic Ocean view. You would see little more than a garbage dump, with trash and weeds and the roof of the E.W.F. Stirrup House being overrun by vines.

Those are not bushes or trees in the background. They are vines and weeds run amok, creating huge bowers underneath where more piles of trash can be hidden away from the prying eyes of city inspectors. Every one of those trash piles is a by-law infraction, yet the property never seems to get cited anymore, as happened a few years back. Is it possible that someone is being paid off, or is it just that city inspectors are not doing their job properly?

My suspicions lean towards the former, not the latter. Why else would my complaint to the building department (Complaint #1200243103) have been
dismissed without any notation and no follow-up? Why do all my phone calls and messages to the City of Miami get swallowed by a
Black Hole and never returned? Why have my emails not been returned?

Some of these piles of trash on the Stirrup property have been there for years and just get bigger, while some are relatively new. Lately there always seems to be a dumpster on the property, but that hasn’t stopped piles of garbage from growing week after week as new piles appear.

New to the piles of garbage this week is a kitchen sink and a refrigerator, which have been piled on top of the garbage that was there last week. This is the ground-level view of what can be seen from those million dollar condos in the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums.
Since the dumpster is now full, there’s no place else to put the garbage, except to scatter it around the property in several discrete piles. If you paid nearly a million dollars to buy a condo, you might be frustrated at having to look down upon this growing mess. However, unless you were paying close attention you’d never know that the person responsible for this mess on your doorstep is the same developer that built your condominium, owns your building, and owns the high-end restaurants on the ground floor of the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums. Nor would you know that the developer acquired the 50-year lease on the E.W.F. Stirrup Property by apparently swapping two units (#403 and #304) in your building for the lease, giving the developer the exclusive right to turn the property into a garbage dump right below your windows.

What’s more: When the plans were first submitted to the City of Miami to build the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums there was also an outcry from Black Coconut Grove — or West Grove as it is nominally called — to save the E.W.F. Stirrup House, just like there was an outcry from White Coconut Grove to save the Taurus Bar. Several neighbours along Charles Avenue have told me they distinctly remember a promise from the developers to renovate the E.W.F. Stirrup House to be used as a combination Community/Historical Resource Center. 

The developer had to make some promises in order to get the final building permits; all developers do. It’s just the nature of the game. However, whatever promises were made concerning the E.W.F. Stirrup House, the developer has reneged. The head of security for the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums happened to let slip one day (when he thought I was merely a tourist who had inadvertently wandered onto the property) that the developer “ran out of money” before he got to renovating the E.W.F. Stirrup House. They clearly didn’t run out of money before they finished the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums or the high-end restaurants on the ground floor. There was certainly enough financing available to swap two units within the building to acquire the 50-year lease on the property.

Aries Development, owned in part by Gino Falsetto, was part of the development team that built the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums and also owns (in part) the Taurus Bar, as well as the two high end restaurants Calamari and La Bottega on the ground floor. Aries Development also now holds a 50-year lease on the E.W.F. Stirrup House. According to E.W.F. Stirrup’s will, the house must remain in the family, and so it apparently has through an entity called “Stirrup Properties, Inc.” owned by descendants of E.W.F. Stirrup. However, by swapping two units within the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums Gino Falsetto, through his Aries Development company, has acquired control of the property with a 50-year lease. He wants to turn the house into a Bed and Breakfast, which I doubt is what E.W.F. Stirrup had in mind with that provision in his will. Yet, the property does not seem to be zoned Commercial and a Bed and Breakfast would be a nonconforming use.

No matter, because I have always thought the real, unspoken, plan by Gino Falsetto is to allow the E.W.F. Stirrup House to undergo Demolition by Neglect, despite it being prohibited by Sec. 16A-13.1. of the Miami-Dade County Regulations. The law reads in part:

Affirmative Maintenance Required. The owner of a property designated pursuant to this chapter either individually or as a contributing part of a district shall comply with all applicable codes, laws and regulations governing the maintenance of property. It is the intent of this section to preserve from deliberate or inadvertent neglect the exterior features of such properties and the interior portions thereof when maintenance is necessary to prevent deterioration and decay of the property. All such properties shall be preserved against such decay and deterioration and shall be free from structural defects through prompt corrections of any of the following defects: […]

If the City of Miami comes along, however, and says the E.W.F. Stirrup House is too far gone to save — after all these years of purposeful neglect — and must therefore be condemned, it opens up another large piece of property for Aries Development to develop. The only winner would be Aries Development, who created the problem to begin with.

In the meantime, it’s clear that Bad Neighbour Gino Falsetto thinks the E.W.F. Stirrup property is his own personal dumping ground. Where this garbage is coming from is a mystery to me, since I have been inside the E.W.F. Stirrup House and none of this garbage seems to have come from inside the house. The Bad Neighbour also doesn’t seem to think that he should be cleaning the property from even the simplest of wind-blown trash and other litter.
This is the same flyer I have documented as being in front of the E.W.F. Stirrup House for the last 5 weeks, since August 20, 2012. It started with bright colours, but has now grown faded. Now it is nearly covered in leaves and it won’t be long before it will be buried completely. Then it will start the process of composting. Only a bad neighbour would ignore a flyer right in front of their house.
This Red Stripe 6-pack carton has been in the middle of the driveway for at least 4 weeks. It has now lost most of its colour, but was bright red the first time I photographed it on August 25, 2012.
Standing on the same spot as the Red Stripe garbage and turning to the right, you will see the same litter that was around the tree last week. It would take almost no time at all for a good neighbour to clean this crap up, but only a bad neighbour would allow litter to accumulate week after week after week.

It’s been at least three weeks since this pizza box arrived in front of the E.W.F. Stirrup House, where it has remained ever since.
Several weeks ago one of the workers with access to the property appeared to have sat on the front steps of the E.W.F. Stirrup House to eat his lunch. When finished, he left behind his drink cup and some other trash, where it has remained ever since. It has become such a part of the front of the house that even the critters are familiar and comfortable with it. Hello gecko.
This is the wall that separates the multimillion dollar Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums from the E.W.F. Stirrup property. Within the last month vandals have tagged the wall with graffiti. While I don’t condone graffiti, the miscreants might be forgiven in thinking they were merely decorating a garbage dump, considering the deplorable condition in which Aries Development has left the property.

This is a City of Miami by-law infraction. A property owner is responsible for making sure that graffiti is covered over and not allowed to remain. However, the owner of record is “Stirrup Properties, Inc.,” which has ceded control of the property to Aries Development. Who would be fined if it ever went that far? The owner of record, of course, not the company that holds the lease.

That’s one of the supreme ironies of this whole situation. Aries Development and Gino Falsetto will not be cited, fined, or have a lien attached to their property (one of the remedies in the law cited above) by allowing Demolition by Neglect to occur on the property. It will be the owners of record, “Stirrup Property, Inc.,” who traded a 50-year lease on the property for two condos within the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums. They also traded the good name of E.W.F. Stirrup for a chance to be cited by the city for non-compliance of City of Miami by-laws. I am sure that Gino Falsetto is fully aware of these facts and is, in all likelihood, counting on it. That will allow him to swoop in and become the saviour, at a cost. Just like he did with the Coconut Grove Playhouse, which sits catercorner to the E.W.F. Stirrup House.

Piles of garbage on a property are also a by-law infraction. These piles have been sitting there for at least a month. Once again the owner of record, Stirrup Properties, Inc., would be cited and/or fined if it ever came to that. The lack of upkeep on the landscaping is also a by-law infraction. While it’s hard to tell from this angle some of the weeds on the property are more than 3 feet high, which means the grass has not been cut in well over a month. Again, the owner of record, Stirrup Properties, Inc., is responsible for the upkeep of the property, no matter who actually is controlling the property.

A close-up of just one of the piles of trash along the wall that separates the E.W.F. Stirrup property from the multimillion dollar Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums. While it might not be visible from the condos, seeing as how it’s directly underneath, it is clearly visible from the street. Why have the property owners not been cited by now? I believe it’s because the fix is in and Gino Falsetto, and his layers of companies, are protected by someone at City Hall. Nothing else makes sense. The question becomes: Who is he paying off?

Here’s what happens if you don’t have the money to pay someone off: I recently interviewed a gentleman living near the west end of Charles Avenue who was cited just last week by the City of Miami. He received a registered letter from the City of Miami for the weeds that are 3-4 feet high on the vacant lot next to his property. The registered letter gave him 10 days to remedy the infraction. He’s not planning to take any action to remedy the infraction because he does not own the vacant lot next door. The citation, with his name and street address on it was issued to him in error. He is hoping the City of Miami realizes its mistake before it fines him and attaches a lien against the house in which he has lived for the past 73 years, since his birth. He is also hoping he doesn’t have to pay to hire a lawyer to straighten out the city’s mistake.

However, the question needs to be asked: If this gent has been mistakenly cited for tall grass on a neighbouring property, why hasn’t the owner of the E.W.F. Stirrup House been cited REPEATEDLY for the garbage and weeds allowed to accumulate on the E.W.F. Stirrup property?
Maybe it’s because Gino Falsetto is a multimillion dollar developer, which brings us back to where we started. The Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums presents such a beautiful front to the street, yet hides piles and piles of garbage on the E.W.F. Stirrup property. This is Gino Falsetto’s dirty secret. If the people in the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums ever realize that the owner of their own building is also the same culprit who created a trash heap in their doorstep, they might have him tarred and feathered. The condition of the E.W.F. Stirrup House, and surrounding property, lowers the property values of the million dollar condos they purchased from him, not to mention all the houses along Charles Avenue.

However, if you’re willing to ignore the deplorable condition of the E.W.F. Stirrup property and only focus on the front of the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums, it is as pretty as a picture postcard . . .

. . . with its expensive restaurants on the ground floor and valet parking.

In the past few months I’ve had several arguments, with several people, on whether the restaurants on the ground floor of the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums are expensive. Maybe I’m just cheap, but I think a Sunday brunch that starts at $25.00 is not inexpensive. What do you think? If brunch starts at $25.00, can you imagine what the dinners go for?
However, lest we forget what this is all about: This entire project is about saving the E.W.F. Stirrup House from the rapacious developer Gino Falsetto and to rehabilitate the legacy of a Bahamian man who was well ahead of his time.

In the late 1800s Ebenezer Woodbury Franklin Stirrup had this wild idea that home ownership was important for growing Black families. To that end E.W.F. Stirrup, one of Florida’s first Black millionaires and a man who once owned a great part of Coconut Grove, built more than 100 houses in the area and rented and sold them to Black families, which made Coconut Grove unique from all the other Black neighbourhoods in the States because it had a higher percentage of Black home ownership than anywhere else in this country.
Clearly E.W.F. Stirrup was a proud man. He built this 2-story house, in a 1-story neighbourhood, and intended it to be a showplace. Developer Gino Falsetto has done everything in his power to let it rot away.

At one time the E.W.F. Stirrup House looked out over Mr. Stirrup’s vast real estate holdings, which he appears to have sold off piece by piece until this double lot is all that remains. Over the years Coconut Grove has become one of the most exclusive Zip Codes in the entire country. Yet, this small pocket of Coconut Grove — Black Coconut Grove — has remained impoverished and wanting. It has not kept up with the rest of the the Grove and the simple one-story houses along Charles Avenue, and the surrounding streets, are ripe for the kind of gentrification that inevitably comes to all neighbourhoods.

However, it would be a damned shame if the E.W.F. Stirrup House was not saved to represent the original community of Bahamians who worked in the service of, and helped White Coconut Grove to prosper. However, as I believe the plan has always been Demolition by Neglect for the Stirrup House, the same might be said for the rich cultural history of the original Bahamian community who settled here and, as the Charles Avenue historical marker puts it, “Their first hand experience with tropical plants and building materials proved invaluable to the development of Coconut Grove.”

This is what I am trying to save, no small task.

Unpacking Coconut Grove ► Part Nine ► Good Neighbours and Bad Neighbours

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A recent article in the South Miami News caught my attention. The headline reads “Neighbors hope buyer can be found to preserve historic Milledge House.” The story concerns a house less than 3 miles away from the E.W.F. Stirrup House, the 120-year old house I am trying to save from a (allegedly) rapacious developer.

In short: The Milledge house was built in 1901, on a plot of land less than a half mile away from where it currently sits, and moved to SW 74th Street in 1944 by the Milledge family. “It was historically a cracker farm house,” said owner Lewis Milledge. “Mom put in federal features and changed the window treatments for the look of colonial Williamsburg.”

The good neighbours of SW 74th Street are hoping a rapacious developer doesn’t swoop in and buy the Milledge House, priced at $1,085,200. The house sits on an irregular sized lot several times the size of size of the lots in the general vicinity. This size makes it quite attractive for a developer to snatch up and subdivide the lot and build several houses  Raquel Garcia writes:

The irregular-sized lot on which the Milledge House sits.

It is a tranquil and flourishingly green street where the cardinals still sing loudly in mid-afternoon and the neighbors get together for block parties and holidays. Several area property owners have united to lobby for the uneventful transfer of the Milledge home now for sale at 4700 SW 74 St. The community hope is that a new buyer will also fall in love with the neighborhood and preserve the property and character of the street.

“We all love our block,” said neighbor Jill Kramer. “We want to maintain the charm of our street, it is very important to us. We are afraid of developers that don’t care.”

The Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums peeking out from
 behind the E.W.F. Stirrup House. Note all the garbage allowed
to collect around the tree. Photo taken September 7, 2012.

A developer who doesn’t care could be considered a bad neighbour; concerned only about profits and not about the character of a neighbourhood. One developer that has proven himself to be a bad neighbour concerned more about profits than the character of a neighbourhood is Gino Falsetto, one of the owners/developers of Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums immediately behind the E.W.F. Stirrup House. Falsetto, through his Aries Development company claims to have a 50-year lease on the E.W.F. Stirrup House. According to the memories of residents along Charles Avenue, when the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums was built, it was expected that the Stirrup House would be renovated for the community as a community center of some sort. However, that never happened and the house has now been sitting idle and empty for a number of years.

The Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums where owners spend nearly a million dollars to buy a unit.
Pile of trash behind the E.W.F. Stirrup House, visible from
the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums, but not
from the street where by-law inspectors would see it.
Photo taken September 7, 2012

Imagine if you paid close to a million dollars to buy a condo unit in the
Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums. From the street your building — with its two high-end restaurants, old-timey Taurus Bar, and valet parking — looks beautiful. Then you take a look out your condo window, only to look down at the trash
heaps that have been allowed to grow like Topsy on the property of the E.W.F. Stirrup
House. You would naturally think you had a bad neighbour. However, you probably
would never know (unless you’ve done the kind of research I’ve done) that your
bad neighbour is also the same developer that owns the building you
bought your condo in. That would make you a bad neighbour by osmosis.

If you lived along Charles Avenue, especially if you were a property owner, you would have every reason to think you had a bad neighbour. You would have been walking past the the E.W.F. Stirrup House for the last several years, watching the house fall apart due to Demolition by Neglect. If you cared about your own property values, you would be concerned about the weeds allowed to grow on the Stirrup property and the fact that no one cleans up the trash allowed to accumulate. Take note at the garbage allowed to collect around the tree in the picture above left. It takes weeks for that much garbage to pile up. More telling, however, is
this series of pictures taken several weeks apart:

On the sidewalk immediately in front of the E.W.F. Stirrup House was a postcard-sized flyer on August 20, 2012.

The same flyer blown closer to the fence, still on the sidewalk in front of the E.W.F. Stirrup House on August 24, 2012
The same flyer, now faded, closer to the fence, and almost buried by leaves and growth on September 7, 2012.
Graffiti tagged wall on September 7, 2012.

Neighbours walking along Charles Avenue would also be able to see the graffiti tagged on the wall that separates the E.W.F. Stirrup property from the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums. They would also be able to see the piles of garbage, including carper remnants, nestled up against that wall. These piles have also been growing bigger week by week, even though there’s a dumpster on the property in which this garbage could be thrown.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t point my finger at another bad neighbour in Coconut Grove. Tom Falco is the Editor and Publisher of the Coconut Grove Grapevine. In my opinion he’s far worse than Gino Falsetto. No one really expects a (alleged) rapacious developer to be a good neighbour. Developers generally tend to be out for themselves; to make a profit at any cost. However, that’s exactly how Tom Falco appears to run the Coconut Grove Grapevine. While he pretends to care about Coconut Grove, Falco only seems to care about his pocketbook.

Tom Falco’s logo used under Fair Use laws.

Tom Falco laughingly calls the Coconut Grove Grapevine “Coconut Grove’s Only Daily News,” but that would be a misnomer. It’s only the news that he feels wouldn’t hurt his bottom line. When asked to help me on deep background to better understand the politics of Coconut Grove he told me that he didn’t “want to get involved in that.” However, continued research has confirmed my original suspicions: If it’s something that’s happening in White Coconut Grove, Tom Falco is all over it and promoting the hell out of it. If it appears that a business might have money to spend on advertising in the Coconut Grove Grapevine, Falco is all over that too. However, when it comes to Black Coconut Grove, or Charles Avenue, Tom Falco has little to say. And, what he does have to say, seems carefully modulated so that it will not offend any of his potential benefactors, such as the restaurants on the ground floor of the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums, also owned in part by Gino Falsetto.

STOP THE PRESSES!!! Oddly enough, just as I was preparing to publish this column, I was also going to say that Falco has written very little about the Coconut Grove Playhouse, when — Lo & behold — it appeared that he did so between my starting this article early this morning and now. Falco says:

I have a theory and I am probably wrong, but this constant stalling and battling tactic [on the Coconut Grove Playhouse] may be taking place on purpose so that the whole thing crumbles in on itself and the structure can then be knocked down and a new structure can be placed onsite, which many people want.


[…]

 One of the entities involved is cheating me out of about $2000 for advertising (that’s another story I’ll post soon), so I am not surprised at this point that crooked hands may be at play here.

That’s always been my theory about the Coconut Grove Playhouse and the E.W.F. Stirrup house: Demolition by Neglect. Falco links to a story in the Miami Herald which mentions Aries Development by name. This is the same company — owned in part by Gino Falsetto — that has also scuttled previous deals to return the Playhouse to the city of Miami and the same Aries Development that claims a 50-year lease on the E.W.F. Stirrup House. If this is the company that has allegedly cheated Falco out of $2,000, maybe he finally understands why I have been investigating Gino Falsetto. If not, who’s been cheating Tom Falco’s Money Making Machine?

BTW: the Miami Herald says:

[Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos] Gimenez was able to engineer a settlement agreement with one of two main playhouse creditors, developer Henry Pino. But the second, Aries Group, which had previously reached an agreement with the playhouse board to redevelop the property, claimed it was owed more than $2 million by the nonprofit group.

I keep trying to tell Tom Falco that I have nothing to gain in trying to save the E.W.F. Stirrup House. I’m not a resident of Miami and/or Coconut Grove. I am not Black. I have no advertising to sell that would impede my journalistic endeavours. I am trying to save a 120-year old house and the legacy of the man who built it simply because it’s the right thing to do. I’ve done a lot of legwork on this story. Maybe Tom Falco is willing to join forces with me to see this house is not lost to a developer to do whatever he wants with it. [Unless that’s not who allegedly cheated Falco out of $2,000. If it’s someone else, never mind.]

Tom, you have my email address. I am always open to talk about how we can work together save this house.

Coming up next: The Broken Window Theory of Criminology.

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Unpacking Coconut Grove ► Part Eight ► The Powers That Be

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

My quest to save the E.W.F. Stirrup House, and my running headlong into the Powers That Be in Coconut Grove and the City of Miami, began a few years back when I first happened across the Charles Avenue Historical Marker. I had never been in Coconut Grove before and, since I’ve always been a sucker for history and historical markers, I stopped to read it. It was by sheer coincidence (or total synchronicity) that on the day I discovered the marker detailing the oldest Black community in on the Florida mainland, I was also reading “Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism” by James W. Loewen. Lowen has written an amazing book of more than 650 pages, which goes to great lengths to explain why every ‘Merkin city looks the way it does.

The broken base of the marker
with garbage piled all around

On the day I discovered the Charles Avenue Historical Marker it was leaning backwards against a fence because the base was broken. However, I didn’t even know the base was broken on my first visit because of the garbage bags piled up all around it. Maybe it was the book I was reading, or maybe because I have studied race relations most of my adult life, but I knew INSTINCTIVELY that the reason the marker leaned and the reason it had garbage piled up all around the base, was due to Institutional Racism. Nothing in my subsequent research has disabused me of that notion. The Charles Avenue Historical Marker, and treatment of the E.W.F Stirrup House, seems to me to encapsulate the Black experience in ‘Merka.

It was only after I took in the sign did I look across the street and, for the first time, saw the beautiful, historic 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House (pictured below). When I saw that house in 2009, empty and being allowed to rot, I started my research. It was all that subsequent research that led to my campaign to save this house.

The saddest marker I have ever read.

As I said, I love historical markers. Word of warning: Never travel with me because if I see a sign that points towards an historical marker, I’ll detour from the main route just to see it. I have seen hundreds of historical markers in my lifetime, but the saddest one I’ve ever seen is one in my home town of Detroit commemorating where Paradise Valley once stood. To quote Joni Mitchell: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

While Joni Mitchell once lived in Detroit [where I met her at “The Castle,” the apartment on the east side that she shared with her then-husband Chuck Mitchell, but that’s another story], I doubt she was singing about Detroit’s Paradise Valley. Yet, the words apply to Paradise Valley better than anywhere else. An entire neighbourhood was razed in the name of progress and not a single building remains. Imagine that. A vibrant Black business district was destroyed for freeways under the guise of urban renewal. However, let’s not sugar coat it: This would have never happened to a thriving White neighbourhood. White folk would have had enough clout to have stopped it or have had the plans modified.

[I’ve touched upon the topic of Paradise Valley briefly in my two posts about the Detroit Riots.]

There was once a plan floated to tear down most of Black Coconut Grove in the name of Urban Renewal. In the 1950s the City of Miami considered the neighbourhood blighted. Compared to other houses in the area, the houses in Black Coconut Grove were somewhat ramshackled. However, that tended to be a function of the relative poverty of the residents, when compared to White incomes in the area, and the fact that many of the homes had been in the same family for several generations. Furthermore, whereas all the surrounding neighbourhoods had running water and sewers, Black Coconut Grove still used hand pumps and outhouses — in the ”50s!!! People who lived in the area at the time have told me about the “honey wagon” that was just a way of life on Charles Avenue back then. Why would all the White neighbourhoods in the area have the amenities denied to Black Coconut Grove? I’ll let you answer that for yourself.

Had this been Detroit it’s possible the neighbourhood would have come down just like Miami city planners wanted. However, what saved the neighbourhood was E.W.F. Stirrup’s foresight. Back in the 1890s, when he was one of the largest landholders in the area, he had this crazy idea that home ownership was important for growing Black families. According to Kate Stirrup Dean, Stirrup’s eldest daughter:

Father believed in every family having a house, a yard and a garden, so you would feel like you had a home. He felt that people became better citizens when they owned their own homes.

The 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House, the showplace
Ebenezer Stirrup built for himself that once looked out
over his estate, which included most of downtown
Coconut Grove at one point.

To that end E.W.F. Stirrup built with his own hands, and with help from his neighbours, more than 100 houses in the area. This is why Coconut Grove, at one time, had a larger percentage of Black home ownership than any other place in the United States. It was that high percentage of Black home ownership that saved Black Coconut Grove. People simply refused to sell out at the cut-rate prices the city was offering. These were the houses passed from one generation to the next, the way that some families hand down precious family jewels.

Eventually the City of Miami was forced to put in sewers and running water. However, as much as some things change, some things never change. Institutional Racism has kept Black Coconut Grove in a bit of a time warp. While the 33133 Zip Code is now considered one of the most exclusive in the entire country, Black Coconut Grove has languished. This being the United States, Black income has always been less than their White counterparts — an undeniable truth — as have opportunities for Black folk. While other areas of Coconut Grove have thrived, Black Coconut Grove did not. Nothing represents that better than the E.W.F. Stirrup House, allowed to rot away at the end of Charles Avenue. And that’s where the Powers That Be mentioned in the first paragraph comes in.

The Powers That Be

Ever since I started making noise with this series, people I trust have told I am messing with dark forces far more powerful than little old me. People have told me that I am screwing with the power structure in Coconut Grove. People have told me that the City of Miami is one of the most corrupt in the nation. People have told me that Commissioner Marc Sarnoff has always been in the pocket of developers and runs his own district like a minor Fiefdom. People have told me that developers make the decisions and the Commission just rubber stamps them. People have pointed to the story of Konstantinos “Gus” Boulis as a cautionary tale of what can happen to someone who gets in the way of someone’s multi-million dollar deal here in South Florida. [My Canadian family and friends are aware of Gus Boulis, even if they don’t know his name.]

What do I know? I am still making noise, but now I’m watching my back very carefully.

The other night two facebook status updates crossed my screen simultaneously. Take a look at the unedited screen grab I captured:

Unedited screen grab. Nothing comes between the Coconut Grove Chamber of
Commerce and the owners of the Calamari Restaurant, both literally and figuratively.
The Grove Gardens Condominium Residences with Calamari,
La Bottega restaurants and Taurus Bar on the ground floor.

Does Gino Falsetto own and/or control the Coconut Grove Chamber of Commerce? They appear to move in lockstep, as evidenced by those messages sent out virtually simultaneously. It would make sense because Gino Falsetto appears to own, or control, almost everything else in Coconut Grove, at least that which can be seen from the corner of Charles Avenue and Main Highway. You see, Calamari is owned, in part or full, by Gino Falsetto, whom I have documented elsewhere in this series. He also owns, in whole or in part, La Bottega Restaurant, the Taurus Bar, and the Grove Gardens Condominiums Residences, all of which share the same plot of land. Falsetto, who left Canadian taxpayers on the hook after a string of restaurant bankruptcies in Canada before he high-tailed it to Miami, also controls the Coconut Grove Playhouse by virtue of a loan he made to the Playhouse board when the board was still thought viable. Because of that financial interest he has scuttled several potential deals to return the Coconut Grove Playhouse to the City of Miami. He is also said to be the owner, through a series of shell companies, of the two vacant lots immediately behind the Coconut Grove Playhouse, which are immediately across Charles Avenue from the E.W.F. Stirrup House. Falsetto’s Aries development company also controls the E.W.F. Stirrup House with a 50-year lease. It would appear in one way or another Gino Falsetto has almost all the properties surrounding the E.W.F. Stirrup House all sewed up.

How much power can one man have? I am beginning to think Gino Falsetto has the City of Miami Building Department all sewn up as well. On the 17th of August I reported to the City of Miami Building Department that demolition work was proceeding within the E.W.F. Stirrup House without the benefit of a Building Permit. Several phone calls later I have confirmed the case was closed without any notation of the resolution of the complaint. I have now been told twice that a lack of notation is very unusual and contrary to City of Miami policy. Many phone messages left with various people within the City of Miami Building Department have gone unanswered. The last time I phoned, on August 30th, while I was still on the phone a City of Miami employee sent an email to the Building Department requesting that they finally return my phone calls and let me know how my complaint was resolved. I am still waiting for that return phone call. I still do not know why my complaint was closed. Anyone is welcome to find out the determination of complaint #1200243103. Let me know if you have any success.

Meanwhile, I am also still waiting for a response to my email to the City of Miami’s Press Relations Department sent on August 10. Having had no reply, and not being able to get a single human on the phone, nor having any of my many messages returned, I published it as an Open Email to the City of Miami. That has still brought no results.

The historical marker that started it all.

Gina Falsetto is clearly a powerful force in Coconut Grove and, hence, the City of Miami. Not a single phone call, email, or public plea I have made has resulted in a response of any kind. Meanwhile, Gino Falsetto continues to wreak havoc on the E.W.F. Stirrup House in his attempt to turn it into a Bed and Breakfast without benefit of the proper building permits and without the Commercial Zoning required for such a business. After the (alleged) rapacious developer Gino Falsetto is done with the E.W.F. Stirrup House, all that may be left to honour the large and culturally rich Bahamian community that once existed in Coconut Grove might be an historical marker.

Everybody sing along with Joni Mitchell as you read all the parts of this ongoing series, Unpacking Coconut Grove:

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Unpacking Coconut Grove ► Part Three ► Who Controls What On Charles Avenue

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East side of the E.W.F. Stirrup House, still undergoing Demolition by
Neglect with the Garden Grove Condominiums in the background.

Some good news came in over the transom this past week. Miami’s Historical and Environmental Preservation Board [HEP cats?] voted unanimously to make Charles Avenue an Historic Designation Roadway, whatever the heck that means. This seems to have no practical effect: no money will be
spent and no signs will be placed. However, signs need not be placed because there are several informational signs along Charles Avenue. In an upcoming chapter of Uncovering Coconut Grove I will talk about all the Charles Avenue signage.

Meanwhile, how will this Historic Designation Roadway thangie affect my campaign to
save the E.W.F. Stirrup House? It’s hard to tell. The designation did
not appear to mention the Stirrup House, nor did it delve into the
survival of the Coconut Grove Playhouse, or the Mariah Brown house, said to be the first home owned
by a Black person in south Florida. These three structures are empty and have been empty for years now.

Yet, as my initial research began informing me, the E.W.F. Stirrup House dates back to a unique time and place in ‘Merka. In later chapters of this series I will explore what makes Charles Avenue, and the Black enclave that grew up around it, totally unique to all other Black neighbourhoods in ‘Merka.

The historical marker that started it all.
The vacant lot is behind this sign.

I first started my campaign to save the Stirrup House several years ago when I just happened to run across the historical marker on Charles Avenue. The marker had seen better days, but there was just enough on the sign to pique my interest. However, it was when I looked across the street did I see the gem of the neighbourhood, the historical Stirrup House, built in 1898. Buildings of any age are a rarity in south Florida, a state that appears to have no sense of history, no sense of of place, and no indigenous architectural style. Florida buildings present a pastiche of other architectural elements, but nothing Floridian.

On that first visit to Charles Avenue I noticed an empty lot immediately across the street from the Stirrup House. Later that day, while using Google Street View, I was surprised to see a house on what had been a vacant lot when I was there. That became the first mystery to solve: Where did that house go, and why?

That mystery was solved pretty quickly. While there had been a house on that lot as late as 2007, it was knocked down to create a marshaling yard for equipment and materials needed to build the Grove Gardens Condominium complex.

I started keeping a paper map on which I added what I had learned interviewing neighbours up and down Charles Avenue. There were many crossoffs on that map. Some of the early information turned out to be bogus, but some of the rumours have actually led to hard information, or additional areas of solid inquiry. Eventually I had to throw out that paper map and have created a new, 21st century, electronic version of the Charles Avenue map as I delve into who controls what on the east end of Charles Avenue.

Like any good reporter, I will continue to follow the money. Right now all the threads I am pulling seems to lead to the same place: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, of all places.

Meanwhile, here’s my current map of the area on which I have added information on who controls what on Charles Avenue. Click around on the map. Each shaded area and marker has a small explination of what I have been able to confirm so far, along with some of the rumours.

This map will change as I learn new information.

Unpacking Coconut Grove ► Part 2.3 ► The Charles Avenue Rabbit Hole Leads To Canada

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The historical marker with the
E.W.F. Stirrup House.

The more I learn about Charles Avenue, the more bizarre it all gets and the farther away from Coconut Grove it takes me. There are times it feels as if I am Alice chasing a White Rabbit, the historical marker I discovered years ago. From that moment on my research on the E.W.F. Stirrup House has sent me down many weird and interesting paths, none of which could have been anticipated when I started. My newest problem, based on the last 24 hours of research, is I don’t know whether I should chase down The Mad Hatter or the Cheshire Cat first (although both will have to be contacted eventually). However, it feels as if synchronicity is working overtime on me again. My newest threads of inquiry are now causing me to look into the ‘Merkin Immigration and Naturalization Service about undocumented foreign workers from Canada, restaurant bankruptcies in Canada, and a proposal to build a casino in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Canada? HEY! I know people there.

The E.W.F. Stirrup House on July 17, 2012 after a recent landscaping.