I am in the middle of the worst case of Writer’s Block in my lifetime.
I’ve been through this before and it usually dissipates naturally without my having to work it it. This one hasn’t and only seems to have gotten stronger the more I kick at it. In an effort to kick it to the curb, let’s talk about some of the reasons why this might be happening.
1). To begin with, I actually write every day . . . In my head while UberLyfting. I am on the road for hours and hours on end. During that time I write paragraph after paragraph in my head. This article, for example, has already been written dozens of times. I have, in my head on any number of occasions, reordered these paragraphs and come up with certain wording and bullet points. Writing so much in my head, by the time I get home to my keyboard it already feels finished, so I don’t bother to put it down digitally.
2). Speaking of when I get home: I sit down at the PC —with the tee vee on in the background— and start reading the news of the day on the various websites I haunt. Then I start farting around on the facebookery. By the time I next look at the clock it’s 3 or 4 in the afternoon and I no longer feel like writing.
3). Speaking of the afternoon: This is somewhat difficult for me to admit, being as how I’ve been a professional writer my entire adult life, but I stopped being able to write in the afternoons. It used to be that I could write day or night. I would wake up at any hour and start pounding on a keyboard, creating legible sentences and paragraphs. Writing was something that I had to do, not necessarily something I wanted to do, altho’ I did. Words were always pouring out of me in one form or another.
However, I noticed a number of years ago (about 5, if I had to estimate) that, while I could write up a storm in the mornings, any word craft later in the day was junk. All my articles for NewsHounds and PoliticusUSA were written early in the morning. Most (if not all) of my posts at Not Now Silly were written in the morning. If I tried to write in the afternoons, it came slowly, if it came at all. And, what I produced was of such poor quality that I’d often scrap it entirely or spend so much time editing it into shape that I may as well have scrapped it and started over. That may have been easier and faster.
4). I used to set aside time every day to write because I had assignments due, or a post I was compelled to write. Lately, I don’t seem to have anything I really want to write about, so I make posts on the facebooky, as if that’s really writing at all.
5). One of the heavier things weighing on my mind (but not the most) is this: If you’ve been following along at home, you’ll know how I’ve been writing about Coconut Grove for the last decade; first trying to save the E.W.F. Stirrup House (a battle lost, as the house has now been replicated, not renovated) and then moving on to fight the runaway gentrification on Charles Avenue. My last article on that topic was Rapacious Developers Are Destroying A Historic Black Neighbourhood.
Not to put too fine a point on it, no one shared this article. I’ve checked every corner of the internet I could shine a light into. I could not find a single instance of it being shared. None of the stakeholders in Coconut Grove seemed to care enough to share it. No one who professes love for Charles Avenue shared it. I couldn’t get the Miami Herald to look into it and no other pundit or publication showed a scintilla of interest.
It was a severe blow to my ego.
“Why the fuck should I knock myself out?”, I started to ask myself in the way one asks questions in your head during moments of self-doubt. I don’t live in Miami. I don’t even live in that county. The E.W.F. Stirrup House is 37.2, 40.1, or 41.2 miles away from me (depending on which highway I take). On a good day I can be there in an hour. On a bad day it’s take 3 hours. Three fucking hours on I-95 that could be better spent, even if it’s just cleaning lint out of my navel or farting around on the facebookery.
Why should I spend all that time, all that gas, all that energy, all that money on FOIA requests, when the efforts of my research are not appreciated by those I thought I was helping?
And, that particular thought bothers me as well. Was I doing this because it was the right thing to do? Or was it because I was trying to impress people in Coconut Grove? I thought it was the former, but this question preying on me makes me think that maybe it was the latter.
6). Here’s a larger data point looming within my Writers’ Block: While trying to get over this hump, I started writing an intensely personal confession about something from my past. It’s actually something I had been working on for decades, but —again— only in my head. Without going into detail (because that’s what that post would have done and will still do once [if?] I get back to it), I have recovered a childhood memory that has me questioning WTF?
Then I began the slow and emotionally difficult process of writing an article about it. I was making incremental progress on it, despite having to kick against the writers’ block. And then: Disaster!
As odd as it seems, the news of the day made me question whether I should finish and publish the article. It’s not that I couldn’t make this confession. It was more that I couldn’t make it at that time. It would have appeared as if I was jumping onto a bandwagon, trying to make something that was not about me all about me.
Consequently, I shelved the article to the point of deleting the draft I has been working on. It’s gone and, if I ever want to finish it, I will have to start it all over again.
It’s something I need to write eventually (if only for my sanity), but don’t know how much time will be needed before it no longer appears that I’m just trying to shine by reflection of other people’s difficulties.
7). Last, but certainly not least, because it’s really the #1 reason I am going through this: I feel like I’m losing my ability to rite gud. Whether it’s because the lack of use has atrophied my writing muscle or because my brain is not firing the way it used to. When I do try to write I occasionally get lost in the paragraph. I hit a dead end and no longer remember where I was going. Then I have to sit and reread what’s there before I can find the roadmap that gets me out of there. Occasionally, I’ll even lose my place in the middle of a word.
There’s no GPS system for getting lost like that. I have to find my way out of the maze on my own and there are times it’s a struggle.
For all these reasons I have been having trouble getting words down lately. The only saving grace is that this article came relatively easy and quickly. That may be because I’ve written it in my head many times already. Or, maybe, hopefully, fingers crossed, I am getting over this hump.
The Not Now Silly Newsroom has documented time and again how developers around Charles Avenue have done nothing but obliterate that history.
The latest outrage is the most massive attempt at gentrification in West Grove since the last outrage, which was the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums (which this reporter calls The Monstrosity). First a quick course in a century plus of West Grove history.
In the late 1800s, as cities in the north were already metropolises, Coconut Grove was still a mix of swamp and dry land, just getting started. Its settlement pre-dates the City of Miami, which grew faster and taller.
Commodore Ralph Monroe, one of the earliest residents, advertised in the north to his rich industrialist friends. He offered a totally immersive rustic experience at Camp Biscayne, where people could fish, hunt, and sail. This was before any roads could bring tourists to South Florida. Boats were the only way in. South Florida’s tourist boom — now its biggest industry — begins there and then.
The earliest gathering of what could be considered a community in Coconut Grove were the Bahamians that drifted up through Key West looking for work. Mariah Brown (known as Mary the Washerwoman at the Peacock Inn) was able to buy a small plot of land on what would become Evangelist Street and, later, Charles Avenue. [Her house on Charles Avenue is now a replica.] Eventually a gentleman by the name of Ebenezer Woodbury Franklin Stirrup became the largest landholder in Coconut Grove, and one of Florida’s first Black millionaires.
E.W.F. Stirrup had a crazy idea that would have got him lynched anywhere else in the south. He thought that growing Black families needed Black home ownership. As more people moved to the area for work, Stirrup built more than 100 houses with his own hands on land he owned in Coconut Grove. These simple shotgun and Conch-style homes were sold, rented, and bartered to the hardworking men and women who really built Coconut Grove — and greater Miami — out of the swamp.
That simple fact made Coconut Grove a unique place in this country. Before it was swallowed by Miami (in an illegal annexation that could never happen today), it had the highest percentage of Black home ownership than anywhere else in the country.
Skip ahead a bunch of decades. The neighbourhood remained, for the most part, cohesively Black, as Black districts often do, because White folk won’t live there. And, as Black districts often are, this one was poor; the average wage was less and, therefore, the ability to get home loans was decreased, if the people weren’t redlined altogether. The neighbourhood slid into a slow, inevitable decline. However, the area that surrounded this enclave became one of the most exclusive in in this entire country. The Black pioneers, and their descendants who continued to own the houses, became land rich and cash poor. That’s why West Grove (as distinguished from White Grove, to be blunt) was ripe for gentrification.
Read about the wall Miami mandated built to separate the Black and White communities in Coconut Grove: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
If one drives around the neighbourhood, you’d see how, on lands that once belonged to Stirrup (and his descendants), properties have been bought, combined, developed, and walled off. These very small gated communities along Franklin — of 4-12 units — were the first beachheads into what has become over the years runaway gentrification. Grand Avenue, once the thriving Black business district, is undergoing its own challenges through gentrification, but that’s another story for another day.
I digress. Here’s some more recent history.
Approximately 15 years ago someone amassed several contiguous properties on Main Highway at the corner of Franklin Avenue. A developer bought the package and built The Monstrosity.
I entered the picture afterwards, in February of 2009. I remember returning from that first visit to Coconut Grove and telling several friends that I wasn’t sure what I had discovered, but I thought there was a story to be written. I was wrong. There have now been many stories written.
On the day this writer discovered the Charles Avenue Historic Marker — and the E.W.F. Stirrup House — it was my very first time in the neighbourhood. And, coincidentally, it was these 2 properties immediately behind the historic marker — 3227 and 3247 Charles Avenue — that provided the first mystery to be solved. That day I rushed home to look Charles Avenue up on Google Earth. Despite these lots being empty earlier in the day, Google Maps had a small house on each lot; one a shotgun, the other a Conch style, if I recall correctly.
Where did these houses go and why?
In a coconut shell, here’s a short history of these 2 properties:
They had been in the Stirrup Family for a few generations. When the rapacious developer showed up to build the Monstrosity, he entered into a complicated property swap with the Stirrup descendants. In exchange for 2 brand new condos in The Monstrosity — and $10 to make it all legal — they would give the developer these 2 properties on the north side of Charles Avenue and a 50-year lease on the historic E.W.F. Stirrup House.
Almost as an aside, this writer spent almost a decade trying to save the E.W.F. Stirrup House from Demolition by Neglect, despite it being designated historic in 2004. That fight was lost and is told elsewhere in these pages. Long story short: That house is now replica after the same developer used Demolition by Neglect (nearly a decade of open windows on a wood frame house) to argue in front of Miami’s Historic Preservation Board the house was too far gone to be saved. In other words: They used the conditions they created to successfully argue they no longer had an obligation to restore the house, instead building a recreation.
Would this have been the fate of the E.W.F. Stirrup House if it had been owned by the White pioneers of Coconut Grove? One needs only look to the Barnacle State Park, where Commodore Monroe’s house was saved, for your answer. E.W.F. Stirrup was his friend and contemporary.
But, back to these 2 houses. Where did they go?
The developer knocked them down to use the lots as a marshalling yard to build The Monstrosity. That neatly solved a construction problem. Crews were able to use the Stirrup property as a pass-through, as opposed to having to use the busier Main Highway. However, the neighbourhood lost 2 affordable houses of “vernacular style”. Ironically, the city of Miami successfully passed a law to save these “vernacular” houses recently, saving these last few shotgun and Conch-style homes. Had this law been in place, I would have had a greater shot at saving the Stirrup House and the developer never would have been able to knock down the 2 houses across the street.
What happened to these 2 properties after that? Financial jigger-pokery, if you believe blogger Heinz Deiter (and I do). Deiter alleged that the developer valued the 2 condos in the not-yet built Monstrosity at $500,000 each, which was a huge stretch. Then he went to the bank and claimed he now owned $1,000,000 worth of property on the north side of Charles Avenue. Despite prevailing property values to the contrary, the bank took his word for it.
He was able to obtain a bank loan using those properties as collateral. Once these properties were no longer needed for this grand scheme of building the Monstrosity, the developers had a new scheme. They simply stopped paying off the bank loan and allowed the properties to go into foreclosure. The bank repossessed, put the properties up for auction, and they were bought by a company whose owner was a partner in other companies with the developer who had just defaulted. Then, through some more LLC jiggery-pokery, these properties were conveyed back to the same developer.
Bank distress auctions are supposed to be arm’s length. This one was not. By my estimate the bank took a $750,000 bath on these properties. When I tried to interest the bank in what I considered to be a fraud upon it, they were very incurious and didn’t seem to care at all. After all, it’s only money.
Not Now Silly has written other stories about these 2 properties, like the night valets from Commodore Plaza were illegally using them for overflow parking at $6 a car, ripping off the city of Miami and creating chaos on a residential street.
Which gets us to the real topic of this post after all that preamble. These 2 properties, combined with several others, both on Charles and William Avenue, will be turned into what appears to be a 30 room, 2 story hotel.
Back in 2016 I worked on a secret project, which was an attempt to connect all the various rapacious developers in Coconut Grove with all the properties they owned, or controlled, along Grand Avenue. I created a map, which I colour-coded by property ownership. It was during the making of this gentrification map that I accidentally discovered that Peter Gardiner (of the Pointe Group) had not only bought into the redevelopment project at the E.W.F. Stirrup House B&B, but had purchased these 2 properties under discussion at $1,000,000 a piece.
I booked an appointment to interview Gardiner, knowing I was going to pull a massive Bait & Switch.
We started our discussion with the Stirrup House and he assured me that as a lifelong Coconut Grove resident, he wants nothing but the best for Coconut Grove. Whenever he said that, and he said it several times, I heard, “Nothing but the best for White Grove.” He talked about what a wonderful steward his companies will be in Coconut Grove.
When I thought we had exhausted that topic, I pulled out my colour-coded map of Grand Avenue. I told him that these properties along Grand — including ones he owned through Pointe Group — have now been flipped so many times that the properties can no longer pay for themselves. Property is a machine that has to pay for itself. These properties along Grand will never pay for themselves unless Miami upzones the properties allowing for heights and densities greater than the 5 storeys allowed in the Miami 21 plan.
Read more about Grand Avenue here and of a 16-year old
Grand Avenue improvement plan that never happened here.
Then I also let him know that I knew he had recently bought these 2 properties on the north side of Charles Avenue. I laid out the history of these properties, including the suspected fraud upon the bank, and his only reaction was that maybe he hadn’t done his due diligence on these properties. Ya think?
Keep in mind that these 2 properties were overvalued at $500,000 each when they were traded for condos in the Monstrosity. They sold in 2015 for $1 million each, a markup of 100% on properties that were valued by the owner himself. However, Heagrand Inc, bought them for a mere $215,000 at the bank’s distress auction just 4 years earlier.
These properties (and all of the others that will need to be combined to build this hotel) are zoned Single Family. However, based upon the price paid, they will NEVER be able to make back their money by building a single family home on any of these lots, and a few of them still have houses on them.
I made it clear to Peter Gardiner in 2016 that I would fight him tooth and nail on any upzoning effort and that was 2 years before I saw this hotel rendering.
These developers have property flipped themselves into a corner. They now have land that can never pay for itself. The only way they can make any money whatsoever is by building big and building up. By building a hotel on these properties, as a matter of fact.
Something I’ve learned: Developers have better lawyers than the city. They tend to get whatever they want. Something else I’ve discovered through this process of investigating properties is that developers plan for the long game, sometimes decades in advance. This plan has been in the works since the beginning. I heard talk of it 9 years ago, but dismissed it as a fantasy. But the fantasy now has an architect’s rendering.
CROSSING THE LINE FROM JOURNALIST TO ACTIVIST
Recently I did something I’ve never done before as an advocacy journalist. Normally I research a story, write it up, publish it, and then promote the finished article. This time, while still researching this article, I went to the neighbourhood Homeowners’ Association [HOATA] and passed around the architectural rendering you see here. I challenged them to fight this project with everything they have otherwise the gentrifiers win and the neighbourhood loses.
PREDICTIONS:
The developers will use conditions it created — just like they did on the Stirrup House — as the reason to argue for redeveloping these fallow lots;
The developers will use the height of the Monstrosity to argue this hotel is not too big for the community;
The developers will argue they need not plan for on-site parking because the Miami Parking Authority is planning a huge, honking parking garage right next door as part of the Coconut Grove Playhouse redevelopment project;
People [that I won’t name yet] who claim to protect the neighbourhood will come out in support of this massive development (if they haven’t already in secret talks) because they have dealings with these developers in other parts of Coconut Grove;
Miami-Dade County, which is redeveloping the Playhouse property, will come out in favour of this massive development (if it hasn’t already in secret talks);
Gable Stage, expected to occupy a redeveloped Playhouse, will come out in favour of this project (if it hasn’t already in secret talks);
Community activists will fail to mount a successful fight to block this project;
Miami’s Planning and Zoning Board will approve this upzoning because, again, developers always seems to get what they want;
Miami Commissioners will fail to stop the project (if they haven’t already given tacit approval in secret talks);
Miami Commissioners will attempt to squeeze community concessions out of the developers — which will be small potatoes, unenforceable, and forgotten soon after — once they realize this is a runaway train.
To sum up: This battle is already lost unless the community fights the upzoning at the Planning and Zoning Board, to put the kibosh on building a hotel for rich White Folk, so that other rich White folk make a small fortune in a historic Black neighbourhood.
Because, make no mistake, at the core of every story about Coconut Grove is a story about Racism.
Coconut Grove is older than Miami, but has been treated like its ugly step-sister ever since annexation in 1925.
West Grove, the historic Black enclave nestled within Coconut Grove, Miami, Florida, is currently threatened on all sides by White gentrification.
The latest challenge is the massive Coconut Grove Playhouse condo/restaurant/parking lot/theater redevelopment project threatening West Grove.
The Playhouse is at the extreme east end of Charles Avenue. It was designated a Historic Roadway because it is one of Miami’s oldest streets. It was laid out slightly out of true east/west alignment by E.W.F. Stirrup, who almost single-handed, created this neighbourhood and watched over its survival until he died in 1957. Stirrup was one of Florida’s first Black millionaires and at one time owned more properties in Coconut Grove than anyone else.
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Further reading:
This reporter has been researching Charles Avenue and Main Highway since February 2009. Here are just a few of the stories from the archive.
[/tabembed]The more things change, the more they stay the same.
When the Miami Historic Environment Preservation [HEP] Board voted earlier this month to demolish the theater, it took another step in destroying history in order to pay lip service to preserving it. This is the same thing the HEP did with the E.W.F. Stirrup House, catercorner to the back of the Playhouse, on south side of Charles. This magnificent century-old house has now been replaced — NOT RESTORED! — because the HEP will roll over for developers, history be damned.
The Coconut Grove Playhouse — just like the Stirrup House — underwent nearly a decade of Demolition by Neglect. The Coconut Grove Playhouse’s developers — just like the Stirrup House’s developers — were then able to argue that extreme deterioration of the structure required it to be torn down.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The E.W.F Stirrup House before replacement
TO BE FAIR: The Playhouse developers were also able to argue the theater was renovated so many times since originally built, that it no longer was the old theater anymore. That was an argument only the HEP seemed to buy.
Ironically, the same could have been argued for the E.W.F. Stirrup House, which (according to anecdotal evidence) grew from a small 1-story Conch House to the impressive 2-story structure as Mr. Stirrup’s family and fortune grew.
However, that’s all water under the bridge.
Once the HEP approved the massive Playhouse redevelopment (in concept only) it became immediately clear how this Black neighbourhood will bear the brunt of that decision.
When it came time to build a polluting incinerator in Miami, it was given to West Grove. Almost 100 years later, when it came time to build a polluting diesel bus maintenance facility, it was given to West Grove. And now, when a massive development project is proposed for Main Highway, the negative effects will be born by West Grove.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
A quick word about these Coconut Grove Condo-Retail-Restaurant-Parking Garage-Playhouse Megaplex drawings:
Before the HEP Board approved demolishing the historic Coconut Grove Playhouse on April 4th, the developers put on the typical Dog and Pony Show. During the hours-long meetings the community and HEB Board were presented with a confusing array of facts and figures, along with blue prints and artist’s renderings. These cane be found HERE. show that there will be entrances to the loading docks on Charles Avenue and William Avenue, one block to the north.
Just before the HEP voted it was revealed that all of the drawings just shown were already out of date, supplanted by another set of drawings, with different facts and figures, that no one had seen yet.
And the HEP Board still passed it. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Meanwhile, I have found newer drawings online at the Miami-Dade Department of Cultural Affairs public portal, which were posted on April 10th. Now, get this: I have been told that these drawings are already out of date. However, until I finagle the latest from one of my sources, these will have to do.
How will West Grove suffer?
The latest drawings show that Charles Avenue [A, to the right] will be the entrance for all trucks with something to pick up, or take away from the Coconut Grove Condo-Retail-Restaurant-Parking Garage-Playhouse Megaplex.
Trucks will turn in from Main Highway [B] to [F}, where an entire complex of loading docks and garbage pickup will be competing for space. The drawing does show a small bit of landscaping to try and make it disappear, but it will always be a loading dock and garbage pickup on Charles Avenue.
It’s instructive to note that putting this driveway on Charles leaves the maximum amount of space on the north side of the building for the mixed use Condo/Retail/Restaurant/Parking Lot/Theater Megacomplex. All at the expense of Charles Avenue, which has been designated a Historic Roadway, just to remind you.
Lately beer trucks serving the restaurants in The Monstrosity, aka Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums, have been pulling onto Charles Avenue and parking opposite the driveway to the E.W.F. Stirrup House [G]. From there the deliveries are loaded onto a hand cart and taken it through the parking lot of the Regions Bank on the corner, across from [F]. If the Stirrup House ever gets an occupancy permit, they’ll be able to walk it through the Stirrup property instead, saving time and energy.
Oddly enough, loading docks were not required for The Monstrosity, even though the plan was always to have restaurants on the ground floor that would require deliveries. In addition, beer trucks will never be allowed to pull up in front of The Monstrosity, because that would hinder the valet parking concession.
Once the Playhouse is redeveloped — with its 31 apartment units [D], restaurant [between D & E], gargantuan 449 slot parking garage [C], and small 300 theater [E] — it will generate a massive amount of garbage. There will have to be daily pickup, if not pickup twice a day.
The Charles Avenue Historic Marker with the two empty residential lots in the background
Let me draw your attention to the two empty lots marked [H] on the pic above. Immediately behind the Charles Avenue Historic Marker are 3227 and 3247 Charles Avenue, which are zoned single family residential. There had once been houses on those lots; a Conch on one and a Shotgun on the other. These were demolished in order to use the double lot as a marshaling yard to build The Monstrosity a decade ago.
TO BE FAIR: This made more sense than having the construction traffic on Main Highway, but the neighbouthood still lost 2 affordable houses that have never been replaced.
I wrote about these two empty lots in Another Charles Avenue Bad Neighbour Update, after I discovered that the valet concessions were illegally using these residential lots to park dozens of cars, the overflow to an event in the Cruz Building, on Commodore Plaza.
These 2 lots are not part of the footprint of Playhouse redevelopment. Yet, everyone recognizes how they would square off the Playhouse property. However, there are too many hoops to jump through for that to ever happen. Regardless, that did not stop developer Peter Gardner, of the Pointe Group/Colliers International, from dropping a half million dollars a piece to speculate that these two lots will skyrocket in value.
FULL DISCLOSURE: When I met with Peter Gardner last year I sandbagged him. Having learned he had recently signed on as a developer of the Stirrup House, I booked a sit down interview with him. After some preliminaries on the Stirrup House, I shifted to these two Charles lots and then all the property he either owns or controls on Grand Avenue.
At dawn, looking east along Grand Avenue, from the disgusting ghetto to the extremely rich Center Grove
Garner was surprised that I was able to relate the history of these two empty lots and how the people he bought them from may have broken the law to get them. He suggested that it’s possible he hadn’t performed his due diligence on the properties. I assured him that no one, least of all the banks that appear to have been snookered, cared at all.
Then he appeared shocked when I pulled out my handmade map of Grand Avenue, with all the properties identified and colour-coded by owner.
And, I know he was stunned when I told him that I would fight him tooth and nail to prevent these Charles Avenue lots from being zoned for anything other than single family. TO BE FAIR: I warned him at the top of the interview that I was an advocacy journalist. This is just one of the things I advocate about.
But, I digress. One of the latest ideas for these two lots is to turn it into some kind of car turn-a-round for all the swells going to the Playhouse. Imagine the traffic this would generate. However, this idea seems as absurd an the other rumour around: That Michael Eidson’s 2-theater plan would need these two lots to expand into for something or sundry. Both ideas seem like non-starters.
Regardless, no developer drops a million dollars on 2 lots unless he thinks there’s a payoff at the end of the day. Small single family houses on these long and narrow lots will never be able to pay for themselves. That’s why eventually Miami Planning and Zoning will be called upon to either rezone the lots to Multi-Family or Commercial use. The owner of these 2 contiguous lots would need no variance to build a monster home straddling the properties, but it would be hard to make any money doing that.
And, if Not Now Silly has learned anything in the 8 years covering Miami, it’s that developers always seem to get what they ask for. Even if it contravenes the Miami21 plan and offends the NCD2 oe NCD3 neighbourhood overlays. Yeah, I’m looking at you, Planning and Zoning.
Bottom line: There’s nothing in this massive redevelopment project for the people who live in West Grove. When all is said and done, this historic neighbourhood will be forced to deal with all the negative fallout of the project, without any of the benefits. The developers are now paying lip service to putting affordable housing in the project. There were also mutterings about hiring from within the community. However, these are promises that every developer in Miami gives to get permission to build, but never seem to deliver upon.
There will be an educational component to the theater program because that was mandated by the State of Florida. But nothing said they’ll educate children in the immediate community. The theater company, GableStage — which I have heard nothing but good things about — comes from outside the community, Coral Gables. [Please see my series No Skin In The Game; Part I; Part II; Part III] Because of the relative poverty of West Grove (due to decades of systemic racism) it’s unlikely the folks there will be able to afford the $45 tickets to any of the plays GableStage currently offers. I know I would have to budget hard for something like that.
This artist’s rendering hides the fact that behind the Playhouse are small, 1-story Conch and Shotgun homes.
District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell needs to be more vocal and proactive about these neighbourhood concerns and how this project will negatively effect West Grove. In a recent encounter this reporter asked Russell whether he has a public stance on the Playhouse redevelopment project. He declined to give me a quote because it’s an issue he may one day find himself ruling on. However, there are some aspects of this massive redevelopment that he can comment on. Chief among them, is the increased truck and car traffic on the quiet residential streets of West Grove.
I already know what Miami-Dade and the Miami Parking Authority will say, because it’s been done before. They will claim, “We didn’t hear any complaints.” It’s unlikely they will hear complaints from the West Grove. These are people who have been ignored and marginalized for decades. After nearly a century of systemic racism, they’ve stopped complaining.
That’s why they need a champion, a Commissioner who will not ignore their travails.
This is a Miami-Dade project, not a City of Miami project. This means that Commissioner Russell has very little power to protect the historic West Grove neighbourhood from the fallout from this massive project on its doorstep. But that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t try.
I’ve made no secret of my total disdain for Tom Falco, Head Grammarian (and Trust Fund baby), at the typo-laden Coconut Grove Grapevine.
My contempt for Falco goes back a number of years when I had only just recently discovered the E.W.F. Stirrup House and decided to save it. However, because the blog I created (under a nom de troll) had such a small footprint, I started to reach out to people who I thought could help me save the E.W.F. Stirrup House.
Falco was among the many people I contacted, which included every media outlet I could find. Falco not only declined to help, but did so with comments that I took as racist. Unprompted he brought up the travesty of the Mariah Brown House and said that “whitey didn’t do that.” However, despite how little he cared for the E.W.F. Stirrup House back then, he said this week:
At the [Housing Summit] meeting, the Grove pioneer EWF Stirrup’s House was brought up, and people are bitter about the way the house is being rebuilt and not restored. The house is being rebuilt to look historic and is turning into a bed and breakfast (See that here). I was also curious as to why the building was being rebuilt and not restored, until I realized that the house just sat and rotted for years, termites and lack of care hurt the house (look at it here). It’s costing more to rebuild the place as being historic, than it would have been to just renovate the old house, if it has been kept up. That’s where the city should step in. In my neighborhood they come after you if you don’t mow the lawn, why are old, historic houses allowed to rot without the city fining someone? [NB: I removed all links because Falco has refused to allow me to link my articles on his facebookery and his blog.]
To be perfectly honest: I was stunned that Falco would suddenly echo what I had been saying about the DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT of the Stirrup House after blowing me off years ago when his help may have meant something. So, I decided to leave a comment on his crappy blog.
The following exchange was posted, but then removed by him. I’m glad I saved the text, but I know how slippery Falco is.
MY COMMENT AT THE GRAPEVINE:
Tom, are you kidding?
I tried to interest you in helping save the E.W.F. Stirrup House years ago, before all the DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT, when it would have done some good. You specifically told me you didn’t want to get involved. But now you’ve got something to say?
Furthermore, contrary to your assertion, it actually would have cost more to bring the old house up to code than it did to recreate the house, especially after almost 10 years of DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT. Why do you think the developer allowed it to go that way?
In a run-on sentence you ask, “In my neighborhood they come after you if you don’t mow the lawn, why are old, historic houses allowed to rot without the city fining someone?”
Because I was the only one who cared. Even the Historic Preservation Office didn’t care, although I warned them many times what was happening.
THEN FALCO LIBELED ME:
Headly, I do remember at the time that you threatened me and threatened the Miami Herald into doing what you wanted. The Herald called me to ask me what they should do, you apparently scared their reporter with your threats. I don’t know what they ended up doing, but I don’t respond to threats.
At the time I explained that there was nothing I could do because unlike you, I don’t threaten people. I could not afford to buy the house, not that it was for sale, and I could not persuade anyone involved to take action. Other than that, there was nothing I could do.
I shined light on the house and Charles Avenue many times, starting in 2009. I also posted links to your story in 2012, showing the deterioration. I am not sure what else I could do. I reported and wrote about their canopy destruction a few years back. I spoke with neighbors in the area who have been living there for years. They did nothing.
I am not part of the HEP or zoning boards and I am not part of any city agencies and again, I will not threaten people. I warned the city agencies, I warned the commissioner, I warned many people, as well. Maybe I didn’t report on that, but I do a lot around here that people don’t know about.
I honestly don’t know what else you would have had me do. I write the news here. I shed light on things. I notify the authorities. I just had a conversation with someone yesterday about turning that open spigot on the roof of the Playhouse. He made one call and it was done. I helped someone find housing, I helped another find a job, I stood up to a developer trying to change easements in the neighborhood, I sat through a three hour housing summit to find out the facts, etc. I do that silently and don’t report it all.
I don’t buy houses and restore them. Sorry. And I don’t threaten people to see it my way.
PS. I didn’t want to get involved with YOU years ago, not the house.
January 24, 2017 11:16 AM
SO, I DEMANDED A RETRACTION:
Tom:
This is now the 2nd time you’ve defamed me by falsely claiming I threatened you. The last time it was in an email chain with Al Crespo. At the time I asked you to withdraw the accusation and apologize. You did neither.
Now you compound your defamation by going public with it *and* claiming I threatened an unnamed Herald reporter. Where do you get your alternate facts?
Since I have never spoken to you or any Herald reporter — and all my communication has been by email — you should be able to prove your assertion that I threatened you and a Herald reporter because there would be a paper trail.
Prove it or retract it.
===========================
GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY
===========================
FALCO TRIES TO WEASEL OUT:
She and I will not apologize for feeling threatened. That was our emotion at the time, that is why you were put on ignore and spam and I haven’t seen an email from you since.
The Herald reporter vaguely remembers it, but not clearly, she is checking her notes and also with her partner in the morning.
No more comments on this subject. Waste of time. If I get the info from her, I’ll send it to your pal Al Crespo and he can forward it on to you.
THE END.
I ATTEMPTED ANOTHER REPLY:
I’m not asking for an apology. I’m asking for a retraction.
You defamed me, but now are hiding behind new weasel words, that you were “feeling threatened”.
However, that’s not what you said. You said I threatened you and a Herald reporter.
That is libel. I am demanding a retraction or proof. What could I have possibly said that made the little snowflake feel threatened? Put up or shut up.
Falco also pretends to be a cartoonist
However, that comment wouldn’t go through and Snowflake Tommy posted this instead:
I deleted a couple of my own comments here because I decided long ago not to argue with readers or even read the comments.
Then a few minutes later even that little note disappeared. Now there are zero comments on that post and no comments whatsoever will be allowed.
Here’s the important thing: I was still libeled. Consequently:
I am still demanding a
retraction from Tom Falco.
Deleting a comment that remained on his site for hours doesn’t mitigate the libel.
Deleting the comment does not take the place of a retraction.
Deleting the comment doesn’t absolve Tom Falco from damages.
However, this episode does show (once again) that:
Tom Falco is no journalist;
Tom Falco has no ethics;
Tom Falco is a coward.
This is not the first time I’ve blasted Tom Falco
for his supreme idiocy. You may also enjoy:
One of the first pictures I ever took of the
E.W.F. Stirrup House – August 26, 2009
This is the inevitable finger-pointing now that the sad, almost decade-long, purposeful campaign of DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT on the once-historic E.W.F. Stirrup House has ended.
SPOILER ALERT: In the end rapacious developers got what was wanted and needed. The once-historic house E.W.F. Stirrup House is no more, replaced by a reconstruction — or re-creation — which will be much easier and cheaper to bring up to the current building code.
The developers were given permission by the Miami Historical Board to destroy the historic structure and replace it with an exact duplicate because the building was too far gone from termite damage and wood rot to restore. Those are the exact same conditions the developer allowed to be exerted on the house during the nearly decade-long campaign of DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT.
City of Miami By-Law enforcement
officers discovered the E.W.F. Stirrup
House before I did – August 26, 2006
This reporter has been documenting in pictures and video the E.W.F. Stirrup House for more than 7 years. The thousands of pictures I’ve taken of this building over the years — which was designated a historic structure — proves how the all-wooden house was left open to the elements for most of that time, pointing to an unmistakable campaign of DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT.
What’s more, there will be no penalty whatsoever and the developers may have even received grants to do what they did.
[This grant business is still being researched. As usual, a city department pledged to get this information to me weeks ago and has yet to do so. I knew I should have gone with a FOI request, as opposed to a personal promise.]
Who is responsible for this travesty? There’s enough blame to go around. Let’s name names.
Gino Falsetto/Aries Development
Click to enlarge
It all starts here.
However it happened (and I heard a doozy of a story that I was never able to confirm) several lots on Main Highway, at the corner of Franklin Avenue, were purchased and combined for development. So far, so good. Plans were drawn up. So far so good. Before building permits were issued there were objections that had to be satisfied from 3 different community groups, as the story goes:
On the opposite side of Main Highway are several incredibly exclusive gated communities. How exclusive? The houses start at about $2 million and go into the stratosphere from there. The closer you get to Biscayne Bay, which is only 1000 feet away from the formerly-historic E.W.F. Stirrup House, the more you pay exponentially.
These rich NIMBYs were concerned that their sunsets would be spoiled by a huge building to the west. While it’s unknown what height the developer originally proposed, eventually it was agreed to lower it to 5 stories and step it back from Main Highway, so that it would not create a huge edifice. However, that 5 story wall was instead presented to the rear of the E.W.F. Stirrup House.
The second group accommodated were the Taurus’ customers. They argued that their historic drinking hole should be saved because it was old. The Taurus was a longtime Hippie Hangout, celebrated in story and song. One of the reasons it still was the place to drink in 2006 was because it was the only joint in the area that had a free parking lot. [We’ll ignore the implications of drinking and driving.] The rest of the Grove had parking meters or lots before you could go drinking.
So, The Taurus was saved. One story says it was moved a few feet.
Another says it was always right where you see it. But, it was saved.
TO BE FAIR: The Taurus is an old building and one could argue that it should have been saved after all. I have found references from 1906 in which it was a Tea Room. However, it’s not as old as the E.W.F. Stirrup used to be before it was recreated.
Then comes the once-historic E.W.F. Stirrup House.
Some of the people of West Grove — the Black neighbourhood fanning out immediately west of the E.W.F. Stirrup House that would not have existed had not Ebenezer Woodbury Franklin Stirrup built it with his own 2 hands — were worried the Stirrup House might not be saved.
Old Man Stirrup, as some called him, was the patriarch of the neighbourhood, one of Florida’s first Black millionaires, and a man who thought that home ownership was important for the Black families arriving to become the service industry for south Florida’s nascent tourist trade. His 2-story house, in a area of small 1-story Conch and Shotgun houses represented the legacy of the neighbourhood, which is why old-timers were concerned about its potential destruction.
The developer made a commitment to the citizens of West Grove: The E.W.F. Stirrup House would be saved. However, that’s where the stories diverge. Some people remember that what was promised was a historic museum and resource center. The other story goes that this was the promise made by another group for the Mariah Brown House, a few doors to the west, and that a Bed and Breakfast was always what had been proposed for the once-historic E.W.F. Stirrup House all along.
The recreated Mariah Brown House at 3298 Charles Avenue
IRONY ALERT: The Mariah Brown House was once the oldest house on Charles Avenue. When it was recreated, that honour then went to the E.W.F. Stirrup House.
No matter. What eventually got approved and built at Franklin and Main is officially called the Grove Gardens Residence
Condominiums, at 3540 Main Highway. Unofficially (in the Not Now Silly
Newsroom) this structure is known as The Monstrosity. It’s also a blockbuster, in
an older sense of the word: the building that busts the block; the building
that future developers will point to and say, “But you’ve already allowed
this kind of density, height, and development in this community. Why not me?” [Prediction: eventually the Coconut Grove Playhouse restoration (or will that be another reconstruction?) will point to The Monstrosity to show what’s been allowed. But, as usual, I digress.]
This picture is from February 22, 2013. I had already been
photographing these open windows for 4 years at this point.
It’s crucial to keep this in mind as you continue to read about this travesty:
Once Aries Development got its grimy hands on the E.W.F. Stirrup House, it did nothing. It didn’t even bother to seal the house. It didn’t bother to close the windows. For the better part of a decade the house was open to the elements.
This is not how you treat a structure you are committed to saving. This is a structure undergoing a clear and purposeful campaign of DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT. What more proof is needed?
In fact, it was only recently (within the last year) that boards went up on the windows pictured above, but other broken windows and open windows were left alone.
E.W.F. Stirrup’s Descendants
Heretofore I have been careful not to criticize the Stirrup Family, but that ends now.
This picture from July 17, 2012 shows how invasive vines
were allowed to grow up the back of the house, over part
of the roof, and directly into the windows and wood on
the east side of the house. See below for the after pic.
The 5-story Monstrosity looks down upon the jungle.
When E.W.F. Stirrup died in 1957, he left it in his will that the house had to remain in the family in perpetuity. While I had always thought codicils like that could be challenged, to the family’s credit this one never has been.
The house is currently owned by Stirrup No. 1, LLC, a company owned by the grandchildren of E.W.F. Stirrup, which includes E.W.F. Stirrup, III. The Stirrup grandchildren, through this company, entered into a business arrangement to turn the Stirrup House into a Bed & Breakfast.
Here are the broad contours of this business deal:
The Stirrup descendants, who also owned two properties on the north side of Charles Avenue immediately across from the Stirrup House, agreed to a complicated swap. Aries would trade 2 brand new condos in The Monstrosity to the Stirrup grandchildren for
those 2 properties on the north side of Charles, a 50-year lease on the
formerly-Historic Stirrup House built with their grandfather’s own hands, and $10.00 to make it all legal. Which is how Aries got its hands on this cultural treasure, which it proceeded to destroy by a decade-long campaign of DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT.
Once the deal was done, it appears as if the Stirrup grandchildren turned their backs on the Stirrup House, now literally in their own backyard. If the condos they were given are on the north side of The Monstrosity, they were able to look down upon the disaster that their grandfather’s house had become during this purposeful campaign of DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT.
IRONY ALERT: Whenever the city cited the property for non-compliance, it didn’t cite Aries Development, which had a 50-year lease on the house and was responsible for its upkeep. The city fined the company owned by the Stirrups for all infractions because it was the owner of record.
It’s impossible to know what was happening behind the scenes, but if this were my grandfather’s legacy, I would have been jumping up and down to get the developer to do the right thing by him — to save the historic E.W.F. Stirrup House, the oldest house on Charles Avenue, from a campaign of DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT.
It’s also impossible to know what motivated the Stirrup grandchildren to enter into a business agreement with Aries Development to turn the house into a B&B. Was it money? Were they sold a bill of goods by Aries? Were they blindsided by the horrible treatment the house received at the hands of the developer? However, as [silent?] partners in this business deal, some of the blame has to go to them for being terrible stewards of their grandfather’s house and his legacy.
LaTasha and LaToya Stirrup pointing to
E.W.F. Stirrup – One Grove mural unveiling.
This collaborative effort was born in the social media space following an inspired Facebook discussion among a few family members. While aware that our family story is already in the public domain and has been for some time, we acknowledged that the telling of our family story varied greatly and was regrettably unknown to many– particularly to those most needing to hear it. We came to an agreement as a family and decided to act–as a family, for our family.
We agreed that our family story is a classic American immigrant tale; one that is deeply rooted in the American dream.; one that is both exemplary and extraordinary; one that deserves to be told; and one that should rightfully be told by the Stirrup family.
All I’ve ever wanted was to restore the legacy of E.W.F. Stirrup, whose story I accidentally discovered. I became fascinated with the man and what his life meant for Coconut Grove, a place that proves the exception to the rule in Race Relations in this country. As the only person writing about him over the last 7 years, I welcome their inclusion. His is a story that needs to be told widely.
At a Coconut Grove Collaborative meeting (described below) is when I first met SFL’s LaToya Stirrup (and her sister LaTasha). They had read my articles on their great grandfather and thanked me for keeping the legacy alive. We started up an email conversation that ended abruptly. I was told through sources that, although they were not of the side of the family that gave up the 50-year lease on the Stirrup House, they were told by the family to stay away from me because I was criticizing the Bed & Breakfast deal.
However, if we’re going to tell E.W.F. Stirrup’s story, let’s tell it correctly. The Our Patriarch page reads:
Stirrup constructed more than 100 homes in his lifetime, providing an opportunity for newly arrived Bahamians to actually own their first home. Many of the houses built by Stirrup remain, and are concentrated around Charles Avenue (originally Evangelist Street) close to the present-day Coconut Grove Playhouse, and the heart of the Bahamian community. Stirrup’s own home is at the head of Charles Avenue, and has survived as a legacy to its builder. [1] Over the years, many across Miami have continued to honor the legacy of Stirrup by keeping his memory alive in books as well as naming buildings around the city after him, like E.W.F. Stirrup Elementary in West Miami [2], The Stirrup Townhouses [3], and the Stirrup Senior residences in Coconut Grove [4]. His residence, which still stands today, [see 1] as well as the street he cleared to serve as the major thoroughfare for the community, Charles Avenue, were both designated Historic Sites by the City of Miami.
[1] Not any more, as this entire post proves [2] The E.W.F. Elementary School is named after E.W.F. Stirrup, II, not the patriarch [3] If this refers to Stirrup Grove, on Franklin Avenue, that is the only thing I’ve ever discovered actually named after the patriarch [4] Also named after E.W.F. Stirrup, II
J.S. Rashid of Coconut Grove Collaborative Development Corporation
Before I throw shade at Rashid, a man I happen to like, let me praise him. Two years ago I covered the Gibson Plaza Groundbreaking ceremony in A Grand Day For Grand Avenue. Rashid spearheaded this project, which is right across Grand Avenue from the cute little Conch-style house that holds the Coconut Grove Collaborative Development Corporation. Gibson Plaza is now completed and a happening thing.
February 22, 2013 — six more months of growth on those
vines pictured above — when landscapers (and I use the
term loosely) ripped away the vines that had grown into
the siding and windows. This ruined the side of the house.
S’funny story: I was in Coconut Grove that day to attend
a Historic Charles Avenue Committee meeting at the
Collaborative Development Office at which I knew the
E.W.F Stirrup House was on the agenda. This clearing of
the lot was, as predicted, brought up as an example of
all the good things that were were taking place at the
Stirrup House by Aries.
This landscaping is the only thing that ever happened,
not counting the illegal removal of the old trees.
Rashid is also the force behind the Kroma Gallery, the only place along the west end of Grand Avenue that White folks will go to. He has also worked diligently for the infilling of lots in the West Grove with affordable housing, although property values have skyrocketed so much lately that the “affordable” part is now a pipe dream.
If anyone has been waving the flag for West Grove, it’s J.S. Rashid, a community organizer out of Chicago that’s managed to get some things done despite the uphill battle.
But, Rashid is a deal-maker. A community organizer. A go-along-to-get-along guy. However, I think he bends over backwards for developers.
F’rinstance: when Aries Development needed to get the zoning on the E.W.F. Stirrup House changed from single family dwelling to commercial to accommodate a Bed & Breakfast, Rashid was there to support the project, appearing on the tee vee tubery and everything. While the video has been disabled, CBS Miami produced this report in May 5, 2011, two years after I started my lonely campaign to SAVE THE E.W.F. STIRRUP HOUSE. Quoting from Land Fight Brewing Over Historic Coconut Grove House:
The developer that owns the condo’s behind the Stirrup house has taken out a 50 year lease on the property and is proposing rezoning the area for adaptive use that mean it can turn it into a business like a bed and breakfast or a cafe.
Community Activist Jihad Rashid was against the idea but he now calls the plan a win-win.
“With the protection that comes with that rezoning, the community can maintain its character and enhance our property and lifestyle and showcase our history,” said Rashid.
The developer has agreed to leave a one foot residential zone around the property to prevent other neighbors from wanting to turn their land into commercial zone. It has also agreed to restore the Stirrup house to its original state and in case of a natural disaster it would build a replica of the building.
It turned out to an unnatural disaster that destroyed the house: a decade-long campaign of DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT.
Had Rashid remained opposed to this rezoning, it’s doubtful the house would have been turned into a Bed & Breakfast. However, to be fair, it probably wouldn’t have changed the campaign of DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT that had started years earlier.
However, had Rashid been more proactive, some of this might have been prevented. At the meeting I described above, when the representative of Aries Development stood up to give a progress report, and mentioned the recent landscaping I stood up gave him a blast, saying that not only was it the only thing done to the house, but it also managed to destroy part of the house when the vines that had grown into the wooden siding were just ripped away.
Rashid, who chaired the meeting, shut me down immediately by saying, “We’re all looking forward. We’re not looking back,” which is an insidious way of blame dodging I’ve written about before (under very different circumstances in my rant Treacherous Double-Dealing).
Bottom line: Over the years I tried to warn Rashid several times that things were rotten over at the E.W.F. Stirrup and nothing ever changed. The Community Activist was active elsewhere.
City of Miami Historic and Environmental Protection Board
The HEP Board ultimately approved the plans that allowed this property to be used as a Bed & Breakfast. While there were all kinds of protections in place, the developer was able to get away with nearly a decade of DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT because once the HEP Board approved the plan, it never bothered to check on what was happening to this structure — even though it was designated a historic site by the City of Miami.
And, the protections seem inadequate or written with loopholes you can drive a cement truck through. F’rinstance: In the approval documents the developer needs to get a Certificate To Dig before it can dig a hole. This needs to be signed off on by an archeologist. Once I realized I had had lost the fight to turn the E.W.F. Stirrup House into a Bed & Breakfast, I shifted my focus to agitating for an archeological dig of the Stirrup property.
The property is a huge double lot which has been owned by the same family for more than 120 years. Who knows what artifacts, buried just below the surface, could be discovered in an archeological dig? An archeological dig could reveal how life was lived by Bahamian immigrants in Coconut Grove at the turn of the last century.
Trench and rebar – February 3, 2016
On a recent visit to the Stirrup House, I discovered a backhoe digging a 2 foot deep trench all around the house despite the HEP Board calling for an archeological dig. So, I quickly called Megan Schmidt, Chief Preservation Officer of the City of Miami City of Miami Historic Preservation Office (see below) to see if they had a Certificate To Dig.
Days later, after the trench had already been dug, rebar inserted into it, and the whole thing filled with cement, I FINALLY got my return call. Apparently the developer did get a Certificate To Dig, but — GET THIS! — the archeologist doesn’t actually sign off on the project until the whole thing is finished.
WAIT!!! WHAT???
Then what’s the purpose of the HEP Board requiring an archeologist to sign off on it after the fact if there is no archeology done? I’ll wait.
TO BE FAIR: The trench was dug to place a concrete footing all around the house so that they could slide massive steel I-beams from one side of the house to the other to support it during the work. However, that was all wasted effort and money, since they could have just razed the house and rebuilt it, as opposed to replacing the house one board at a time until nothing of the old house was left. And, with the scaffolding they put all around the house, most people I spoke to were fooled into thinking it was a renovation. After I told them to take a closer look, they realized exactly what I was talking about.
City of Miami Historic Preservation Office
The foundation trench has been dug, cemented, and
the steel i-beams slung underneath the house, but
before the house got jacked up. February 24, 2016
To her credit Megan Schmidt, of the City of Miami Preservation Office, is one of the few people in Miami government to return my phone calls, even though it takes her days to do so. Also to her credit, she agreed to meet with me once and opened up the entire Stirrup House file to me, which was surprisingly thin. [The reason being, she said, is because each city department keeps its own files.] She also shared the plans on file that merely showed the exterior elevations. I wrote about this in Shocker!!! E.W.F. Stirrup House Plans Are Finally On File.
However, at that same meeting she grossly misinformed me. I specifically asked whether the developer had the required building permits to start work. She told me they didn’t. Months later she said that either I misunderstood her answer, or she misunderstood my question. As it turned out the approval from the HEP Board (above) was all the permitting needed to begin the renovation. That precluded my last opportunity to stop the project.
At the time we met I shared with her my research on the house and my suspicion the rapacious developer was allowing it to undergo a purposeful campaign of DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT. She thanked me for my interest and told me her office had to rely on people like me because they were so understaffed. But, was that just lip service? It’s hard to know.
I begged her to keep an eye on the house and she said she would. However, nothing ever changed and the developers were able to pull the wool over her eyes. The Historic E.W.F. Stirrup House is no more.
This is the elaborate web of scaffolding erected all around the Stirrup
House. While it provided stability to the structure, it also disguised what
was going on behind the scenes. In this picture, along the bottom of the
Stirrup House, note the new metal sill plate all around the house.
Also many of the horizontal support beams have already been replaced.
April 27, 2016
When I recently called her to say the entire house was being replaced, she tried to argue the point with me.
She claimed the scaffolding surrounding the house was only there to protect the house during renovation. I asked if she had been there recently and she said she had in the last few weeks. I said she needed to go back ASAP to see how little of the old house was left.
I also told her that the contractor informed me that it was all going to be replaced, board by board. I further informed her that the scaffolding actually was disguising that fact, either accidentally or by design.
However, Megyn Schmidt didn’t seem at all surprised or shocked that this project had become a reconstruction, saying casually that sometimes that’s the price of Historic Preservation.
No! The price of Historic Preservation is to preserve the building!!!
The developers AVOIDED the costs of Historic Preservation through its deliberate, almost decade-long campaign of DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT. That’s my whole point. They benefited by destroying this historic house, important to the Black community.
Schmidt was also the one who told me, two months ago, that to the best of her knowledge the City of Miami gave the developer a grant for the Stirrup House, which would have gone through the District 2 Commissioner’s office. When she said she would get the paperwork on this grant for me, I jokingly asked whether I should file an Freedom Of Information request, or should I just trust her to get it to me? I’m still waiting.
On May 11, 2016 only the roof and a small
section near the front of the house remains.
I knew should have filed under the Florida Sunshine Law, not that it ever gets me anywhere.
TO BE FAIR: She has called me once in the interim to tell me that she may have been mistaken about the grant coming from the District 2 office, but she still remembers a grant and she was still looking for me. Yet, I have called her office and left messages several times since. She has not returned those calls and I know nothing more than I did when she offhandedly mentioned she believed there had been a grant.
I’ll update this grand business when I know more. However, that the developers may have received taxpayer dollars to destroy the E.W.F. Stirrup House really sticks in my craw.
Peter Gardner/Sabal Hill
Peter Gardner is the least culpable person on this list. He’s the newest developer to sign onto the E.W.F. Stirrup clusterfuck, only within the last year.
When I recently heard that he was now involved in the Stirrup House Bed & Breakfast my interest was piqued. I had heard his name, and that of his company Pointe Group (now Sabal Hill) as being one of the developers who wanted to gentrify Grand Avenue. This is a 6 block project that’s been bandied about for years and years and years.
Here’s the scaffolding coming down on June 20, 2016
There are two ends to Grand Avenue, the east end and the west end. The east side has CocoWalk and all the new development. From the east end you have access to Biscayne Bay and, more importantly South Bayshore Drive and Main Highway, both with their multi-million dollar estates.
Looking west down Grand Avenue from Margaret. This
model shown to me at the Sabal Hill offices makes it
appear as if Grand Avenue will become a gentrified
concrete canyon, despite Peter Gardner’s protestations.
The west end of Grand Avenue, from Margaret Street on, is the West Grove ghetto with the fabled US-1/Dixie Highway at the far west end. However, this entire end of Grand Avenue has gone from being the thriving Black Business District — when segregation gave this stretch of stores a virtual monopoly with the Black community — to the depressed area it is in now. The very same systemic racism as existed in every city in this country also exerted itself on this stretch of Grand Avenue. There was virtually no urban improvement in West Grove for more than 50 years, until Rashid built Gibson Plaza.
The biggest problem with this stretch of Grand Avenue is that these properties — which could once be had for a song because the neighbourhood was blighted — have been flipped too many times by speculators and developers. It’s still blighted, but now the land is too expensive to build anything that won’t create a concrete canyon along that stretch of Grand. Land is a machine that has to pay for itself. Only massive development will allow this land to pay its own way in the future.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT’S DUE: I met with Peter Gardner a few weeks back, surprised that he’d even talk to me after all I’ve written about the Stirrup House and the rapacious developers who got their grimy hands on it. None of the other developers involved ever replied to me.
I told Peter Gardner I was heartbroken over what happened to the Stirrup House at the hands of his current partners, Aries Development. Now that I no longer have to watch the Stirrup House I was going to start investigating Grand Avenue.
For his part Gardner kept talking about the fact that he’s a born & bred Coconut Grove boy who only wants what’s best for Coconut Grove. However his definition of what’s best for Coconut Grove is diametrically opposed to what I think is best for Coconut Grove. I don’t think wholesale gentrification will be good for the people in West Grove. Gardner tells me it could still be 2 years before the first shovel goes into the ground for these Grand Avenue developments. Let’s hope cooler heads prevail before then or, at the very least, plans are made for all of the current residents living in relative poverty to be relocated to affordable housing.
Something that greatly troubles me is how Sabal Hill has also acquired those two empty lots across the street from the Stirrup House (see above). He’s betting those 2 properties will become more valuable once the Stirrup House Bed & Breakfast and the Coconut Grove Playhouse are finally re-opened. Gardner paid $1,000,000 for those lots that are zoned for Single Family Dwellings. He will never be able to make his money back by building single family dwellings. He will need a zoning variance to build duplexes, apartment buildings, or a business.
There had been houses on those properties before Aries Development got its grimy hands on them. However, they were torn down so those lots could be used as a marshaling yard for the construction of The Monstrosity. In fact, those 2 lots are just some of the affordable housing knocked down to build that ugly thing.
The community needs to appose any change of zoning for those two properties, otherwise — ONCE AGAIN — the developers will get what they want by pulling the wool over the eyes of the City of Miami Planning and Zoning Department.
The Black Residents of West Grove/Apathy
It has to be said: The residents of West Grove are an apathetic lot. Whenever I talk to folks in West Grove about the E.W.F. Stirrup House, I get a big shrug. The Old Timers, who are old enough to remember Mr. Stirrup in his lifetime, have expressed little concern for the building. Younger people don’t even know who the hell E.W.F. Stirrup was and why his legacy is so important.
Looking south across the two lots acquired by Sabal Hill, to the
E.W.F. Stirrup House, dwarfed by The Monstrosity behind it.
One of my [Black] sources has a theory about this apathy. It starts with many decades of systemic racism. Black folks were used to being ignored at City Hall. It was all they could do to get low-paying jobs, put food on the table, and see their children get an education and stay out of trouble.
Who had time to concern themselves with the house of a rich man? E.W.F. Stirrup may have been one of Florida’s first Black millionaires, but he was also called a slum landlord because some of his rental properties were in pitiful condition. So few people in West Grove know of E.W.F. Stirrup that his reputation hardly matters. However, make no mistake, there is a Black neighbourhood in Coconut Grove due to his efforts.
The White Residents of Coconut Grove/Systemic Racism
This is what 13 decades of Institutional Racism looks like. And, it was no different in Coconut Grove than anywhere else in this country, except for one thing: E.W.F. Stirrup built more than 100 homes and then bartered, rented, or sold them to the growing Black families that were arriving to become the service industry for the nascent tourist trade.
Note the difference between how Commodore Ralph Monroe has been honoured and how E.W.F. Stirrup has not. They were contemporaries and both are considered Founding Fathers of Coconut Grove. Their houses were only 625 feet apart. Yet Commodore Monroe’s house was restored and turned into a Florida State Park called The Barnacle.
The plywood sheeting is going up on June 7, 2016. The last part of the formerly-historic E.W.F. Stirrup House left was the roof. And, as you can see, that’s also been destroyed. It will probably be coming off.
Conversely, the E.W.F. Stirrup House was torn down to build an exact re-creation to be turned into a commercial Bed & Breakfast for Rich White Fucks, as I call them. I wonder what Mr. Stirrup would think about that?
Meanwhile, you can barely find information about E.W.F. Stirrup, his life and legacy online. I have only ever been able to find one photograph of Mr. Stirrup, even though Ralph Monroe was a photographer.
None of this would have happened had E.W.F. Stirrup had been White. West Grove wouldn’t look the way it does now if it were White. The same systemic racism that plagued other cities also worked its devolution on West Grove.
In 2009 I was relatively new to Florida. Embedded in my online Performance Art character of Aunty Em Ericann, this happened at almost the same time I started writing for NewsHounds. Coincidentally, I was also 2 years into a research project on Sistrunk Boulevard — once the vibrant Black business district of the once vibrant Black neighbourhood in Fort Lauderdale.
I was researching Sistrunk because one of the characters in Farce Au Pain will eventually need to leave Detroit in a hurry. I decided to place him near Sistrunk. [See if you can guess who.] Researching Sistrunk meant I was already learning about Race Relations in South Florida. On the day I am about to describe I was also in the middle of reading Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James W. Loewen. It’s a book that explains why every city in this country looks the way it does. The history of Sistrunk is no different than any other Black enclave in the U.S. — except NYC and, as I was to eventually learn, Coconut Grove, which followed a different path than most cities. [NYC is usually the exception to any rule.]
Meanwhile, when I wasn’t at the library reading the stacks about Sistrunk, and when Aunty Em wasn’t trolling Right Wing Nut Jobs, I was freelancing for a financial institution (that I won’t name). My job involved visiting properties in foreclosure, taking photographs of them, and uploading them to a restricted web site to prove they were still there. My territory was huge: Hollywood to Homestead, including Miami Beach.
It sounds crazy, but I was sent to the same properties every 3-4 weeks and nothing ever changed. About 1/3 of the time I also had to leave a letter. I got triple the fee for those. I always took a pic of me leaving the letter, so there was never a dispute. I even got paid for arriving at a gated community, being denied entry, and taking a pic of the guard who sent me away.
It all seemed like money wasted to me, but the financial institution was shoveling it in my direction. Who was I to say no to Bank Money? It was during the height of the foreclosure crisis and there was no end to the work. Each week I’d get paperwork on some 100-250 properties and I was expected to return pictures of them in 3-5 days.
As an aside: Imagine you needed to visit that many properties. You’d drive yourself bonkers if you tried to chart the most efficient route. Thanks to (the now discontinued) Microsoft Street and Trips. I could plug all the addresses into the laptop, hit OPTIMIZE, and — after the machine thought about it for a while — it would spit out the perfect route. If I put my address as the first and last, it would route me down one side of Southeast Florida and up the other.
Being new to South Florida, I couldn’t have told you the difference between Coconut Grove, Hialeah, Hollywood, Opa-Locka, Cutler Bay, or Miami Beach — or how to get there. Thank goodness Microsoft Streets and Trips also had a USB GPS thangie to hang on my windscreen.
A recent pic of 3678 William Avenue, the first
house I ever photographed in Coconut Grove.
One day I was down in Cutler Bay. My next stop was on William Avenue, in Miami (actually Coconut Grove, but I didn’t know that then). The GPS directed me to Main Highway and told me to head north.
I remember laughing at the time because it was not a highway. Nor did it seem very main. It was a narrow two lane road — one in either direction — which felt hemmed in on both sides by vegetation and the walls of gated communities. I later learned that this actually was once part of the main highway to get from Miami to the very bottom of the state, long before the overseas highway was built to Key West.
Once I was on Main Highway the GPS told to me to turn left onto Charles Avenue. As soon as I did I saw the Charles Avenue Historic Marker. It’s rare to see a marker this big on a residential street. Being a history buff I pulled over and read the marker.
Charles Avenue
The first black community on the South Florida mainland began here in the late 1880s when Blacks primarily from the Bahamas came via Key West to work at the Peacock Inn. Their first hand experience with tropical plants and building materials proved invaluable to the development of Coconut Grove. Besides private homes the early buildings included the Odd Fellows Hall, which served as a community center and library, Macedonia Baptist Church, home of the oldest black congregation in the area, and the A.M.E. Church, which housed the community’s first school. At the western end of Charles Avenue is one of the areas oldest cemeteries.
Looking from the front door of the house on William Avenue
Instinctively I could read between the lines of this sign:
“If it hadn’t been for the Black Bahamians, the White folk would have starved. This is where they lived, close to where they worked in the nascent White tourist industry.”
After reading the Charles Avenue Historic Marker, I turned to look at the E.W.F. Stirrup House for the first time. In a neighbourhood filled with one story shotgun shacks and little Conch-style houses, it was this gloriously large 2-story house, painted white with yellow trim, shining brightly in the South Florida sun. I was struck by 3 things: 1). It’s beauty; 2). How different it looked from the rest of the houses; and that it was empty.
I moved on to photograph the house on William Avenue. Then I was sent over to an address on SW 27th Avenue, which the GPS told me was exactly a mile away. I wasn’t prepared for how the neighbourhood changed from an obviously depressed area to ritzy. So ritzy, in fact, that the nondescript street address I was given was the Ritz-Carlton Residences tower, right next door to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel tower, in Coconut Grove.
I couldn’t get past the concierge to deliver the letter I had in my hand. And, I’m not even sure I could have passed the dress code besides. Because I had hundreds of properties to photograph, I took his picture and demanded to know his name for my report.
Looking into the back door of the house on William
However, I couldn’t get that yellow and white house on Charles Avenue out of my mind. As soon as I got home I jumped on Google Maps. The first surprise was that on the satellite view there were two houses on the north side of Charles Avenue, across the street from the Stirrup House. Those houses were no longer there. Why? That was the first mystery to solve. After that I was hooked.
I soon learned that the house that I found so attractive for its majestic simplicity (not a contradiction) was known as the E.W.F. Stirrup House. There was scant biographical information for Mr. Stirrup on the net, but I hoovered up what I could as fast as I could.
I also learned that the 33133 Zip Code is considered one of the most exclusive in the entire country. I had discovered a place of extreme contrasts, but my education on Coconut Grove was just beginning.
It’s probably fortunate for all involved that this financial institution sent me back to the address on William every few weeks to make sure it was still there. I’m not sure I would have driven down on my own had it not been for that. After a few visits, following a bunch of research on Charles Avenue, I was hooked
on the legacy of E.W.F. Stirrup, which seemed to have been forgotten.
His house was empty and undergoing the DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT that I’ve
documented in the 7 years since discovering it.
Furthermore, going back to the same address on William every month, or so, allowed me to follow the progression of this other property over the same 7 year period.
When I first started dropping off letters and taking pics of the house on William, it was still occupied. I’d leave my letter in the screen door. The next time I’d return it was gone and there were signs of recent occupation. However, eventually the last letter I had left was still the door, along with flyers and the other paper detritus that marks the beginning of an empty house. I left the new letter, in case someone was collecting the mail piling up in the mailbox, but reported the house as empty to the financial institution.
The back of the house on William. One of the reasons it
stood out was, like the E.W.F. Stirrup a few blocks away,
was one of the few 2-story houses in this area of West Grove.
One day I arrived to find a fire-engine red notice on the door condemning the property. Right around that time I stopped working for the financial institution because someone undercut my price. However, I continued to visit Coconut Grove for my own research on various stories in Coconut Grove.
SYNCHRONICITY ALERT: Recently I’ve been working with someone in West Grove to research a complicated story that requires driving around the neighbourhood. Recently they were ranting about a property on William Avenue that was possibly being used as a crack house, but certainly being used by the homeless.
It’s the house on William that introduced me to Coconut Grove!!!
The front door is gone. The back door is wide open. It’s filled with mold and mildew and the ceilings have fallen in. There’s a hole in the roof. Clothing and blankets are scattered through the front of the house and it’s clear that people have been sleeping there.
I told my source the story about how this very house led me to discover Coconut Grove. They told me they’ve reported this house to the City of Miami and we should go look at it. That’s when I took the pics that accompany this article.
If you’re a longtime reader of Not Now Silly, you know of my years-long campaign to SAVE THE E.W.F. Stirrup House. It is with great sadness that I report the fight has been lost.
I’m throwing in the towel.
Let me be clear. A developer is going ahead with the “Historic E.W.F. Stirrup House Bed & Breakfast.” It is currently in the process of … what’s the correct word? Clearly not renovation.
I say that because I spoke to the foreman on the 18th, who confirmed what I feared. When they are done, not a single piece of the original house will remain. It will be all new construction — from the piers on which the house will sit right up through the roof.
This NEW! IMPROVED!! Stirrup House will be a mere re-creation. An ectype. An analogue of the original. A facsimile. A carbon copy. A semblance of the former. A clone. A chip off the old wood block. A mere imitation. Imposture!!! It will be a double, aka duplicate doppelgänger. A dead ringer for what used to be. A mega-ditto. An impersonation of a historic structure. An ersatz E.W.F. Stirrup House. It will be a deceit, or deception. It’s a put-on. A reproduction. A copycat. Bogus and just an effigy of the original. An incredible likeness. A look-alike. A replica. The spitting image. A pseudo E.W.F. Stirrup House, or a simulacrum. A twin, but counterfeit. It’s a fake, a forgery, and a fraud. Merely a knockoff. A phony E.W.F. Stirrup House. A sad replication. A rip-off. A hoax. A sham. A mock-up. A simulation. Just a representation. A shadow of its former self. An archetype of the Stirrup House. An impression of what once was. Merely an approximation. Possibly a reincarnation, if you believe in that.
The northwest corner of the Stirrup House, May 18, 2016.
On the left: front. On the right: the west side. Nothing of
the original house remains, the fate for the rest of the house.
In other words: even though he built
it with his own 2 hands, it will be a house that Ebenezer Woodbury
Franklin Stirrup never touched.
The act or process of depicting, by means of new work, the form, features, and detailing on a non surviving historic structure for the purpose of replicating its appearance at a specific time in its historic location.
I asked my source, who has rehabbed many old and historic houses, whether the preservationist community looks upon these recreations with the same disdain I now look upon the NEW! IMPROVED!! E.W.F. Stirrup House.
Not if it had burned down or had fallen so far into disrepair that nothing could be salvaged.
And, therein lies the rub.
The E.W.F. Stirrup House has undergone nearly a decade of DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT. I have THOUSANDS of pictures of the Stirrup House that document the slow disintegration of the historic structure over
the last 7 years. For the majority of that time this house was not
sealed from the elements, with windows either open, missing, or broken. The all-wooden house had no protection from the wind-driven rain and from the invasive vines, reptiles and insects that took over when people moved out. No wonder the developers were able to argue nothing could be salvaged.
The official reason given for
starting from scratch is termite damage. However — and I cannot stress this enough — had the house been sealed
and protected, there may not have been quite the infestation. They allowed the worst devastation to occur on their watch. Before they got a hold of it, the house was a rental property.
Bottom line: The developer profited from allowing the house to fall apart. It would have been far more expensive to bring the old structure up to code than it will be to wire and plumb an entirely new structure.
The Mariah Brown House was once
the oldest house on Charles Avenue
IRONY ALERT!!! This is the same fate that befell the Mariah Brown House, a few doors west of the Stirrup House. What is now seen is not the Mariah Brown House. It’s a relatively new re-creation.
The Mariah Brown House was once the oldest house on Charles Avenue. “Mary the Washer-woman,” as she was known, and her husband were the first to buy land on the Frow Homestead on a footpath that later became Evangelist Street, for the number of churches that were strung along its length. It’s now known as Charles Avenue.
The Browns were among the original Bahamian labourers at The Peacock Inn, right at the beginning of the nascent South Florida tourist industry. Those tourists traps — just like modern day tourist traps — needed a service industry. The Bahamians drifting up from the Keys became those workers. After enough of them gathered in West Grove, Mr. Stirrup laid out Charles Avenue, slightly out of true east-west coordinates.
That’s why this is the very 1st street in Miami. Which is why Charles Avenue was designated a Historic Roadway by the City of Miami.
When the Brown House was reconstructed, the E.W.F. Stirrup House became the oldest house on the block.
I take absolutely no solace for being right all along. Right from the get-go I called this a case of DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT. I predicted that the developer was hoping a hurricane would knock it down because he was quoted in the Miami media as saying that he would rebuild if that happened. Just substitute termites and wood rot for hurricane and you’ve got the picture.
If you’ve been reading my blog you know that I’ve been writing about West Grove for the past 7 years. Now, all of a sudden, it’s become très chic to write about Coconut Grove. The New Tropic has been all over it lately. In one recent article I couldn’t help but notice a new name attached to the reconstruction of the Stirrup House. I’ve never seen that name mentioned in connection of the Stirrup House before. However, it’s a name I recently heard in connection to a new Coconut Grove rumour that I am currently trying to chase down. Stay tuned on that.
I haven’t Googled the topic of the E.W.F. Stirrup House in a while because I was the only one writing about it. During the research for this article, to see whether there was something new I had missed, I was gratified to discover a website called Stirrup Family Legacy. Because I didn’t want to edit this, here’s the entire ABOUT page:
This collaborative effort was born in the social media space
following an inspired Facebook discussion among a few family members.
While aware that our family story is already in the public domain and
has been for some time, we acknowledged that the telling of our family
story varied greatly and was regrettably unknown to many– particularly
to those most needing to hear it. We came to an agreement as a family
and decided to act–as a family, for our family.
We agreed that our family story is a classic American immigrant tale;
one that is deeply rooted in the American dream.; one that is both
exemplary and extraordinary; one that deserves to be told; and one that
should rightfully be told by the Stirrup family.
The goals for the Stirrup Family Legacy are threefold. First, our
website is a means of preserving the Stirrup Family Legacy while
increasing the digital footprint of the Stirrup family story. We are
creating a lasting tribute to Stirrups who have passed on, and a living
legacy for current and future generations of Stirrups.
Finally, our web presence is also a means to unite our family with
the aid of the web–a virtual and ongoing family reunion that convenes
regularly in cyberspace. We created a family community where connection
and exchange of ideas, information, resources, and love can happen.
We thank you for finding us and invite all who arrive here to visit
often, contribute, become involved in our initiatives and above all,
spread the word! S<3
As I have stated many times: The purpose of my campaign to restore the E.W.F. Stirrup House was about much more than the house. It was also to burnish the legacy of Ebenezer Woodbury Franklin Stirrup, a man way ahead of his time. During the Jim Crow years he made a fortune, but more importantly he made a home and neighbourhood for thousands of Bahamians and their descendants. The fact that there is still a cohesive Black enclave — in the middle of one of the most exclusive Zip Codes in the country — is a testament to this visionary. In the vast and ugly history of Race Relations in this country, Coconut Grove is the exception that proves the rule.
Animation: May 11, 2016, when more of the east wall still existed.
COMING SOON: Who is to blame for the destruction of the E.W.F. Stirrup House?
While I thought these crazy cyber-bullies were finally vanquished, just recently “Angie Simmoril” — who hides behind a wall of complete anonymity — popped up again to promise big doings on the Aurelius Project for the beginning of 2016. While I had almost forgotten The Flying Monkey Squad existed, this is simply more proof that an obsessed crazy person never really goes away — unless they die, which is really what I thought had happened with Grayhammy.
Watch this space.
COCONUT GROVE PLAYHOUSE & PARKING LOTS
I wrote so many stories about Coconut Grove this year, but most of them were about the Coconut Grove Playhouse and its surrounding parking lots. That meant I spent a lot of time in parking lots this year, and the year before, while I did research in the field, as it were:
When I agreed to drive a car at this year’s King Mango Strut, little
did I know it would be the one with Ken Russell doing yo-yo tricks
MIAMI DISTRICT 2 POLITICS
My campaign to SAVE THE E.W.F. STIRRUP HOUSE not only led to all those stories on the Coconut Grove Playhouse — which is catercorner to it — but also got me deeper then ever into District 2 politics. That led to a series of stories about [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff, which naturally led to that time When Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff Lied To My Face.
When the term-limited Sarnoff put up his wife Teresa to run in his place for District 2 Commissioner, I started following the election closely. My first foray in covering the candidates didn’t go so well. Jammed For Time tells the story of getting thrown out of the Grace Solaris campaign kickoff. That didn’t auger well for the rest of the Commissioner race. As far as I knew the rest of the field would treat me similarly. Luckily, none of them did. All were gracious about answering questions and posing for pictures. That provided a number of stories, the best of which are:
During the race several of the candidates agreed to talk to me, allowed me to accompany them on door knocks, let me sit in on private meetings and phone calls, and gave me some very interesting inside skinny on the donation process. All of this was done on an OFF THE RECORD basis, to be embargoed until after the election. I’m still processing my notes and recordings to see what kind of story I can get out of it.
To be continued.
PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS
As much of a political junkie as I am, I’ve been mainlining what’s been going on in the presidential race. While I’ve not written specifically about Donald J. Trump, I have created a number of memes currently whizzing around the innertubes. Collect ’em all. Trade ’em with your friends.
However, I have covered the joke that is some of the rest of the current GOP field, and some previous races:
Late last year I reconnected with my childhood friend Kenneth John Wilson. Ken, who is an evangelical pastor in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has written a very important book on LGBT acceptance in the church. I started following his extraordinary story and began a series of Pastoral Letters to him. Occasionally he replies, but I am writing then more to understand my mind than his.
I’ve started another Pastoral Letter, but it will be a while before I get all my thoughts in order.
FALSETTO VOICE:
I began my research into Coconut Grove years ago at the E.W.F. Stirrup House. While there’s not been that much to write about on that issue over the last year — because almost nothing has changed — that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten all about Gino Falsetto, the rapacious developer who got his grimy hands on the historic structure:
I’m also prepping a new story on the E.W.F. Stirrup House. It’s almost half written. Stay tuned. Watch this space. Coming to a browser near you.
This year I also bonded with Fox’s Campaign Carl Cameron
THE FOX “NEWS” CHANNEL
My fascination/revulsion with the Fox “News” Channel continues, which is how I picked up Johnny Dollar as an enemy in the first place. No matter. For the last year I’ve written a Friday Fox Follies for PoliticusUSA website, continued to run Fox Follies and Fallacies, over at the facebookery. However . . .
Before the road trips I stopped aggregating the Headlines Du Jour. It took several hours 3 days a week and it was a trap, without any achival value. When I got back from the road trips I began two brand new series. Launching Throwback Thursday with The Westerfield Journals was one and Monday Musical Appreciation the other. I’m quite proud of both of these series. In both these series I am highlight some of the lesser-known history-makers.
NAME DROPPING
One of the things I’ve been accused of over the years is name-dropping. I plead guilty and throw myself on the mercy of the internet. What’s the penalty? Izzit just a fine or jail time?
No matter. Exhibit A and B as evidence against me this year:
Those are just some of the highlights from the last year. No one knows what 2016 will hold for the Not Now Silly Newsroom, but I’ll be writing it from Toronto. More specifically, Kensington Market. It felt so good in September, I’m going to do it all over again. To that end, I’ve launched a Go Fund Me to help defray my moving expenses. It’s amazing how much stuff I’ve accumulated in the last decade. Help me get back to Toronto:
The area surrounding the Coconut Grove Playhouse
[Click map to enlarge] LEGEND:
A). Grove Gardens Condominiums; aka The Monstrosity; B). Regions Bank; C). The E.W.F. Stirrup House; D). Zoned residential lots, used for illegal parking; E). Part of the 45 parking spaces leased for Valet Parking; F). Blue Star Drive In & remaining 45 spaces leased to Valet parking; G). Playhouse Parking Lot operated by the MPA; H). Unlocked gate directing traffic onto William and Thomas Streets and location of arrow directing cars to exit onto Charles Avenue; I). Main entrance/exit for main Playhouse parking lot; J). The Bicycle Shop; K). The Barnacle, now a State Park, once belonged to Commodore Ralph Monroe, a contemporary of E.W.F. Stirrup; L). Rich people in gated enclaves; M). Far less well off people in West Grove, which has remained predominately Black and depressed during the last 125 years; N). Commodore Plaza, named after Ralph Monroe, is lined with pricy eateries and more expensive art galleries, meant for people with more disposable income than those on the surrounding blocks.
A year-long investigation by the Not Now Silly Newsroom has uncovered a situation in which valet parking companies continue to rip off City of Miami taxpayers for an untold numbers of dollars.
Last year, when Miami-Dade Cultural Czar Michael Spring untangled the Gordian knot of the Coconut Grove Playhouse, several pieces of that complex puzzle were the various parking lots surrounding the Playhouse. Paradise Parking was kicked off the main parking lot [G on map to the left] — after having squatted on it for several years — in exchange for an arrangement where it rents 45 parking spaces from the MPA, at $6 a day per, immediately behind the Playhouse in lots [E] and [F].
It never occurred to me when I went into journalism that I’d be sitting in parking lots noting the movements of cars and valets, but that’s part of what I’ve been doing for the last year. That surveillance led to several articles. After my last series of parking lot stories, a gate at the west end of the Coconut Grove Playhouse parking lot was ordered locked. It turned out the valets on Commodore Plaza had demanded it be left open on busy Friday and Saturday nights in order to make their job easier.
However — and this is crucial — the valet companies don’t run the parking lots, nor the city for that matter. They just think they do. That’s why they run roughshod over West Grove, caring little about the agreements they’ve already made. They are playing the city for chumps and stealing money from taxpayers.
Which brings us to the evening of Saturday, May 2nd. There was a big event at the Cruz Building on Commodore Plaza [N], one street over from the Playhouse parking lot. (The Cruz Building, rumoured to have been built with cocaine money in Miami’s Go-Go 80s, is rented out for weddings or bar mitzvahs and the like.) Saturday’s event must have been bigger-than-average because the single block of Commodore Plaza was bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go traffic in both directions, with an officer directing traffic directly in front of the Cruz building. Many parking valets were taking cars from the swells and zipping off somewhere, as the security officer held up traffic for them.
That got my journalistic senses tingling. Where were the cars going?
The last time I heard of a big affair at the Cruz building, the valets were illegally parking cars on the 2 residential lots [D] on Charles Avenue, immediately across the street from the E.W.F. Stirrup House [C]. The neighbours called the Not Now Silly Newsroom, which led to this reporter asking 11 questions of [allegedly] corrupt Miami District 2 Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff. He refused to answer any of them and punted them to the Miami Parking Authority. After waiting 2 months, I finally got answers to those questions that fell within the MPA’s bailiwick; not all did, so there are several questions outstanding.
On May 2nd, after some surveillance at 6:30 PM, I discovered the valets were taking cars from the Cruz Building and parking them in the MPA lot, which is not a part of the 45 spaces rented from the MPA. Eventually, by 9PM, the MPA lot was filled with cars, many of which were parked by valets. Private citizens would pull into the parking lot, drive around the small circle and, finding no parking spaces, would leave. Every car that left without finding a parking space was money taken out of the Miami taxpayer’s pocket by the valet parking companies.
This is more egregious than it sounds for 2 reasons:
The citizens were behaving better than the valets, who stuck their Cruz Building cars anywhere they’d fit, whether there were lines on the ground, or not;
At 9PM, parking lot [F], which is rented from the MPA was 100% empty, while parking lot [E], also rented, had only 8 cars in it.
[As a side issue: The Regions Bank parking lot, [B] had 18 cars in it, more than I’ve ever counted before. I have communicated with Regions Bank only to learn it has sanctioned this valet parking arrangement. The bank cited — GET THIS!!! — how it’s a convenient arrangements for their own customers because it allows them to drive right up to the night deposit. However, Regions better hope their customers are driving skateboards, because that’s all that will really fit.]
In short: The valets fill up every surrounding parking lot first, before they start filling up their own. They’re playing the city and Regions Bank for chumps and stealing money from the taxpayer.
When I told this story to Art Noriega, head of the Miami Parking Authority, he hit the roof on Monday morning. Can’t wait for my follow-up interview with him.
Let’s tie all this up with a pretty little bow for people who need to have their noses rubbed in the corruption before they actually see it.
Because:
The valet companies are connected to Gino Falsetto through Andrew Falsetto at Paradise Parking;
Aries has a 50-year lease on the E.W.F. Stirrup House, the 2nd oldest house in Coconut Grove, designated historic, but currently undergoing nearly a decade of Demolition by Neglect;
Aries, through other companies, owns the 2 vacant residential lots across the street from the Stirrup House, which had a cute little West Grove shotgun-and conch-style house on each before they were razed;
Aries torpedoed several plans over the years to reopen the Coconut Grove Playhouse, allowing further Demolition by Neglect of that venerated structure that the community is still trying to save;
Finally, Aries built the Grove Gardens Resident Condominiums, aka The Monstrosity, which set a new precedent for higher density structures in West Grove;
Is it not obvious to the Powers That Be that a single entity is responsible for most of the deterioration of the area immediately surrounding the Main Highway and Charles Avenue, which has been designated a Historic Roadway?
How does Gino Falsetto get away with all of this right under everybody’s collective noses? More to the point: Am I the only one watching?
Playhouse panorama – All pics by author on March 10, 2015
There is disturbing news coming out of Miami concerning the renovations of the Coconut Grove Playhouse.
Everyone thought the Playhouse Plan was well on the way when last year all the financial encumbrances that delayed restoring and reopening the Playhouse had been settled. Then recently, Arquitectonica was chosen as the lead design company to oversee the project. However, quietly in the background lawyer Mike Eidson (Lewis S. “Mike” Eidson) started agitating for a new plan. In a nutshell, it’s far more ambitious than the 300 seat theater proposed as a Trojan Horse for a huge parking garage at Main Highway and Charles Avenue.
Eidson’s plan includes 2 theaters as a Trojan Horse for a huge parking garage at Main Highway and Charles Avenue, one about 350 seats and the other approximately 750 seats. [See: The Latest Play on the Coconut Grove Playhouse for Memorandum of Understanding penned by Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez and an overview of the Eidson Plan.] Because this plan is far more ambitious than the previous plan, it will require an additional $40 million to the $20 million already earmarked for the Playhouse restoration. That money has to come from somewhere and Eidson, not unlike Zero Mostel, has been out fund-raising.
Once again weeds are growing out of the house, not the ground.
This is a philanthropist?
In the Business called Show, someone who comes in with enough cash to rescue a play is called an angel. The names being bandied about as so-called “philanthropists” who want to swoop in and save the Coconut Grove Playhouse sound more like devils.
As of this writing, Mike Eidson has yet to return my call. I was hoping for an ON THE RECORD confirmation or denial before taking this to print. However, time is of the essence considering the Miami-Dade Commission will be voting on the Suarez Memorandum of Understanding tomorrow at 2PM. [If I turn out to be wrong, I’ll apologize profusely all around.]
It will take more than 3 “philanthropists” to cough up $40 million, so there will, no doubt, be more names added (or subtracted) from this list. However, 3 names have filtered down to me: Pointe Group, Grass River Properties and Aries Development. Long-time readers of the NNS Newsroom will recognize Aries Development as the company that I have been writing about for the last 6 years. It is owned by rapacious developer Gino Falsetto, who has allowed the E.W.F. Stirrup House to undergo nearly a decade of Demolition by Neglect.
SLIGHT TANGENT: It’s worth writing about The Pointe Group and Grass River Properties, but those are stories for another day. I had never heard of Grass River Properties until it came up in connection with the Eidson Plan. Through sheer coincidence, this reporter attended the Golden Pines Neighborhood Association meeting last night at which [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff and the local police Commander were forced to answer for Grass River’s highrise at 27th Avenue and 27th Street. To his credit Grass River rep Christian Cobb was there to answer questions and he was excoriated by several of the residents for parking and traffic difficulties around the project. From what Cobb said many of these problems will be solved soon, but could have been solved a lot sooner had Grass River been proactive, meeting with residents before the project started, or responding to complaints that have been made for the last 18 months. TANGENT OVER.
However, it was the words “Aries Development” and “philanthropist” in the same sentence that made me throw up in my mouth a little. This reporter has written story after story about what a BAD NEIGHBOUR Gino Falsetto has been to the West Grove neighbourhood that he carpetbagged his way into in order to build The Monstrosity. The Monstrosity is immediately behind — and dwarfs — the E.W.F. Stirrup House, which he controls through a 50-year lease, and has allowed to undergo nearly a decade of Demolition by Neglect.
When asked, Aries Development puts forward two different lies for allowing this situation to continue. Pick one: Either they ran out of money before they got to the Stirrup House restoration or the city keeps delaying them. Dismissing the latter lie is easy: Aries only filed plans last year with the city, plans that are totally inadequate for historic preservation, under which all renovations must take place.
The “ran out of money” lie is even more laughable considering that Aries: 1). Built two hugely expensive basement levels below The Monstrosity for parking and a private Members Only Wine Cave called La Cava; 2). Is operating 3 restaurants on the ground floor of The Monstrosity; 3). Loaned the now-bankrupt Playhouse Board an undetermined amount of money, which is how it ended up with the Bicycle Shop in compensation; 4). “Squatted” on the Playhouse Parking Lot, collecting the fees from people silly enough to park there; 5). Is about to pony up a portion of $40 million dollars — out of the goodness of its corporate heart — to save the Coconut Grove Playhouse.
This is a philanthropist?
I say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!
It’s time for people to treat Gino Falsetto as the slum landlord he is and reject his money-grubbing social climbing until he fulfills the promises he’s already made concerning the E.W.F. Stirrup House.
More than any single individual Gino Falsetto stands to profit the most from a successful and lively Coconut Grove Playhouse. Gino Falsetto isn’t a philanthropist; he’s out to line his own pockets at the expense of everybody else.
A philanthropist would not allow this cultural TREASURE of Black Grove to waste away. A philanthropist would have already done the right thing. A philanthropist would not have created the current blight that is the E.W.F. Stirrup House and the Bicycle Shop.
Gino Falsetto should should be made to clean up the messes he’s already created before anyone considers his money clean enough to touch.
This is a philanthropist?
TO BE FAIR: There are some real angels in this story: Mike Eidson and Kevin Spacey.
Eidson has come up with a game-changing Playhouse Plan that will be more than just a rinky-dink 300 seat theater with a parking garage wrapped around it.
Furthermore, having interviewed a half dozen people OFF THE RECORD about Mike Eidson, everyone tells me he’s on the side of the angels. Seriously. One person used that expression. His only interest seems to be to bring live theater back to the corner of Main Highway and Charles Avenue.
Those in the know have been exercising caution about embracing Eidson’s Plan, though. The big fear is that it will take him so long to raise the $40 million, and solve all the design problems, that Florida just yanks the lease and sells the property to the highest bidder for a huge development. My fear is that Eidson is in such a hurry to show that he’s got this under control that he’s not too choosy about who he climbs into bed with.
Kevin Spacey, who has signed onto the Eidson Plan as Artistic Consultant, should also be considered an angel. There’s no denying Spacey’s acting chops. Were those films not career enough he’s also credited with restoring the reputation of London’s venerated Old Vic Theater as Artistic Director.
I am sure Spacey is getting involved with the Coconut Grove Playhouse for all the right reasons. While not as old as the Old Vic, it also has a venerated history, which I’m sure has not escaped his notice. Were I an an actor of his stature, that would be the kind of challenge I would take on next.
This is a philanthropist?
However, based on the little I know of him, I don’t think he would approve of the treatment of E.W.F. Stirrup’s legacy. It’s less than 200 feet from the Stirrup House to Coconut Grove Playhouse. Kevin Spacey needs to be made aware of how this carpetbagging rapscallion treats the people of West Grove, in which the Coconut Grove Playhouse resides.
To be clear: It’s only because E.W.F. Stirrup was Black has his house been allowed to undergo almost a decade of Demolition by Neglect. More than anyone else, except for perhaps his contemporary Ralph Monroe, Stirrup put his stamp on Coconut Grove and, therefore, Miami. Yet Monroe’s house, The Barnacle, just a few thousand feet away, is now memorialized as a State Park. The E.W.F Stirrup House is memorialized as more Gino Falsetto blight, just like the Bicycle Shop.
A panorama showing the parking lot between the Bicycle Shop and the north wall of the Coconut Grove Playhouse. When Aries acquired the Bicycle Shop one of the first things it did was rip the roof off. This led to an unsafe construction site, which I reported to By Law Compliance until they finally sealed the building. However, then the structure became unsafe because it no longer had a roof to hold the walls in. Now the interior is criss-crossed with massive steel beams bolted to the walls and floors to stabilize the structure.
I am in the middle of the worst case of Writer’s Block in my lifetime. 
4). I used to set aside time every day to write because I had assignments due, or a post I was compelled to write. Lately, I don’t seem to have anything I really want to write about, so I make posts on the facebooky, as if that’s really writing at all.
Then I began the slow and emotionally difficult process of writing an article about it. I was making incremental progress on it, despite having to kick against the writers’ block. And then: Disaster!
The earliest gathering of what could be considered a community in Coconut Grove were the Bahamians that drifted up through Key West looking for work. Mariah Brown (known as Mary the Washerwoman at the Peacock Inn) was able to buy a small plot of land on what would become Evangelist Street and, later, Charles Avenue. [Her house on Charles Avenue is now a replica.] Eventually a gentleman by the name of Ebenezer Woodbury Franklin Stirrup became the largest landholder in Coconut Grove, and one of Florida’s first Black millionaires.
I entered the picture afterwards, in February of 2009. I remember returning from that first visit to Coconut Grove and telling several friends that I wasn’t sure what I had discovered, but I thought there was a story to be written. I was wrong. There have now been many stories written.
He was able to obtain a bank loan using those properties as collateral. Once these properties were no longer needed for this grand scheme of building the Monstrosity, the developers had a new scheme. They simply stopped paying off the bank loan and allowed the properties to go into foreclosure. The bank repossessed, put the properties up for auction, and they were bought by a company whose owner was a partner in other companies with the developer who had just defaulted. Then, through some more LLC jiggery-pokery, these properties were conveyed back to the same developer.
Which gets us to the real topic of this post after all that preamble. These 2 properties, combined with several others, both on Charles and William Avenue, will be turned into what appears to be a 30 room, 2 story hotel.
Recently I did something I’ve never done before as an advocacy journalist. Normally I research a story, write it up, publish it, and then promote the finished article. This time, while still researching this article, I went to the neighbourhood Homeowners’ Association [HOATA] and passed around the architectural rendering you see here. I challenged them to fight this project with everything they have otherwise the gentrifiers win and the neighbourhood loses.
The latest drawings show that Charles Avenue [A, to the right] will be the entrance for all trucks with something to pick up, or take away from the Coconut Grove Condo-Retail-Restaurant-Parking Garage-Playhouse Megaplex.
To be perfectly honest: I was stunned that Falco would suddenly echo what I had been saying about the DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT of the Stirrup House after blowing me off years ago when his help may have meant something. So, I decided to leave a comment on his crappy blog.
THEN FALCO LIBELED ME:
I DEMANDED A RETRACTION:
FALCO TRIES TO WEASEL OUT:
