Tag Archives: E.W.F. Stirrup House

Unpacking the Aunty Em Erican Blog At Six Months

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My All Time Top Ten. Click to enlarge.

Light the candles and break out the noise-makers!!! The Aunty Em Ericann Blog celebrates Six Months of Existence this week. And to think it all started with Johnny Dollar Has Proven Himself To Be A Very Dangerous Person on April 19, 2012.

It’s been a wild six months for both my readers and myself. In that time I have written 180 posts and published tens of thousands of words. I’ve made new friends and, just as importantly, made several new enemies. However, what have I learned in that time? Among other things, I’ve learned that posts on Brian Jones are hugely popular. My highest-rated post is the July 3, 2012 post on Brian Jones. As of this writing it has had 1991 hits, which is more than twice as many as my 2nd highest-rated post on Josephine Baker, while exactly a month older has only 863 hits. That’s also more than 3 times my Number Three most popular post detailing my HIGH-LARRY-US bun fight with the Fox “News” correspondent James Rosen, which has only 619 hits.

James Rosen, self-proclaimed Beatles
expert and historical revisionist

For the longest time the Rosen post was my most popular. It was sad to see it slide to Number Three because it was my first post about Fox “News” (aside from all my writing at NewsHounds). Its popularity gave me the impetus to launch several wildly popular series on my blog, including The Fox News Spin Cycle and Chow Mein and Bolling. Just this week I spun off a new series called Judge Not, exploring the Libertarian mind (such as it is) of Judge Andrew Napolitano, the Fox “News” Senior Judicial Analyst.

The Number Four Post in my All Time Top Ten is a sleeper that crept up on me. It also happens to be about Fox News. I was shocked when the so-called “news” channel (in the guise of Bill “Loofah Lad” O’Reilly) felt the need to attack Randy Newman for his “I’m Dreaming” song. Since being published on September 22, 2012 it’s already wracked up 471 hits in just a month, which might make it my fastest growing post in popularity. It will be interesting to see how it does over the long haul.

The E.W.F. Stirrup House

My Number Five All Time Post is the one that I wish was really my Number One, because it’s an issue near and dear to my heart. If you’ve not been following my Unpacking Coconut Grove series, please take a look. I am trying to save the historic 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House from Demolition by Neglect. A 120-year old house doesn’t sound like much, but compared to everything else in Florida, that’s ancient. The house is not only architecturally important, but culturally important as well. It marks the zenith of the Bahamian community in Coconut Grove which helped build and serve the rest of the community. It was built by one of Florida’s first Black millionaires who . . . Well, please go read it for yourself. Suffice to say that E.W.F. Stirrup was a man way ahead of his time. His important legacy will be lost when his house no longer stands.

However, as much as I am interested in looking back, I am just as interested in the current Top Ten Posts of the Week. Here’s how that breaks down.

I want to thank all my readers who drop in to read what I have to say. While you’re at my blog, please take the time to click on one of the adverts. It will cost you nothing, but it adds a few (and I do mean few) pennies to my account and helps support the time and energy it takes to maintain the Aunty Em Ericann Blog. Thanking you in advance.

Unpacking Coconut Grove ► Part 9.2 ► A Photo Essay Follow Up

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It’s amazing what a phone call to the right City of Miami department can do. When I arrived for my weekly visit to the E.W.F. Stirrup House yesterday, there was a city inspector taking pictures of the house and surrounding area. Apparently the day after my visit last week, City of Miami by-law inspector Raghubir Sandhu cited and posted the E.W.F. Stirrup property for “Failure to maintain lot in a safe, clean condition; not allowing accumulation of debris, trash or dense growth of grass,” a contravention of City of Miami Zoning Ordinance 11000. Unfortunately, this was not done due to any of my blog posts (DARN!). A lovely man, Mr. Sandhu spent a bit of time with me explaining the City of Miami’s view on
non-compliance, while I told him the history of the E.W.F. Stirrup
House and Black Coconut Grove, which he had never heard before. Mr. Sandhu seemed interested in what I have been documenting in my Unpacking Coconut Grove series and took the URL of my blog with him. He said he’d take a look, which is all I ever ask (beg?) of anybody. 

Detail of notice directed to Stirrup Properties Inc.

Aries Development, through its owner Gino Falsetto, has bragged about having a 50-year lease on the E.W.F. Stirrup House. However, Aries/Falsetto is not the owner of record. That dubious distinction goes to Stirrup Properties Inc., a company held by 3 descendants of E.W.F. Stirrup, who left a codicil in his will that the house that the house must remain in the family in perpetuity. However, Bad Neighbour Gino Falsetto is the one who controls the E.W.F. Stirrup property through that lease. Falsetto is the person who allowed the property to turn into a garbage dump. Aries Development, which built the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums, acquired control of the property by trading 2 condo units (#304 and #403) in the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums — each valued at $500,000 at the time of the swap — for the 50-year lease on the Stirrup House. Somehow I don’t think this is what E.W.F. Stirrup had in mind when he wrote his will. Why does the phrase “40 acres and a mule” keep coming to mind?

It would appear that the descendants of Ebeneezer Woodbury Franklin Stirrup cared far less about his legacy, and the rich history of Black Coconut Grove, than they did for having a nice new condominium in a nice new condominium complex. They allowed themselves to be hoodwinked into giving Aries Development total control of the Stirrup property. This also gave Gino Falsetto the right to turn it into a garbage dump, outside as well as inside the house. Stirrup Properties Inc., and not Aries Development, would be on the hook for any fines imposed by the city.

Whenever a property
is cited for noncompliance, aside from a letter like above posted on
the actual property, a duplicate is sent by registered mail to the owner
of record, in this case Stirrup Properties, Inc. It informs the owner that it has 10 days from the issuance of the citation to correct the deficiency, otherwise fines of between $50 to $500 a day could be levied against the owner. If those tickets are not paid, a lien can be issued against the property. Yesterday Mr Sandhu was back to see whether the owners of the property had taken his citation to its corporate heart.

And, lo and
behold, it was. The grass on the property was cut and most, if not all,
of the trash was piled into the dumpster, which is now overflowing. While it’s a half-assed job, comparing these new pictures with
those taken last week and the week before, show a marked difference. Maybe one day soon Aries Development and/or Gino Falsetto might do a proper job of cleaning up the property, and not just the barest minimum to get the city inspector off his back.

While not everything has made it into the overflowing dumpster, at least the fridge is now upright.
However, there’s still a lot of trash laying around, some of it right next to the dumpster.
Some of these trash piles have been there for weeks.
A view over the dumpster of the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums. For all I know the
descendants of E.W.F. Stirrup could have a bird’s eye view of the garbage dump left in their name.
This is what I mean by half-assed job. This litter is still right where it has
been for many weeks, literally right on the E.W.F. Stirrup House doorstep.
However, credit where credit’s due: having the grass cut makes a world of difference visually . . .
. . . until one starts to focus on the trash that’s still left on the property.
Even the bowers have been trimmed back, revealing the heaps of trash behind the E.W.F. Stirrup House.
It must be noted that those bowers are not formed by shrubs or bushes. Those are vines and weeds run amok.
To be fair: There is one tree hiding in the far back, left corner, but it’s entirely overrun by the vines and weeds.
The graffiti on the wall contravenes the city by-laws, as do these trash heaps
that have been there for several months. Maybe another citation is in order.
This is also what I mean by half-assed. Some of this litter, documented in my last two posts, has been cleaned
up. Some of it was left right where it was. Just enough work was done to please the by-law inspector.
However, good news!!! This is the exact spot where the Reggae flyer
sat for the last 5 weeks. It is now gone, as are all the dead leaves.
However, there’s a brand new Reggae flyer for me to keep track of. I wonder how long it will remain.
The record to beat is 5 weeks. We will follow its progress as the colours fade like the last one.
Gino Falsetto also controls, through a dummy corporation owned by one of his partners, the two
empty lots across from the E.W.F. Stirrup House. They were also cited for the same thing as the
Stirrup Property. Now the notices are just part of the litter allowed to accumulate on Charles Avenue.
This is also an example of the half assed job that was done. This is base of the Charles
Avenue historical marker across the street from the E.W.F. Stirrup House on property
also controlled by Gino Falsetto. Some of the weeds were cut and some remain.
The latest view of the Charles Avenue historical
marker that began my quest more than  3 years ago.
It’s a never-ending battle to keep litter from overwhelming the property. A good
neighbour would see to it that the job is done without having to be cited by the city.

However, let me be clear. None of the landscaping and hauling away of the trash on the property will do anything to save the E.W.F. Stirrup House from a rapacious developer. Gino Falsetto appears to have already decided that if he cannot turn the house into a Bed and Breakfast, then he will allow it to undergo Demolition by Neglect.

Open questions to Gino Falsetto and/or Aries Development:
1). What promises were made to the City of Miami and to the residents of Black Coconut Grove in order to get your building permit?

2). Why won’t you honour those agreements?

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

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The Charles Avenue historical marker,
Sept. 14, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unpacking the Aunty Em Ericann Blog Again

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Every once in a while I like to pull back the curtain and show my readers what it looks like under the hood here at the Aunty Em Ericann Blog. However, and this is the important part, it’s really just an excuse for me to beg my readers to click on the ads. That’s the only way this blog generates any money for me and I work on it so very hard. Click on an advert. Clicking on an advert will cost you nothing, but it will put a few pennies into my pocket . . . and I do mean “few.”

All-time Top Ten posts.
Click to enlarge
All-time Top Ten search terms. Click to enlarge

I started this blog on April 19, 2012. Since then the blog has had 35,352 page views (as of this writing), which averages out to approximately 7,070 page views per month. That’s not bad for a newish blog. At left is a list of the all-time Top Ten Posts. It’s clear even at a small resolution that the Number One post is ahead by a wide margin: 1,493 to 610 for the Number Two post. I find that stunning for a bunch of reasons, main among them is that I’ve not promoted the Number One post; people have found it through the Googalizer, as evidenced by the next graph. At the time of this writing 526 people have found the Number One page in a search, as opposed to 293 who searched and found the Number Two post on the blog.

For the record: The Top Ten posts on the Aunty Em Ericann blog are:

Entry Pageviews
1494
610
560
375
319
310
310
281
281
266

Some of those surprise me. There’s really no reason I can think of why the Barbara Walters clip comes in at Number 10, or why the post on Wretched Gretched clocks in at Number Six. Both were intended to be silly one-offs, yet they keep on garnering readers. Amazingly neither are part of the search terms people have used to find my blog.

Who am I to argue with my readers? They know what they like.

I am gratified, however, that some of the posts I am most proud of have made it into the Top Ten.  Specifically I’d like to point to the ones on Josephine Baker, The E.W.F. Stirrup House, When Whites Went Crazy in Tulsa, and The Detroit Riots. The thread that connects them all is that they are all about Race Relations and Racism, a subject I have been researching as my own Independent Studies Course as long as I can remember.

Meanwhile, I will keep publishing my blog. Hopefully my readers will realize how much hard work goes into writing these posts and will click on an advert, or two, or three and help support this project.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom Falco’s logo used under Fair Use laws.

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

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

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


[…]

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

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

BTW: the Miami Herald says:

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

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

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

Coming up next: The Broken Window Theory of Criminology.

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Unpacking Coconut Grove ► Part Eight ► The Powers That Be

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

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

The broken base of the marker
with garbage piled all around

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

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

The saddest marker I have ever read.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Powers That Be

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The historical marker that started it all.

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

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

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Unpacking Coconut Grove ► Part Seven ► Signs along Charles Avenue

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The Charles Avenue historical marker with the
historic E.W.F. Stirrup House in the background.

Now that the City of Miami has designated Charles Avenue an Historic Designation Roadway (whatever that is supposed to mean), the informational signs along Charles Avenue might get a little more attention. Every day several tour buses rumble down Charles Avenue, starting at the Coconut Grove Playhouse and the Charles Avenue historical marker all the way down to the Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery at South Douglas Road. The bus slows down at various locations, and even stops along the route, but no one ever gets out. No one! Any pictures taken are taken through the windows.

The original historical marker (at left) commemorates the first Black Bahamian residents who settled the area in the 1880s. It reads:

The marker in 2010.

“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. Methodist Church, which housed the community’s first school. At the western end of Charles Avenue is one of the area’s oldest cemeteries.”


When I first discovered the marker in 2009 I wondered why it hadn’t been kept in good repair. At the bottom, in smaller letters, it reads “Sponsored by Eastern Airlines in cooperation with the Historical Association of Southern Florida.” Eastern Airlines went out of business in 1991. I couldn’t find out when the Historical Association of Southern Florida became defunct, but it no longer seems to exist either. I also couldn’t understand why it was being used as a trash pick-up spot. However, every time I visited there was a whole new assortment of garbage piled up around the base, so clearly the trash was being picked up from there on collection day.

The 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House.

The marker has recently been straightened and a flowering plant has been stuck in the ground next to it, but it was hard not to see the state of the marker as a metaphor for Race Relation in ‘Merka from the distant past right up to the present. The E.W.F. Stirrup House is a manifest representation to how Black History is treated in ‘Merka, marginalized and only mentioned for one month of the year, if at all. Yet Black history is ALL of our histories and, not to put to fine a point on it, it was the Black folk that did most of the hard work that built this country. As the Charles Avenue historical marker makes clear, the Black folk also taught the White folk how to survive in the godforsaken swamp that was Coconut Grove in the late 1800s.

 However, the Charles Avenue historical marker is not the only sign along Charles Avenue. At some time in the relative recent past a number of informational signs were erected, too small to be appreciated by even the most eagle-eyed passengers on the tour buses.

A few doors west of the E.W.F. Stirrup House is the current United Christian Church of Christ, aka Coconut Grove Seventh-day Adventist Church, which had once been the Odd Fellows Hall mentioned on the Charles Avenue historical marker. A sign in from of the building, erected by the Coconut Grove Cemetery Association, tells of the history of the Odd Fellows Hall and its importance to the early settlers of Coconut Grove.

Moving westward, immediately next door to the Odd Fellows Hall, is the Mariah Brown House. The Brown House predates the E.W.F. Stirrup House and is said to be the first house owned by a Black Bahamian on Evangelist Street, as Charles Avenue was first known. This means it predates the beautiful 120-year old Stirrup House at the end of the block.

The Brown House has been empty and boarded up as long as I have been visiting Charles Avenue, and quite a bit longer, I am told.

The sign in front of the Brown house speaks of the first settlers and makes it clear that these were the people who served, or worked for, the few White folk who had already moved to the area. The sign also mentions three early families who settled on Charles Avenue. Conspicuously absent is the Stirrup name.

As one moves farther west along the street, at the corner of Charles Avenue and Plaza Street, is a two-sided sign paying tribute to the unique Bahamian architecture brought here by those first immigrants who helped settle the area.

The Mariah Brown House is an example of a Conch, or Bahamian, house.

The reverse of the sign, with an example of a gentrified “shotgun” house in the background.
Two gentrified shotgun houses turned inwards, faces removed from the street view.

I’ve written more fulsomely about the Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery elsewhere. However, I include its sign here for completeness.

At the very end of the street, immediately across the street from the Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery, and outside what is currently known as the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church, is the last sign on our Charles Avenue signage tour. Another two-sided sign, it speaks to the importance of religion to the original settlers along what used to be known as Evangelist Street, for rather obvious reasons.

The tour buses that ramble down Charles Avenue do not take enough time to impart the information on the signs along the route. I wonder is what the passengers are told, if anything, about the original Bahamian community that made and built Coconut Grove, currently considered one of the most exclusive areas in all of ‘Merka.

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An Open Email to the City of Miami ► Unpacking Coconut Grove ► Part 6.1

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This is a copy of the email I sent to the City of Miami Office of Communications. It was addressed to an email address I was given over the phone by a recording when trying to reach that department. I have yet to receive a reply.

To: Press@Miamigov.com
Date: Aug 10
Subject: Trying to obtain information

I appreciate any help you can give me. I am a semi-retired journalist (with limited funds) trying to get to the bottom of a mystery concerning Coconut Grove’s historic E.W.F. Stirrup House at 3242 Charles Avenue.

It appears that when the Grove Gardens Residences Condominium project (3540 Main Highway) was first proposed (in 2005 or 2006 or 2007; sorry to be so vague) promises were made concerning the renovation and rehabilitation of the E.W.F. Stirrup House on Charles Avenue. However, no one seems to remember what exact promises were made and this is what I am trying to find out.

People in the neighbourhood tell me that when the Grove Gardens Condominiums were first proposed the surrounding community had several objections. Those on the east side of Main Highway, in the gated communities like Camp Biscayne, were concerned about the proposed height of the project. Another group was bothered that the 100+-year old Taurus Bar might be torn down. A third group was worried about the historical E.W.F. Stirrup House coming under the wrecker’s ball. Accordingly, the height of the project was scaled back, and the building was stepped back, so the street view didn’t present a massive condo tower. Then the Taurus Bar was saved and (reportedly) moved back 7 inches and placed on a new foundation.

However, nothing was ever done to the Stirrup House, which has now been empty approximately 7 years, and possibly longer.

Those in the neighbourhood I have interviewed tell me that the house had been given an historical designation, but I can find no proof of that. They also told me that it was their understanding the developer promised that the E.W.F. Stirrup House would be renovated and rehabilitated to become a neighbourhood Historical and Community Resource Center, honouring the original Bahamians who came to Coconut Grove in the late 1880s. However, I cannot find any confirmation of this either. Others have told me the same story, except it was the Mariah Brown House further down the block that was to be renovated and turned into a Community Resource Center. This cannot be confirmed either, but both cannot be true.

I note that whatever promises were made, if any, on the Stirrup House and/or Brown House, they have not been fulfilled. Both houses have been empty since I discovered them in early 2009 and, I am told, much longer than that.

Last year, according to newspaper articles, the owner of the E.W.F. Stirrup House petitioned the City of Miami to rezone the E.W.F. Stirrup House as a Commercial Property in order to build a Bed & Breakfast in the house. I have been unable to find out whether this change of zoning was ever granted.

So, you see, I have a lot of rumour and conjecture, but no facts.

Here are my specific questions:

  1. Did the developer of Grove Gardens Condominiums make any specific promises concerning the E.W.F. Stirrup House in order to get its building permits?
  2. If so, what were they?
  3. If not, what community concerns were addressed to get the building permits?
  4. Is there an Historical Designation for the actual E.W.F. Stirrup House?
  5. Is there anything to prevent the destruction of the E.W.F. Stirrup House?
  6. Was a change of zoning, from Residential tp [sic] Commercial, granted for the E.W.F. Stirrup House?
  7. Who is the registered owner of the E.W.F. Stirrup House?
  8. Who is the registered owner of the Mariah Brown House?
  9. Were any promises made concerning the Mariah Brown House?
  10. Recently Charles Avenue was designated an Historical Roadway from Main Highway to S. Douglas Road. What practical effect does this have?

I am trying to save the E.W.F. Stirrup House from what appears to be Demolition By Neglect. To that end I am using my Blog to get the word out. This is what I have posted on Coconut Grove so far:

[Deleted Chapter titles and URLs for Parts 1 through 3 of this ongoing series]

I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you in advance for any help you are able to provide to me. Feel free to phone if you require any further information.

This email was sent a week prior to my discovering that (allegedly) illegal work has been taking place inside the E.W.F. Stirrup House without then benefit of a Building Permit. The questions asked in this email become more crucial now that the (alleged) rapacious developer Gino Falsetto continues to renovate the E.W.F. Stirrup House without a Building Permit. Will Gino Falsetto be allowed to get away with his alleged Bed and Breakfast Con? Will anyone at the City of Miami Building Department hold Gino Falsetto accountable? Will Gino Falsetto continue to be allowed to thumb his nose at City of Miami regulations concerning trash allowed to pile up on the property he controls, but doesn’t own? Will anyone at the City of Miami ever respond to my emails or phone calls?

Stay tuned, kids.

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Unpacking Coconut Grove ► Part Six ► Still Building With No Building Permit

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The E.W.F. Stirrup House on Friday, August 24, 2012. Note
the used metal studs leaning against the building. Used
materials to build their chi chi Bed and Breakfast? How nice.

Another visit to Charles Avenue on Friday demonstrated beyond a doubt that (alleged) illegal work is still going on inside the E.W.F. Stirrup House. More troubling is the fact that there is still no Building Permit on display.

Earlier in the week I called the City of Miami to check up on my complaint about work proceeding without a Building Permit. I was told the file had been closed, but there was no other information available. When I expressed my concern, I was transferred to a Building Department supervisor. I left a detailed message requesting I be called back. I am still waiting for that return phone call.

Used metal studs.

I am also still waiting for a return call from Maurice Pons, identified
as the Chief of Inspections (Field) for the City of Miami Building Department. I left a detailed message during the week, expressing my concern about the (alleged) illegal work proceeding inside the historic, 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House and practically begged that someone get in touch with me so that I could be assured that an (alleged) rapacious developer was not (allegedly) getting away with something (allegedly) illegal. Begging didn’t help either.

The funny thing is, depending on your definition of funny: No matter who I am transferred to within the City of Miami phone system, I can NEVER get a human on the phone. They all have voice mail and they all studiously seem to avoid returning their calls. I have made dozens of calls only to get voice mail with no way to reach a human being. Of those dozens of calls, I have left at least 10 to 12 messages with various departments and City of Miami employees. I have yet to hear back from any of them.

The dumpster is fuller than it was earlier in the week and
the piles of trash are larger than they were earlier in the
week. All of this is just waiting to be picked up by this
weekend’s approaching Hurricane Isaac.

While on the same topic: I am still waiting for a reply from the City of Miami Office of Communications to my email of August 10, 2012. [See Unpacking Coconut Grove ► Part 6.1 ► An Open Email To The City of Miami] It was sent to “Press at Miamigov dot com,” an email address given to me over the phone by a recorded message when trying to get that department on the phone. One would think that, by now, I would have had a reply, even if it was to say, “Sorry, we can’t help you.” At the very least you’d think I would have received a acknowledgment that the email had been received. Oh, and again, there is no way to get that department on the phone or to return my calls either. It’s like falling into a black hole.

As a journalist of long-standing, I have had to call Mayors, Members of Parliament, Members of Provincial Parliament and city departments many times. I have never had this kind of trouble reaching someone by phone in my entire life. And, when I have left a message, I have always received a prompt call back. What the hell is going on at Miami City Hall?

RECAP: My complaint was closed with no other notations on
the file. Two City of Miami Building Department inspectors have failed
to return my phone calls, as have many other City of Miami employees.
Furthermore, the Media and Communications Department doesn’t respond to
Media and Press Inquiries. What the hell is going on at Miami City Hall?

This is just more proof that the owners
Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums
uses this property for unintended uses.
While at the E.W.F Stirrup House I
saw workmen carrying out piles of trash
and dumping them next to these doors.

I have been told many times, by many people far more knowledgeable about Miami politics than I, that the City of Miami Building Department is in the pocket of rich developers. It’s hard NOT to come to the same conclusion when I cannot even get simple answers to my simple questions from ANYONE in the Building Department or the Press Relations Department. What the hell is going on at Miami City Hall?

Meanwhile, there is continued evidence that (allegedly) illegal work is still proceeding within the E.W.F. Stirrup House without benefit of a Building Permit. Will anyone at Miami City Hall address this issue? Will anyone at Miami City Hall return my phone calls? Will anyone at Miami City Hall take any notice that a developer is (allegedly) doing whatever the hell he wants, despite the fact that he doesn’t even own the property, but merely has a 50-year lease on it? Stay tuned . . . .

Meanwhile, here are some more pictures taken yesterday which proves that (alleged) illegal work is still is ongoing inside the historic 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House without benefit of a building permit and that workers within the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums (immediately behind the Stirrup House) are using the property to dump their trash.

These trash piles have grown since Monday. They will make good projectiles for this week’s approaching hurricane.
Everything in this dumpster will become a projectile if and when Hurricane Isaac hits.

Fresh sawdust outside the side door of the E.W.F. Stirrup House indicating work inside is ongoing.

This fresh sawdust has not even gotten wet, despite the fact that it rains almost every day down here.
The fresh sawdust trails under and inside the side door of the E.W.F. Stirrup House.

This pile of construction materials has also grown since Monday. Plywood makes a great sail in a hurricane.

These piles of trash, hidden behind the E.W.F. Stirrup House, away
from the prying eyes of City of Miami inspectors, have not grown.

This pile of trash behind the E.W.F. Stirrup House has not grown either.

This pile of trash has grown since Monday.

I don’t want to be anywhere near this plywood when Hurricane Isaac arrives.
This Reggae flyer is still in front of the E.W.F. Stirrup House. Hurricane Isaac will take care of it.

This Red Stripe carton in front of the E.W.F. Stirrup House is a new arrival. It matches my shoes.
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A Charles Avenue Love Story ► Unpacking Coconut Grove ► Part Five

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The Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery

On the corner of Charles Avenue and South Douglas Rd., on the opposite end of the street from the E.W.F. Stirrup House, is the Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery. It dates back to the early 1900s and at one time — and for a long time — was the only place in Coconut Grove where Black folk could consecrate and bury their dead.

The entrance to the Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery. 180 degree panorama by author.

Charlotte Jane was E.W.F. Stirrup’s childhood sweetheart. I know
almost nothing about her, save for this: In the 1870s or 1880s Ebenezer
Woodbury Franklin Stirrup made his first pilgrimage to the United
States. He came up through Key West, where he stopped for a while and apprenticed as a carpenter with an uncle. This is the skill he would eventually utilize in Coconut Grove to great effect, building more than 100 houses in the area, including his own show piece at the other end of Charles Avenue. Stirrup reportedly spent 10 years working for his uncle in Key West before he decided he would head north to see what life was like on the mainland. However, before he did he went back to the Bahamas to marry his childhood sweetheart. Then he brought her
back with him, eventually settling in Cutler Bay for a time.

Photo by Stefan Kokemüller
From Wikipedia Commons

I try to imagine that trip, which Mr. Stirrup took at least 3 times in his life. It could not have been easy. The trip from the Bahamas to Key West was obviously an ocean journey. At one time — and for a long time — Key West was the largest city in Florida and remained unconnected to the mainland until 1912, when Henry Flagler completed his railroad. Consequently the journey from Key West to the mainland was another ocean voyage. It would have been far easier, in those times, to sail directly to Cutler Bay. There would have been few roads, if any. Southern Florida was swampland, overgrown with mangrove, pine, oak and banyan trees, not to mention alligators and snakes. Traversing the lower end of the Florida peninsula by land would have been a harrowing and nearly impossible journey.

E.W.F. and Charlotte Jane Stirrup first settled in Cutler Bay, about 13 miles from where they eventually settled. For
whatever reason Cutler Bay was not to his liking and he decided to move north to
the nascent community of Coconut Grove, where he eventually settled and
built his beautiful house and more than 100 others.

The Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery was originally known by the more generic names of Coconut Grove Cemetery or Grove’s Bahamian Cemetery. It opened in 1904, or 1906 (both dates are cited in various places) and was originally owned by the city (despite what I stated elsewhere). According to the USGenWeb Archives, Mary Washburn writes:

In 1913, the cemetery property was purchased by five families for the sum of $140.00.  The families that purchased the property are Burrow, Higgs, Reddick, Ross and the E.W.F. Stirrup families.


The first burial was Joseph Mayor he was buried as Daniel Anderson.  Daniel Anderson and his wife Catherine Anderson were the founders of the Christ Episcopal Church.


Also buried here is Capt. John Sweeting, developer and commercial fisherman who Settled the ground now know as Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery.

There has long been a rumour to the effect that Michael Jackson filmed the cemetery scenes to “Thriller” at the Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery and you’ll find many references on the innertubes citing that. This is totally incorrect. WikiAnswers states:

Contrary to rumors, the cemetery scenes of Thriller were actually filmed on a soundstage and not at an actual cemetery. This fact is clearly proven by watching the DVD release of Thriller. During the wide-shot of the cemetery set as Michael and Ola walk past, various lighting and rigs can be seen over head.

Again, the cemetery sequence was NOT filmed in a real cemetery.

No matter because the Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery is a lovely little cemetery, with a long history of its own. In Florida, as in New Orleans, caskets cannot be buried below ground because of the water table. Unlike the New Orleans’ crypts you are used to seeing, the graves at the Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery are simple and uncomplicated, paralleling the economic realities of a Black community in 20th Century ‘Merka.

In the years since I have been visiting Charles Avenue I have taken thousands of pictures of the Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery, some of which I’d like to share with you.

Memorial Day, 2010

Memorial Day, 2010

Memorial Day, 2010

Memorial Day, 2010

Memorial Day, 2010

Memorial Day, 2010

Memorial Day, 2010

All photographs © copyright 2012 by author.

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