Tag Archives: Gino Falsetto

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The E.W.F. Stirrup Property plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Front gate left open at 7:15 AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m here to see that doesn’t happen.

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

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

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

Full architectural drawings:

Fighting Blight In Coconut Grove

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The most recent notice on The Bicycle Shop, citing the owner,
Coconut Grove Playhouse LLC., with “First Year failure to
register a Blighted, unsecured, or abandoned structure.”

My recent trip to Gilchrist, my old stomping grounds in Detroit, has me thinking about urban blight in entirely different terms these days. Saturday’s visit to The Grove forced me to look at Coconut Grove blight in way I had never considered before.

Admittedly the word “blight” was already ringing in my head when I came across the NOTICE (left), which cites the owner of the Bicycle Shop with “First Year failure to register a Blighted, unsecured, or abandoned structure.” It’s worth noting that Aries Development, fronted by rapacious developer Gino Falsetto, took control of The Bicycle Shop in January. It promptly ripped off the roof and has since allowed it to become blighted, if the City of Miami can be believed. Imagine that. In one of the most exclusive Zip Codes in the entire country.

Which brings us to the blighted E.W.F. Stirrup House. Aries Development acquired control of the Stirrup House almost a decade ago. Since then the second oldest house in Coconut Grove has become blighted — there’s no other word for it — and it becomes more so every single day. Aries acquired a 50-year lease on the Stirrup House (the house must remain in the Stirrup family in perpetuity) in a complicated property swap when it built The Monstrosity, aka Grove Gardens Residence
Condominiums.

When Aries received the permits to build that 5-storey mixed-use condo complex, which dwarfs the modest Stirrup House, it committed to restoring this culturally important 120-year old house. A later plan claimed it would become a Bed and Breakfast. Meanwhile, it has become blighted, undergoing Demolition by
Neglect ever since Falsetto got his grimy hands on it. One could almost say Aries has once again failed “to register a Blighted, unsecured, or abandoned structure,” but I’ll let the City of Miami take care of any official notices. I can only tell you what I have observed the last 5 years I have been photographing and researching the E.W.F. Stirrup House.

The E.W.F. appears to have an open door policy again.

While it’s hard to tell from this pic, the front door of the Stirrup House was left open again on Saturday night. The last time I found the front door wide open I took it as an invitation to walk right in, since the front gate had also been left wide open. Neither the property or the structure were secured. Had the gate been closed and locked, at the very least, the property would have been secured. But, that’s no longer the case.

That’s because the back wall of the Stirrup property was demolished the same day Aries Development [allegedly] illegally cut down all the old trees on the Stirrup Property. That 7-foot wall was not just a target for neighbourhood taggers, it separated The Monstrosity’s fancy schmancy restaurants — with valet parking and underground wine cellar — from the blighted E.W.F. Stirrup House, right next door. Nowadays anyone who goes to The Taurus, La Bottega, and/or Calamari (the three restaurants that Aries Group runs) can wander right past where the wall used to be, up to the blighted, unsecured and abandoned Stirrup House and walk right in, as I would have on Saturday night had I not already been pressed for time.

Demolition by Neglect is a tried and true tactic to destroy a property that sits in a developer’s way. The E.W.F. Stirrup House has always stood in Aries Development’s way. Despite more recent claims to want to turn the house into a Bed & Breakfast, Aries has done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, unless you call [allegedly] illegally cutting down all the old trees on the Stirrup property, and demolishing the interior without a permit, absolutely nothing.

Speaking of Aries: It had been my understanding that when the Coconut Grove Playhouse deal had gone through back in January, the Bicycle Shop was turned over to the Aries Group as a way to remove it from the Gordian Knot that had become the Coconut Grove Playhouse collapse. So, imagine my surprise when the NOTICE (above) was issued to COCONUT GRV PLAYHOUSE LLC, which SunBiz doesn’t list. All similar names are Inactive. Who actually owns this property? You’d think the city would know.

No matter. As has already been demonstrated, Gino Falsetto has the Midas touch in reverse. Everything he touches appears to become blighted. Or bankrupt. Before he washed up in the over-heated Miami real estate market, Falsetto and his brothers bankrupt several restaurants in the Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, area.

Sitting right between the Stirrup House and the Bicycle Shop is ANOTHER blighted and boarded-up building in Coconut Grove: The Coconut Grove Playhouse. Just when it appeared that everything concerning that issue had been solved came these screaming headlines earlier this week:

Coconut Grove Playhouse $45 million complex run by Arsht Center Bad Deal
Second Coconut Grove Playhouse proposed
Civic Leaders Evolving Alternate More Ambitious $45 Mil Plan For Coconut Grove Playhouse

It’s far too early to tell what this will mean for Charles Avenue, which has been designated a Historic Roadway as the first street in Miami. I’ll be writing more about the Playhouse in the days to come. However, it’s hard not to see the ultimate winner could be Aries Development, which not only owns the Bicycle Shop, but also the two vacant lots immediately west of the Playhouse. These lots, which once had small shotgun houses on them, were snatched up in the same deal that gave Aries control of the E.W.F. Stirrup House. Any large development at the corner of Main Highway and Charles Avenue will only enrich a rapacious developer, at the expense of Coconut Groves’s rich cultural heritage.

Packing for the Road Trip ► Unpacking The Writer

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I’m writing and posting this month’s Unpacking The Writer a little early to get it posted before I leave on Monday for the 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research. For the uninitiated, Unpacking The Writer is the monthly series in which I give my readers a look inside the mind of a writer, such as it is. And, in case you haven’t clued in yet, I am that writer. HI THERE!

NO CLICKING: I also used to use this monthly essay to beg my readers to click on the adverts here. However, I have been told I can’t do that anymore, even though it only returns a fraction of a penny per click. So I won’t. But, if you’re one of my smarter readers, you are already way ahead of me and clicking on the adverts anyway. You know there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop you.

SO SORRY: I owe my faithful readers an apology. More than one reader (two!) has noticed that I’ve not posted much new material at Not Now Silly lately, other than the regular Headlines Du Jour. I’m truly sorry, folks. While I have been researching a number of topics, nothing has gelled enough yet to be written up. I have also started a number of blog posts, some of which I still need to finish and others which (are crap and) will never see the light of day.

When I first began this blog I was given advice to post something every
day. Do you know how hard that is? Especially if you want a blog post to
have some weight? Especially if that added weight requires hours upon hours of research? Especially if it’s not your full-time job?

Despite that, I have published 583 posts in the last 27 months, not including this one. That averages 21.5 posts a month, a record I’m proud of. I’m also quite proud of many of the posts because I think I am mining important topics. As of this writing the Not Now Silly Top Ten is as follows:

  1. The Detroit Riots ► Unpacking My Detroit ► Part Five
  2. Brian Jones ► A Musical Appreciation
  3. Day In History ► Josephine Baker
  4. The Johnny Dollar Wars ► Chapter and Verse
  5. Aries Development Continues To Rape Charles Avenue
  6. Chow Mein and Bolling 5 ► Bully Boy Lies (Again)
  7. Did Roger Ailes Dupe James Rosen, Or Did Rosen Dupe ‘Merka?
  8. The First Three Stooges ► Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be
  9. Is Marc D. Sarnoff Corrupt Or The Most Corrupt Miami Politician?
  10. Does Fox “News” Support Johnny Dollar? ► The Mark Koldys-Johnny Dollar Comment of the Day

[The Top Ten posts, always updated, always current, is in the column to the right of this one. It may have changed since this was published.]

In the early days of Not Now Silly I used to do a lot of one-off Day in History-type dealies. Maybe I should get back to doing some more of that after the 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip For Research. We’ll see.

Those one-offs were popular. They can also be pulled out of the archives on the appropriate dates in subsequent years. Conversely, Headlines Du Jour is pretty much stale the minute you read it. Yet Headlines Du Jour gets great numbers. Despite the simplicity, Headline Du Jour is time-consuming to post. It takes me 1.5 hours to 2.5 hours to format, even though the headlines themselves are compiled as they come in over the Not Now Silly Newsroom transom. Headlines Du Jour is the first thing I do when I wake up at 5:30 AM. As the first pot of coffee is brewing I sort the headlines collected since the last time. I decide which are keepers and which I should toss. Then they’re put into a running order that makes sense only to me. Some days, by the time it’s published, I feel totally wrung out and the pot of coffee is finished. However, I’ll try to add to the number of new posts (and pots of coffee?) on a regular basis while I also keep Headlines Du Jour going. My readers have that promise.

TO MY COCONUT GROVE READERS: While I never meant for Not Now Silly to be a blog solely about Coconut Grove, there have been times when it feels like that’s what it’s become. I’m thrilled that so many people in the West Grove have shared their personal stories with me. Oral histories are so important.

I’m still researching The Colour Line and will have new chapters in that series soon. While in Michigan, I will also be visiting the 8 Mile Wall for a blog post on The Colour Line in Detroit, ‘Merka’s first throwaway city. Meanwhile, there has been some news in the Grove, but nothing that seemed to deserve a blog post all on its own. In no particular order some of that is as follows:

Part of the Coconut Grove Playhouse parking lot will become a drive-in movie dealie on July 14th. The web site for the Blue Starlite Mini Urban Drive In promises “Car hop service by TAURUS,” so we now know how Aries Development and Gino Falsetto plan to profit off this new arrangement. To remind readers: Aries is the company that secured a 50-year lease on the historic 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House 9 years ago and has allowed it to undergo Demolition by Neglect ever since.

A reminder why the E.W.F. Stirrup House is culturally
important to Coconut Grove can be found in the Not Now Silly
post Happy Birthday Coconut Grove!!! Now Honour Your Past

I had hoped to go to opening night of the Blue Starlite Mini Urban Drive In, but the June opening was delayed a month. Now it won’t open until the day after I leave for the 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip For Research. This is actually one of those posts mentioned above, partially written in advance. I started it last month, just before the delay was announced. It would have become a full-blown blog post in the fullness of time. I had even considered delaying my Road Trip 2 days to go, take notes, take pictures, and finish writing that blog post, but, yannow what? I’ve seen The Cocoanuts, the first Marx Brothers movie, so many times I can recite entire scenes by heart. [Same with the 2nd movie in the opening night double feature, The Blob.] So, there’s another draft post consigned to the dustbin of history.

IRONY ALERT I: The Cocoanuts take place in Cocoanut Grove (the original spelling of Coconut Grove before it was illegally annexed by Miami in 1925).

IRONY ALERT II: The Cocoanuts satirizes the utter collapse of the Cocoanut Grove real estate market of the 1920s. Selling Florida swamp land had became such a a national joke that one of the top playwrights of the day, George S. Kaufman, and one of the country’s most famous composers, Irving Berlin, would write a musical about it. The Marx Brothers would first take it to Broadway, where it was a smash hit, and then make it their first movie extravaganza, launching a long career on film.

IRONY ALERT III: Miami has had several booms and busts since then. “Some people say” the current Miami building boom is just the beginning edge of the next bubble to bust.

IRONY ALERT IV: Bringing movies back to the Coconut Grove Playhouse, albeit outside, would be funny, if it weren’t so sad. When the currently-boarded up Coconut Grove Playhouse was originally built, it was to bring movies and culture to Coconut Grove. The land had been owned by E.W.F. Stirrup and sold to developers to build the Coconut Grove Theater, as it was called when it opened in 1927. It was renovated in the 1950s to become a legitimate theater, with the 1956 premier of “Waiting For Godot” as its first offering.

IRONY ALERT V: Even though the Coconut Grove Theater anchored the east end of Charles Avenue — the oldest neighbourhood in Miami, as well as the oldest Black neighbourhood — those folks had to go north to the smaller Ace Theater on Grand Avenue, which was not segregated. Earlier this month Miami’s Historic and Environmental Preservation Board designated the Ace a historic site.  According to the Miami Herald’s Jackie Salo:

For residents in the West Grove, the ACE Theater is a relic of the years of segregation. The movie theater, which was built circa 1930, was the only one to serve the black community in the Grove in the 1950s.

The building has since lost its luster, and stands as a shell of what it once was. The marquee has not lit up for years, and the pink facade that once distinguished the theater was painted white.

Plans to restore the theater never came to fruition and the rooms that housed sold-out audiences remain abandoned.

But the theater, albeit empty, has not been forgotten.

Having walked past the Ace many times, I’ve always thought it would make a great Indie/Revival movie house. Grand Avenue has been struggling for years. Opening a movie house on that stretch of Grand would go a long way towards revitalizing what was once the thriving Black business strip of Coconut Grove.

TROLLEYGATE: Still waiting for a settlement in the Trolleygate Scandal. The last word from my super-duper secret sources was that an offer was on the table and being considered. Consequently, all parties to the lawsuit asked the judge to give them 60 days to see if they could hammer out an agreement. That expired at the end of June, but I’ve heard nothing further. Basically the broad outline of the potential deal is this: A brand new Coral Gables diesel bus garage will be built right where the current Coral Gables diesel bus garage is. This despite the brand-spanking new [allegedly] illegal diesel bus garage built in West Grove. That’s the garage that’s the subject of multiple lawsuits, which even the Federal Department of Transportation ruled contravened the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The only decision left to be made is whether the brand-spanking new bus garage in West Grove can be used for the next 2-3 years while a newer diesel bus garage is built in Coral Gables.

Here’s how small West Grove really is: The [allegedly] illegal diesel bus garage is, more or less, just around the corner from the Ace Theater. Gibson Plaza, which I have also written about, is just across the street from the Ace Theater. Grand Avenue still has a long way to go before one could call this a revival, but it’s another baby step on the road to recovery for a business strip that’s seen better days.

Known all the world over, The Johnny Dollar Depreciation Society is
YOUR place for snark about Fox “News and crazy Fox “News” defenders

THE JOHNNY DOLLAR WARS: I couldn’t be more thrilled with the progress of The Johnny Dollar Wars up the Not Now Silly Top Ten Hit Parade. It justifies all the time I put into documenting those crazy cyber-stalking MoFos these last few years. Since being published on May 6th, The Johnny Dollar Wars has jumped to become the #4 most popular post at Not Now Silly, with 1,233 hits as we go to press. The only Not Now Silly post that ever rose faster and higher than that has now been relagated to the #5 position. Aries Development Continues To Rape Charles Avenue, about the E.W.F. Stirrup House had a good run, but it’s been leapfrogged in the ratings.

THE JOHNNY DOLLAR DEPRECIATION SOCIETY: I’ve migrated most of my Fox “News” snark from my timeline over to The Johnny Dollar Depreciation Society on the facebookery. I’m open to suggestions on how to make it more interactive. While membership has hit 120 people, only a few interact with the page at all, and only then by clicking LIKE. I’m thinking of holding a contest, but I’ll wait until I get back from Michigan to put that together.

LASTLY: Starting next Monday blog posts at Not Now Silly will be sporadically sporadic. My laptop has bought the farm and I’m not planning to get it fixed before I go away. I may look at a new device when I get back from the road trip, but it’s not in the budget at the moment.

The 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research will be twice as long as last year’s. Last year’s research was productive, but, sadly, I had just a week to drive to Michigan, conduct my research, and drive back to FloriDuh. Despite mining some interesting veins of information, I had to cut the research short because I simply ran out of time. This year I will be meeting with some of the same people who fed me documents last time. I will also have more time to pour over some microfiche that one of my correspondents has uncovered. It may go a long way to provide greater context for the book I am writing.

Be good to your neighbours because you never know
when a journalist will come sniffing around for information.
~~~~~Headly Westerfield, The 1st Annual Sunrise
to Canton Road Trip For Research, June 2013

While I may be able to log into certain accounts while I am gone, last year I was unable to log in to facebook from strange computers because I was locked out of everything that wasn’t my home computer or my phone. Hopefully this year I have solved this problem. However, two things to keep in mind: 1). I don’t exactly know where and when I might encounter a computer, not to mention a computer owner who will allow me to take over their computer for a few hours to compose a blog post. Consequently, just like last year, it may just be updates from the Windows Phone. However, I won’t abandon you entirely. Also: Check my Twitter and Facebookery for updates from the road

And, speaking of computers along the way, I have twice as many visits with readers, fans, and friends scheduled for the 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research. The intinerary is now locked. Stops are scheduled for (in order) Ave Maria University, in Ava Maria, Florida; Bonita Springs, Florida, which is just down the road from the University; Tallahassee, Florida‘s capital, after which I leave the state; Miamisburg, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio; Canton, Michigan, where I will stay for almost a week to conduct research and visit old haunts; Elyria, Ohio; Cleveland, Ohio, which looks to be the scene of the crime city chosen to host the 2016 GOP Convention; Dean Martin’s home town of Steubenville, Ohio; and Morgantown, West Virginia, where I will be given a privately-conducted Don Knotts Memorial Tour. Then it’s home by — no later than — the 28th of July.

A couple of people have asked me why I don’t just fly up to Canton, which would give me more time to research my book. There are 2 things that compel me to drive: 1). I love to drive. One of my favourite things to do is to be behind the wheel of a car, heading down the road, with the stereo cranked to 11; 2). It allows me to meet and greet some people that I’ve gotten to know thru’ the innertubes. Getting out, looking people in the eye, and debating the big stories of the day — or bullshitting over a coffee — is just a big bag of fun.

Surprises on the Latest Visit to Charles Avenue

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The Charles Avenue Historical Marker is across the street from the
E.W.F. Stirrup House. Once called Evangelist Street, Charles is one of the
oldest streets in Miami, which is why it was designated a Historic Roadway.

Last week’s visit to Coconut Grove was full of surprises.

Ostensibly I was in The Grove for 2 semi-clandestine meetings with two of my super-duper secret anonymous sources. One wanted to go off the record on the Coconut Grove Playhouse deal. The other was my original tipster on Trolleygate.

However, there were also several loose ends I wanted to clean up concerning the Playhouse parking lots and the two vacant lots on Charles Avenue, immediately across the street from the historic, 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House. Despite its cultural and historic significance, the house continues to undergo Demolition By Neglect at the hands of a rapacious developer: Aries Development, controlled by Gino Falsetto.

To bring new readers up to speed: When Miami-Dade County finally carved out a deal which freed the Playhouse from purgatory, it took away the parking lot Paradise Parking, DoublePark and Caribbean Parking had been operating between the Playhouse and the Bicycle Shop. This lot was turned over to the Miami Parking Authority to administer. At the same time, the MPA also leased to Aries Development 45 parking spots immediately behind the Playhouse.

March 25: A lawyer advised this was a crime in the making.
Did these companies also squat on the Playhouse parking lot?

This reporter has been investigating rumours that the Paradise parking group had been squatting on the parking lot land for the last several years. To date, no one has been able to produce a contract that gave
these companies the right to operate a parking franchise on the Playhouse
parking lot.

The last time I visited (March 25) Double Park, Paradise Parking and Caribbean Parking had erected a meter (pictured right) where they were leasing the 45 parking spaces from the MPA. They had no right to erect their own meter because it was not their own lot. It was looking as if they might be squatting again. The meter had not been activated and I needed to see whether they had started collecting potentially illegal parking fees.

Have I mentioned yet how Double Park, LLC is owned by Gino Falsetto, while the other 2 companies are owned by business associates of Falsetto? 

A second, lesser, reason to reconnoiter is that — SURPRISE!!! — lines had finally been painted on this parking lot. The last time I was there I had counted the potential for 57 parking spots, judging from the barely legible lines painted years ago. Counting the spaces and documenting the fact that Paradise Parking, et al, were pocketing parking fees that should have belonged to the MPA would be a great investigative article. Another feather in the Not Now Silly Newscap.

March 25: Detail of sign above right

I had already received a (FREE) legal opinion that squatting on a parking lot and collecting parking fees could be considered a case of theft against every driver who paid up and/or the actual owner of the property. If, as alleged, these three companies had been squatting on the Playhouse land for the past several years, that would be a lot of individual cases of theft. And, whether they squatted or not, these companies were able to rake a lot of parking fees off this parking lot over the last several years.

SURPRISE: The meter had been removed, leaving only the base. Now anyone who wants to park there has to walk a block to the nearest meter — on the far side of the Playhouse — which cannot be viewed from these parking spaces. We’ll see how that works out.

Looking past the empty residential lots to the E.W.F. Stirrup House, the 5-storey
Grove Gardens Residential Condominiums dwarfing the 120-year old house.

To be perfectly honest, I had hoped to catch Paradise Parking in what appeared to be a crime in the making because it’s a company owned by the same rapacious
developer who is allowing the E.W.F. Stirrup House to undergo Demolition by Neglect. That would be Gino Falsetto and Aries Development, which
built The Monstrosity behind the Stirrup House: the Grove Gardens
Residence Condominiums.

It was while I was counting the parking spaces — another SURPRISE: there are only 45, as per the agreement with the MPA — I looked back across the two empty lots to the E.W.F. Stirrup House. The simple 2-storey white and yellow house — designated historic — is completely dwarfed by The Monstrosity, built by the same rapacious developer who owns these 2 empty lots pictured above. There had been two little single family houses on these lots. Aries acquired the lots and knocked the houses down so the property could be used as a construction marshaling yard in order to build The Monstrosity.

Little by little Aries Development has been chipping away at this Historic Roadway. Aside from the 50-year lease on the Stirrup House, Aries now owns the Bicycle Shop, creating bookends on either side of any potential Coconut Grove Playhouse development.

As I continued taking pictures of Charles Avenue I walked from the vantage point shown above back to the E.W.F. Stirrup House, where I met a curious stranger.

THE BIGGEST SURPRISE OF ALL!!!

I was almost back at my car when I saw a woman walking across the Stirrup property towards me. The only people I’ve ever seen on that property were workmen. A red-headed, middle-aged woman in a dress was A SURPRISE, which is why I walked towards her. We met at the gate to the Stirrup property and had a heavily accented conversation after she demanded to know why I was taking pictures of her property.

Pictured: The scene of the conversation.
I didn’t take her picture.

Several times she asserted it was her property. I let the fib go because I know the history of the property better than my own family tree. It’s owned by Stirrup Properties, LLC, a company headed by 2 of the grandchildren of the original owner, E.W.F. Stirrup. A 50-year lease is held by Aries Development, which has been allowing this historic 120-year old house to undergo Demolition by Neglect. I’m pretty sure that this woman is not Aries Development Group.

Our conversation went something like this:

MF: [Accented English]: Why you take pictures?
ME: I’ve taken a lot of pictures of this building. I come here every few days and take pictures of this house. I have thousands of pictures of this house.
MF: Why you take so many pictures?
ME: I’m interested in the history of the house. It’s a famous house. This is the oldest house on the street. The second oldest house in Miami.
MF: I know. You work for newspaper?
ME: No. I have a blog.
MF: What’s your name?
ME: Headly Westerfield. [This elicited no reaction whatsoever.] What’s your name?
MF: Magda Falsetto.
ME: [Falsetto?!?! DING! DING! DING! My notebook has been in my hand all this time, so I start scribbling notes of the rest of our conversation.] M-A-G-D-A?

I was so surprised that it wasn’t until later that I realized I didn’t ask the obvious question: “Are you related to Gino Falsetto?” DOH!

MF: Yes. This is my property.
ME: So why don’t you fix up this house? This house has been empty for 8 years.
MF: Longer!
ME: Longer? Then why don’t you fix it up?
MF: It takes long time to get permits from city.
ME: You’ve had more than 8 years.
MF: It takes long time to get permits. Is problem at city.

April 4, 2014: La Bottega advertises. It has no permits
to move the Farmers Market to the Stirrup Property.

ME: Didn’t there used to be a wall there? Where did it go? [Indicates the back of the Stirrup property where a wall once separated it from La Bottega, a restaurant on the ground floor of The Monstrosity. La Bottega has started advertising the Farmer’s Market moving there beginning on the 27th of April.]
MF: We are making a garden to bring tables out here.
ME: On this property? From the restaurant?
MF: Yes. It will be beautiful garden.
ME: Don’t you think you should fix the house first? It’s an construction zone. The house looks terrible.
MF: It takes long time to get permits from city.

NO SURPRISE: She repeated this “long time to get permits from the city” sentiment about 7 times because I kept circling back to asking why the house wasn’t fixed already. One cannot get permits from the city if one has not submitted plans. The last time I checked no plans had ever been submitted to the city by Aries to renovate the E.W.F. Stirrup House.

TO BE FAIR: That was a whole 2 months ago, during the Great Tree Massacre of ’14.

Aries will need to submit up plans before it can be issued permits to renovate the E.W.F. Stirrup House. It will also have to apply for a retroactive permit for landscaping and  destroying the trees on the Stirrup property. So far Aries has gotten away with having no permit for the destruction of the cinder block wall. Will it also try to get away with moving restaurant and bar seating onto the Stirrup property? Will it even try to obtain the proper permits to move the Farmer’s Market to the Stirrup property?

It’s not like Aries Development has even tried to be a good Coconut Grove neighbour, so why should it be trusted now?

IRONY ALERT: Gino Falsetto and Aries Development is on the Charles Avenue Historic Preservation Committee. More than a year ago I attended a meeting where Aries assured the Preservation Committee that it was going to fix up the Stirrup House right away. In that time Aries has only caused more destruction to the house and the property.

But, who knows? I might be surprised. Aries may finally do things legally.

Who am I kidding? I’ll have to keep an eye on them.

Why is E.W.F. Stirrup so important to Coconut Grove?
Read: Happy Birthday Coconut Grove!!!
Now Honour Your Past

If It’s News, It’s News To The Coconut Grove Grapevine

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Let’s have a Tomversation, Tom.

Longtime followers of Not Now Silly can attest, I have been trying to Save the E.W.F. Stirrup House for more than 5 years.

Back in 2009 I tried to get Tom Falco, publisher of the Coconut Grove Grapevine, to help me. We engaged in a series of emails that went south really quickly. I explained my background. Then I offered my early opinion (which has only grown after researching more history) that much of what happens in West Grove is informed by Systemic Racism, I received the following reply from Falco, grammar, lack of punctuation, and misspellings unretouched:

[8/31/2009] Well some of the residents on the block are to blame too.

The first house was given over $700,000 by the city in grant money to renovate and the owner painted it white and took off.

Other areas were to be an arts district, but someone involved and part of the black community bought up all the land cheap and then tried to sell it to the artist for exhorbatant prices, so they just walked away.

You were wrong to place this on the facebook page it is off topic and really if you want to be taken seriously you need to do it by not spamming places. It makes you look unprofessional and people won’t take you seriously.

I do since I have done stories on the subject, but it is best to try to spreaed your info the proper way, and spamming blogs and facebook is not the proper way.

I’m just sayin.. Also it wasn’t “Whitie” who scammed the artists, it was the black something initiative that screwed the hood.

Thanks,
Tom Falco


Tom Falco [L] sharing information in downtown Coconut Grove

Wait!!! What???

I was surprised that Falco was so unconcerned about Charles Avenue and the E.W.F. Stirrup House. His larger issue — one he has to this very day — is about SPAM. All links in comment threads are SPAM, as far as he is concerned. It would never have occurred to me that a post about news in Coconut
Grove would be considered Off Topic on a blog with the rubric COCONUT GROVE’S ONLY
DAILY NEWS.

Silly me!!!

As for professionalism: I’ve been a professional writer-journalist for more than 40 years. While it’s so easy to dismiss that experience in the cyber-world, where anyone can claim to be a writer, at least I spell words correctly and know how to use punctuation properly. Yet, Tom Falco has a sizable readership despite his grammar and run-on sentences. More’s the pity.

Clearly Tom and I have a fundamental disagreement. Falco feels sharing information through a link is SPAM. I believe information should be shared. I’m not sharing the link to get traffic to Not Now Silly. I don’t make money off web traffic, like he does. I am sharing the link in order to share the information contained within. Three days later he wrote to me because I transgressed again:

I asked you in a nice way to stop spamming my face book page.

If you do it again, I will have you blocked from the page.

Thank you.

Falco did eventually block me from his facebookery. I was never successful in recruiting him to my efforts to save the E.W.F. Stirrup House, even when I tried again in 2012, when he dismissed me with:

Hi,

I really don’t want to get involved with that.

I am really trying to ease out of the Grove these days and am not taking on any more causes.

Thanks,
Tom

Nor was I successful in recruiting him to the other West Grove issue that cropped up a year ago, Trolleygate.

Funny story about that. Al Crespo, the great Miami muckraker and publisher of The Crespogram Report, tried to get him involved in Trolleygate. Without knowing of the enmity that had built up, Crespo made the mistake of including in his email a link to one of my blog posts and CCed me. Falco blew a gasket, which was so funny and outrageous that I wrote all about it in Go Home, Coconut Grove Grapevine, You’re Drunk! Hilarity ensued. However, Falco’s yet to apologize for the libelous statements in his email.

That’s why it was so surprising to see the Coconut Grove Grapevine recently take up the issues of both the E.W.F. Stirrup House and Trolleygate. What was not surprising is how he has continued to block my comments on his threads because I continue to link to my blog posts.

However, I recently learned that it’s not just me who is being blocked at the Coconut Grove Grapevine. I am now in email communication with someone else (with Tom Falco CCed). This person has also been trying to get comments posted on Falco’s blog. Falco not only refuses to publish the comments, but has refused the courtesy of a private reply as to why the comments have been blocked.

Let me be the first to defend Tom Falco. Only Tom Falco should decide on what gets published on the Coconut Grove Grapevine. Having said that, no one”s trying to SPAM his blog. We are trying to provide his readers more information on issues of importance to Coconut Grove. A real writer would WELCOME that kind of dialogue with its readers. Falco really should drop the pretense that he’s serving his readers; he’s serving his advertisers.

This advert was out-of-date on
March 1st when the MPA took
over the Playhouse parking lot.

When Falco falsely labels informative links SPAM, it’s a convenient excuse not to publish comments that might lead to criticism of any of his advertisers. F’rinstance: Gino Falsetto (the marauding developer I have written about extensively) has been an advertiser at the Grapevine through various companies, including his (possibly illegal) parking concession at the Playhouse and the several restaurants in the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums.

With Aries Development Group‘s fingers in so many Coconut Grove pies, much of the reporting Falco does is compromised. His recent two-parter on the Stirrup House, spurred on by the destruction of the trees and the public outcry, is an exercise of saying almost nothing while giving the Stirrup House lip service. Laughably he says in one of those posts:

For some years now, a few people asked me to get involved but I always felt there was nothing I could do. After so many years, the Stirrup family gave up the house, which was given historic designation in 2004.

And, nothing is what Tom Falco did. He ignored the Stirrup House from the day I tried to get him to help until now.

And, nothing is what Tom Falco still does. In neither post does he really come out and criticize the rapacious, marauding developer, Gino Falsetto. Furthermore, he won’t publish comments that do.

TO BE FAIR: Falco’s absolutely right that there’s nothing he can do, unless he’s willing to piss off his advertisers. However, if he wants to serve his readers and the larger community can help me pound the drum to Save the E.W.F. Stirrup House.

Either run as the Unofficial Mayor of Coconut Grove, or do some real reporting.

Even his reporting on Trolleygate is back-asswards. He never comes out in favour of his neighbours against the non-complying Coral Gables bus garage, although he mentions the controversy almost tangentially.

What Falco actually has done is to start a petition to demand that Miami bring its fake trolleys into Grove Center. He takes no position on whether these fake trolleys should loop along Grand Avenue into West Grove. Nor does he mention the latest news in the fake trolley story, that Coral Gables has voted to loop its fake trolleys to the MacFarlane Homestead Subdivision Historical District, but not to Douglas Road, in West Grove, just one block away and where its developer sited the fake trolley maintenance garage.

The MacFarlane Homestead Subdivision Historical District has a fascinating history. I barely touched on it in No Skin In The Game ► Part Three. In short: Coral Gables hid its racism in plain sight by making its only Black enclave, where it ALLOWED its servant class to live, an entire historic district.

Once again West Grove is being frozen out while Center Grove is begging for crumbs from Miami for a fake trolley. However, for a change, Historic Black Coral Gables might finally get served. But, you’ll never learn any of the context from the Coconut Grove Grapevine.

If Falco remains true to form he will next take another wrong position. In no time at all I expect to read him call for grandfathering the illegal, non-conforming Douglas Road diesel bus garage because, with the expansion of the fake trolley lines he’s pushing for, it will be needed, despite the fact that it belongs to the next town over.

I guess what really has me irked, however, is he managed to get quoted recently by other publications who jumped on the both the E.W.F. Stirrup House and Trolleygate issues. He had to be dragged — kicking and screaming — to barely write about these Coconut Grove issues in the first place. Then Miami media quotes him as if he knows what he’s talking about.

Clearly, he’s got a much better press agent than I do and I am jealous of the attention he gets.

However, I’ll warn Falco publicly (again) that he needs to be careful who he says what to. Some of what he says actually gets back to me. In fact, people seem gleeful to repeat it. Some of it sounds suspiciously like slander. People he believes are his friends do not keep his confidences. Who knew FAM would provide so many Friends of Falco a night to unload?

On the other hand: Everything I have said to people in private about Tom Falco, I have also stated in public on my blog more than once:

The Coconut Grove Grapevine is a joke, and Tom Falco is a panoply of a parody of a journalist.

The Coconut Grove Playhouse Deal Begins to Unfold

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The removal of the old growth trees on the E.W.F. Stirrup property was only one in a series of chess moves made virtually simultaneously as the Coconut Grove Playhouse deal begins to unfold.

On January 15th Aries Development took possession of the Bicycle Shop, that small, two story structure sitting at the northeast corner of the Playhouse parking lot. Aries was ‘gifted’ this property (and $15,000) to relinquish all claims on the Playhouse. The mystery had always been why this building had been put into play in order to settle the outstanding issues necessary to restore and reopen the Playhouse.

Sources tell Not Now Silly that when the now defunct Playhouse board accepted the loan from Aries years ago, it put up the Bicycle Shop as collateral. That’s how Aries came to hold the note on the Bicycle Shop; why it was in play already; and why it may have just been easier to give Aries this bone, than to have it continue to scuttle every deal to bring the Playhouse back to its former glory.

[One of these days I will actually discover how much money Aries loaned the defunct Playhouse board. That’s just another one of those pesky details that has remained concealed by all the boardroom and backroom machinations. These took place far away from the prying eyes of Florida’s strict Sunshine Laws. In other words: There’s so much about this deal we know nothing about and peeling back the onion has been a chore.]

The funny thing about Aries getting possession of the Bicycle Shop is that the building had already been condemned. The City of Miami loaded the property up with violation after violation, until it decided that it was an unsafe structure that had to be removed. However, that was something of a chess move on the part of the city in order to get a seat at the table. Because Miami-Dade County was running the Playhouse negotiations, the City of Miami would have been frozen out entirely. Having these tens of thousand of dollars in fines levied against the property gave the City of Miami a buy-in at this High Stakes table. When eventually the poker game was played to untangle the financial mess the Playhouse had become, holding cards were the state of Florida, which had to sign off on any deal; Miami–Dade County; the City of Miami; Aries Development; GableStage; FIU; and the former-Playhouse board, or what was left of it. Not seated at the table: Any representative from the community being served. In short: The taxpayers and neighbourhood stakeholders.

One of dozens of pictures taken inside the construction
zone. It seems fitting the floor looks like a chess board.

Regardless, once Miami was satisfied with the deal, the city pushed in all its chips and folded its hand. It wiped clean the condemned Bicycle Shop’s slate of all fines and deeded it to over to the marauding Aries Development Group. Consequently, Aries needed to act quickly, before new citations and violations start piling up against the building. To that end, it has already removed the roof from the Bicycle Shop.

Unfortunately for Aries Development that’s all that was done, creating a brand new problem for Gino Falsetto’s company. The demolition crew neglected to fence in the destruction site, [allegedly] breaking several city by-laws in the process. It’s currently open to the public for private tours. Anyone can wander in and out of the building, as this reporter did on Tuesday, February 25th. As well, Not Now Silly
has not been able to locate a demolition permit, nor does there appear
to be a permit for having a dumpster on the property. Aries is certainly
keeping Bylaw Enforcement busy this week.

See a photo album, inside and outside, of [alleged]
violations at the Bicycle Shop on February 25, 2014.
View videos of the unprotected construction zone:

Word is that Gino Falsetto wants to put a small restaurant in this building, but it would have to be a VERY small eatery. There’s not much one can do with 1600 square feet. That’s barely big enough for a small coffee shop. Restaurant, coffee shop, art gallery? Whatever Aries wants to do with this property is going to require permits and telling Not Now Silly that it’s all “in the pipeline” just doesn’t cut it. The laws are quite specific to demolition and this week Aries Development has already demolished a wall at the E.W.F. Stirrup House without a permit, hacked 4 old growth tress to the ground without a permit and is now running this unsafe destruction site without a permit — and without sealing it off from the public!!!

However, turning the Bicycle Shop into a restaurant makes sense because that’s another cash business. Gino Falsetto [allegedly] learned how lucrative restaurants can be when he (and his brothers) bankrupted four of them in the Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, area. When the government finally moved in to seize the assets (cash in the till and the cutlery, essentially), Canadians lost an estimated $1,000,000.00 in unpaid taxes. However, that’s chump change compared to what Falsetto’s investors lost. That figure is estimated to be upwards of ten million dollars. And then, next thing you know, Gino Falsetto has enough resources after his business went bankrupt to buy his way into the hot Miami real estate market.

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

This sign is supposedly gone on March 1st

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

Who had the parking concession until now?

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

Double Park LLC

Behind the mess created by Aries is one of the new MPA signs

Gino Falsetto founded Double Park LLC on July 12, 2004 and filed his Florida limited liability company with the Florida Department of State, Division of Corporations. The company’s FEI/EIN number is 861112258. The address is The Grand, 1717 N Bayshore Drive, Suite 102, Miami, FL 33132. Falsetto is the company’s sole manager and registered agent.


In 2006, Mitchell Liss took over as manager and Anthony Petropoulos became registered agent.


In 2007, the company moved to Suite 201 on the second floor in The Hilton Doubletree Grand condominium.


In 2009, Mitchell Liss also took on the role of registered agent.


The incredulous real estate promoter presents a big plan that arouses excitement. The Miami Herald reported Gino Falsetto “floated a last-minute, $55 million-plus proposal to build a new, 600-seat theater behind the historic façade, and add retail and residential buildings as well as an underground parking garage.”


In yet another Miami Herald article Jorge Luis Lopez, a Playhouse board member, was quoted to call Falsetto’s Aries company “a deadbeat squatter,” characterizing Falsetto’s relationship with the Playhouse’s board of directors.

Paradise Parking Systems LLC

Mitchell Liss founded Paradise Parking Systems LLC on December 19, 2005 and filed his Florida limited liability company with the Florida Department of State, Division of Corporations. The company’s FEI/EIN number is 204281994. The address is 19810 West Dixie Highway, N Miami Beach, FL 33180. Liss is the company’s sole manager and registered agent.


In 2007, Anthony Petropoulos became the registered agent and the company’s new address is Suite 201 at The Grand.


In 2009, Mitchell Liss also took on the role of registered agent.

Caribbean Parking Systems Inc


John Battaglia founded Caribbean Parking Systems Inc on February 25, 2002 and filed his Florida profit corporation with the Florida Department of State, Division of Corporations. The company’s FEI/EIN number is 270077530. The address is 2874 NE 191 Street, Suite 304, Aventura, FL 33180. Battaglia is the company’s sole director and Robert Stok is the registered agent.

In 2007, Mitchell Liss became the company’s sole director, president, and registered agent. The company’s new address is Suite 201 at The Grand.

Miami Parking Authority CEO Art Norieaga addresses
the Coconut Grove Village Council on February 25, 2014

Bring Truth To Light has also called on the government to investigate how
these three companies came to squat on the Playhouse parking lot, how long they have claimed the concession, and whether it had benefit of a contract with the Playhouse board. Coconut Grove has a shortage of parking, so during some Special Events, this parking lot was filled.

Every company pie that Gino Falsetto has his fingers into is always a
complicated rabbit warren of other companies and fronts. But, I digress.

Not only did these three companies collect the fees from this parking lot, but also had cars booted and/or towed for parking on this lot and not paying. If it’s true, as it’s beginning to appear, that Double Park, Paradise Parking, and Caribbean Parking had no authority to do so, every tow from that lot was an organized crime against the car’s owner. How many people using that parking lot were scammed by these three companies?

With Aries losing its precious parking lot tomorrow, how will it remain in that cash business, especially since his restaurants on the ground floor of The Monstrosity known as the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums advertise Valet Parking? A partial answer was given at the latest Coconut Grove Village Council meeting on February 25th. Art Noriega of the Miami Parking Authority gave a presentation on all Coconut Grove parking lots, including the Playhouse parking issues being investigated by Bring Truth to Light and Now Now Silly. He told the assembled that the city made an accommodation with Aries for Valet Parking. It was a such a quick reference, this reporter was not sure that they heard the proper context for the remark.

45 spaces in that oddly shaped area are to be rented by Aries Group

Contacted by phone after the meeting, Noriega elaborated, confirming to Not Now Silly that Aries will be renting 45 parking spaces from the city, at $45 a month, for a total of $2,025. [At $6.00 a car, Aries will have to turn each space over 7.5 times in a month to break even.] These spaces are apparently not any of those between the north end of the Playhouse and the south end of the Bicycle Shop. The parking spaces being rented from the city by Aries are those on the paved area immediately to the west of the Playhouse (in the irregular shape in the Earth View on the right). The Valet Parking arrangement with the city is on a month-to-month basis and, certainly, when (if?) the Playhouse property becomes a renovation zone, Aries won’t be able to Valet Park there.

Which brings us to the last 3 properties that Aries is known to control on Charles Avenue: the two vacant lots on the north of Charles Avenue, which are owned by a shell company owned by Gino Falsetto; and the E.W.F. Stirrup property, which Aries controls through a 50-year lease with the Stirrup Family, the owners of record on the house. Last week the Stirrups were cited for the destroying 4 old growth trees on the Stirrup property, even though the destruction was wrought by Gino Falsetto’s Aries Development. Aries also cut down 3 trees on the vacant lots across the street and demolished the wall separating The Monstrosity from the E.W.F. Stirrup House.

All of this wanton destruction was done without benefit of the proper permit(s). The city levied fines of $1,000 per tree and Aries will have to plant 2 trees for every tree destroyed, but the damage is already done and only time will bring back century old trees.

The Monstrosity, aka Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums, was built by
rapacious developer Aries Group.That 5-story wall (on the right) dwarfs the
understated 2-story 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House that the same marauding
developer has allowed to undergo Demolition by Neglect for the past 8 years.

While there are no plans on file with the city — or the Historical Preservation Board, for that matter — Not Now Silly has been told they are “in the pipeline,” whatever that means. In practice it means that Gino Falsetto is holding his cards very close to his vest, [allegedly] breaking all kinds of city By-Laws which require permits and plans before work commences, not after. Coconut Grove won’t know his hole cards, until he’s ready to play his hand. In other words: People will learn of his plans when he’s damned good and ready to reveal them, even if it can’t be fixed, like the trees.

So, what’s the plan for these last properties. Everything beyond this point is mere speculation and rumour, based upon keen observation and unconfirmed tips from anonymous sources:

Demolishing the wall is the first step for Aries Group to expand the restaurant/bar/wine bar seating at The Monstrosity into the Stirrup property. However, one would think the first steps would be the demolition permit, not to mention a permit to change the seating in the restaurants and another permit to alter the capacity on the various bar licenses [Taruus, La Bottega, etc.] in The Monstrosity. There are several carts that have been put before the horse. But at least those pesky old growth trees are no longer in the way, right?

However, since that work has already commenced, I sure hope the city of Miami Code Enforcement officers continue watching.

What else? At least one of those lots on the north side of Charles Avenue is being eyed by Aries as a “flat parking lot” in the future, according to my source. It was also cleared of vegetation last week in the Great Miami Tree Massacre™. This makes sense since Aries was forced to cash in its chips on the Playhouse parking lot and will lose its seat at the table if and when the Playhouse ever gets restored.

However, it makes sense for Aries to try and get this approved as a parking lot. If Falsetto ever gets plans approved to renovate the historic site of the
E.W.F. Stirrup House into a Bed and Breakfast and outdoor restaurant (according to other sources), it will
need additional parking facilities for their rich customers. Especially when it loses the 45 spaces behind the Playhouse. However, my source tells me that’s an impossibility. The current zoning
prevents that. The fact that Charles Avenue was a designated a Historic Roadway should also prevent that from ever becoming a parking lot.

Furthermore, several neighbours from several houses along Charles Avenue (who spoke to Not Now Silly on the condition of anonymity) are so angry at the destruction of the trees that they’ve vowed to watch developments on the Stirrup property very carefully from now on. All of them had questions about the E.W.F. Stirrup House because they were full of misinformation. That lack of concrete information allows Falsetto to bluff his way though the game.

The metaphors in this blog post are mixed. Is it a chess game or is this a High Stakes poker game? To Miami and Miami-Dade county it’s been a poker game, where every hand is a new hand. Gino Falsetto is playing a longer game, chess, going for the checkmate. Long before anyone realized what he had done he swallowed up all the property surrounding the E.W.F. Stirrup House and the Coconut Grove Playhouse. He always seems to be several moves ahead of everybody else. Hopefully, not the sheriff, because the more I investigate Gino Falsetto and his business ethics, the more I am convinced he belongs in jail.

Join the Facebook group Save the E.W.F. Stirrup House for updates.

Aftermath of the Great Miami Tree Massacre

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Fined $1,000 per tree or $4,000 on the Stirrup property.

“Some people say” Gino Falsetto has finally gone too far. The recent destruction of the old growth trees on the E.W.F. Stirrup property is bringing awareness of the deplorable condition Aries Development has allowed the historic 120-year old house to devolve into.

Demolition by Neglect is a thing that can be looked up on the Googalizer. Demolition by Neglect is what Gino Falsetto has done with the E.W.F. Stirrup House for the past 8 years, ever since it entered into his possession.

IRONY ALERT: Sources tell Not Now Silly that had Aries Development applied for tree removal permits, in all likelihood they would have been granted. By ignoring the law, he just brought unwanted attention to his terrible stewardship of an important Coconut Grove cultural resource. E.W.F. Stirrup was among Florida’s first Black millionaires, a man who once owned most of 33133, a Zip Code now considered one of the most exclusive in the country.

However, those accomplishments pale to this one: With his own hands, on property he owned, Ebeneezer Woodbury Franklin Stirrup built more than 100 houses in the area. These were sold, rented, and bartered to the growing Black families that served as the service industry for the tourist trade. That action, during Jim Crow Days, created something unique in this country. At one time Coconut Grove had the highest percentage of Black home ownership than anywhere else.

The Great Coconut Grove Tree Massacre of ’14™ was supposed to have been worse than it was. There is a 5th tree on the lot that has the same florescent orange paint marker that spelled doomed the other four. It was to have come down with the rest of them but, according to my source on the scene last Thursday when it occurred, the neighbours were starting to complain loudly and the work crew stopped before the last immediately behind the Stirrup House was felled. One of those neighbours is said to have called By-Law Enforcement because they arrived early the next morning and left a citation.

It took a stump grinder all day to remove the remnants of the two trees flanking the E.W.F. Stirrup driveway.

The fine of $4,000 ($1,000 per tree) levied by the City of Miami (see citation above) will not be the only punishment. Coconut Grove Village Council Chair Javier Gonzalez tells Not Now Silly Miami has also ordered remediation on the Stirrup property. Aries Development will be forced to plant 2 trees for every tree removed. And, in 120 years, they will also be old trees just like the ones ripped down.

February 25, 2014

However, Gino Falsetto continues to prove that he’s an irresponsible corporate citizen. The picture to the right is the interior of the Bicycle Shop, that Aries Development took possession of on January 15th. More about that in The Coconut Grove Playhouse Deal Begins to Unfold, post and what that means for the community. However, this construction site has been left open and unprotected as of yesterday.

Beyond those doors is an alley that a lot of the students use as a short cut to Thomas Avenue or the A&M school. Kids being kids could start exploring the property and get hurt. This reporter had no trouble walking inside.

Gino Falsetto knows the laws about cutting down trees, just like he knows the laws about protecting the public from unsafe construction sites. He’s a long-time developer, for eff’s sake!!! All this proves is that no matter how often the City of Miami cites his company, Gino Falsetto will do exactly what he wants in Coconut Grove.

Imagine a child wandering in here:

Headlines Du Jour ► Sunday, February 23, 2014

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Today we honour W. E. B. Du Bois, on the anniversary of his 1868 birth. While he died in 1963, his books and articles are still avidly read around the world. Among the other Headlines Du Jour of yesteryear are:

• 1455 – Traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed with movable type.
• 1836 – The Battle of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas.
• 1861 – President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.
• 1896 – The Tootsie Roll is invented.
• 1898 – Émile Zola is imprisoned in France after writing “J’accuse“, a letter accusing the French government of antisemitism and wrongfully imprisoning Captain Alfred Dreyfus.
• 1903 – Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States “in perpetuity”.
• 1954 – The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.

Without further delay, here are today’s Headlines Du Jour:

THE LATEST IN COCONUT GROVE:

Aries Development Continues To Rape Charles Avenue

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


WAR IS HELL:


IN LGBT NEWS:

George Takei’s Ripping
Letter to AZ about
‘Turn Away the Gay’ Bill


THE “O” IN GOP STANDS FOR OLD:

Democrats say ‘class warfare’
is part of the Fla GOP agenda

THE CONFEDERACY WILL RISE AGAIN:

The South still lies about the Civil War
In an ongoing revisionist
history effort, Southern
schools and churches
still pretend the war
wasn’t about slavery


TODAY IN TED NUGENT:

The Horrifying Song Ted Nugent Released in 1981
that Nobody Seems to be Talking About (VIDEO)

Ted Nugent, Gay Pirate?

MORE EXCITING EPISODES OF COPS GONE WILD:

Woman Violently Arrested
After Jaywalking

Cops hit my car, then
arrested me: suit


MORE ‘MERKIN ‘CEPTIONALISM:

‘Time to Forget the United States…’: Beck Says the ‘Fundamental Transformation’ of America Has Already Happened


ANOTHER DISPATCH FROM DETROIT, ‘MERKA’S FIRST THROWAWAY CITY:

The Pink Zone: Why Detroit is the New Brooklyn


TODAY IN CLIMATE CHANGE:

No Global Warming? NOAA
Says January Was Fourth
Warmest on Record

TODAY IN RELIGION:

Tom DeLay Claims God
‘Wrote The Constitution’

Things I learned during the
Alabama Legislature’s Ten
Commandments debate today

“Hipster” Christianity:
9 hilarious attempts by
the religious right to be cool


LOOFAH LAD & FOX “NEWS” IN THE NEWS AGAIN:

FOX Alert: O’Reilly Factor Producer Asks DeSmogBlog
to Provide Best Arguments
Against Global Warming

Fox producer emails climate blog looking for “the very best arguments” against man-made global warming


VIDEO DU JOUR:


Headlines Du Jour is a leisure-time activity of Not Now Silly, home of the
Steam-Powered Word-0-Matic, and your rest stop on the Information
Highway. Use our valuable bandwidth to post your news comments in
today’s open thread.

Aries Development Continues To Rape Charles Avenue

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Code enforcement beat me to it.
That $4,000 fine will restore the 100-year old trees, right?

It was supposed to be a quiet morning editing Farce Au Pain, until I received a text from one of my secret sources in Coconut Grove. The gist of the message being: “You won’t believe what’s going on at the E.W.F. Stirrup House.”

My source had heard that the 8-foot wall that separated the E.W.F. Stirrup property from the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums [hereafter known as The Monstrosity] had been torn down. This was apparently done so that the restaurants and bars in The Monstrosity could start seating customers on the E.W.F. Stirrup Property.

Wait!!! What???

I jumped in the car and drove down to Coconut Grove as quick as the speed limit on I-95 would allow. While my source was correct, it was even worse than they had suspected. Yes, the wall — which had been the target of graffiti artists on more than one occasion — was removed as a first step to expanding the restaurant seating, but what was done at the front of the property is what reduced me to tears.

The E.W.F. Stirrup Property has been raped of all its old growth trees!!!

On the east side of the driveway now sits this beautiful stump.

Four trees on Stirrup property (not to mention 3 trees on the vacant lot across the street) have been hacked down to the ground. Two of these trees flanked the Stirrup driveway entrance and they were nearly as old as the 120+-year old house. These trees were so old they had old growth vines climbing up them as far as the eye could see. This is the kind of lush foliage prized in Coconut Grove, with philodendron leaves LARGER than two dinner plates side by side. People pay extra in Coconut Grove for property with this kind of canopy. Now, it’s all gone. Compost.

Chopping down trees is one of those things that Miami takes very seriously. In fact, there are strict laws against it. When it was learned a year back that Coconut Grove would lose some of its canopy along Commodore Plaza — ironically just a block away from the Stirrup House — people went nuts and had the tree removal program scaled back considerably. Later, when people in Brickell learned that the green canopy there was slated for destruction, not only did public opposition stop that plan in its tracks, but recently the City of Miami decided to take responsibility of Brickell from Miami-Dade County to better manage its resources.

IRONY ALERT: I’ve been yelling about the Demolition by Neglect of the E.W.F. Stirrup House for years without getting any traction. However, after having made few phones yesterday afternoon about these old growth trees being chopped down, I had two reporters call me to see what I knew about it. I expect more media phone calls to come.

Two stumps, one on either side of the driveway.

Code enforcement beat me to the Stirrup House by minutes and cited the property owners for:

Violation Date: Feb 21, 2014 Violation Time: 10:00AM
Code Section(s) Violated: VIOL REF#2125 Tree removal/relocating/trimming/root pruning without a finalized permit. (Any required mitigation must be City Code Chapt 17

Correction: 4 trees removed on property and no permit on file, please contact planning Department for for an after the fact permit.

Fine amount: 1,000 * 4 = 4,000.

That 8-foot wall on the left used to run right across the back of the property.
Just beyond the yellow CAUTION tape is the restaurant seating. See video below.

As what always happens when Aries Development screws up at the Stirrup House, it’s the Stirrup Family that gets cited for the violation, a pattern documented in these pages on several occasions. That’s because Aries is merely the lessee of the Stirrup property.

When Mr. Stirrup died in 1957, his will stated that his beautiful house — which he built with his own hands and of which he was justifiably proud — must remain in the family in perpetuity. Consequently, the owner of record is a company called Stirrup Properties, Inc. The officers of that company are David Porter, Jr., Dazelle D. Simpson, and E.W.F. Stirrup, III., descendants of Ebeneezer Woodbury Franklin Stirrup. At one time Mr. Stirrup was the largest landholder in Coconut Grove and his lovely house looked out over his vast real estate holdings, leading to him becoming one of Florida’s first Black millionaires.

Developer and scumbag (but I repeat
myself) Gino Falsetto. Pic swiped from
Bring Truth To Light, whose proprietor
has been fighting Falsetto for some 20+
years, documenting some shady real
estate deals, in the public record.

If he could see to whom his grandchildren entrusted the second oldest house in Miami, he’d be spinning in his grave.

I’ve written many stories about Aries Development — and when I say Aries Development, I really mean my Canadian compatriot Gino Falsetto. Here’s a quick recap:

Falsetto skedaddled to Miami from Canada after bankrupting 4 restaurants that he (and his brothers) owned in the Ottawa, Ontario, area (some across the Ottawa River in Hull, Quebec). Ottawa is the nation’s capitol and at least one of these restaurants is where Canadian power-brokers and politicos wined and dined, while reaching in each others pockets. When the Canadian government finally lowered the boom on the Falsetto Boys, all it managed to do is seize the assets of those restaurants: cash in the till, liquor stock and plates and cutlery. It’s estimated that the Canadian taxpayers were left on the hook for $1,000,000 in unpaid taxes on the restaurants that had been making money hand-over-fist before Falsetto over-extended himself.  Also among the losers were the vendors and all the employees, who never received their final paycheques. However, private investors are said to have lost a pile of dough as well. One of my sources who once worked for Falsetto — and claims to like him — estimates these investors lost upwards of $10,000,000. Imagine what he might have told me if he hated Falsetto. My source wanted to clear things up because I had touted the million dollar figure. I don’t know whether he was bragging on Falsetto’s behalf, or not.

Falsetto seems to have left Canada just before the tarring and feathering. His golden parachute allowed him to land on his feet on the over-heated Miami real estate market. Where did he get the money if his restaurants just went into the dumper? Bars and restaurants are notorious for being cash operations. Just saying. And now Gino Falsetto is operating more bars and restaurants, this time building and owning The Monstrosity in Coconut Grove through his Aries Development; a multi-use complex for rich white folk (with certain exceptions, which I’ll get to in a minute) that has 4 restaurants and/or bars on the ground floor. Just saying.

This video
provides the brand new view from one of Falsetto’s restaurants in The
Monstrosity, La Bottega Enoteca Sociale, after the
8-foot wall was removed. Why Gino Falsetto would want the patrons of
his restaurants to look out onto the pile of crap he allowed the E.W.F.
Stirrup House to devolve into is one of those mysteries of the cosmos.
Missing from this view are the 4 old growth trees recently chopped down
to the ground.

Among the other pies Falsetto stuck his fingers into once he landed on his feet in Miami is The Monstrosity on Main Highway, immediately behind the E.W.F. Stirrup House. From Day One Falsetto had his eyes set on bigger game. First he wrapped up control of the Stirrup House and ownership of two lots on the north side of Charles Avenue in the same deal, the broad contours of which appear to conceal a crime. We report; you decide. Follow the bouncing ball:

The Stirrup Family owned the 2 lots on the north side of Charles Avenue and Aries Development (Gino Falsetto) made them an offer. “We’ll trade you two units in The Monstrosity for a 50-year lease on the Stirrup House, ownership of the two double lots across the street from the Stirrup House, and $10 to make it all legal.” All of that was quite legal.However, here’s where it gets tricky.

Gino Falsetto seems to have learned how to make bankruptcy work for him. That’s what may have been illegal on this deal, in which the Stirrups appear to have been mere pawns — and Falsetto made out like a bandit. First he valued the 2 condos that he traded away in The Monstrosity at $500,000 each. Then he went to the bank and, based on his own valuation, got a loan of a figure adjacent to $750,000, using the property as collateral. Then he promptly defaulted on the loan.

Two giant old growth trees once flanked this driveway. Had they still
been there it would have completely blocked the view of The Monstrosity.

When the bank put the property up for a foreclosure auction, it was purchased for some $250,000 by a company in which Pierre Heafey figures prominently. Heafey is also a Canadian compatriot, who is partners with Gino Falsetto in other companies. Then the properties appear to have been shuffled through several numbered companies, until they now seem to be owned by a numbered company in which Falsetto is an officer. To recap: These two properties that Falsetto defaulted on have wound up being owned by companies in which Gino Falsetto figures prominently. Of course the banks were insured for the loss by the FDIC, which means that this was YOUR tax dollars at work.

Regardless of this skullduggery, which was still in the future, the Stirrup family accepted the trade. There were no microphones present to see whether they sang the theme song to The Jeffersons, but the fact of the matter is that the Stirrups were literally moving on up to the East Side, to a deluxe apartment in the sky. And then, for the next 8 years, the Stirrups have been witness to (if their balconies have a northern view) the garbage dump and disrepair that Gino Falsetto has allowed on their grandfather’s property, a precious cultural resource. The ongoing program of Demolition by Neglect is heartbreaking for anyone who cares about Black history.

The most recent Google Maps Street View with the foliage flanking the driveway. While the
8-foot wall (since removed) can be seen in the background, The Monstrosity is barely visible.

It gets worse, of course, because when one starts to peel back the onion that is Coconut Grove corruption, you will find layers upon layers.

The view from the restaurant towards the pile of crap
the rear of the E.W.F. Stirrup House has become.

While Falsetto’s tentacles had been thrust into the other fiasco on Charles Avenue, the Coconut Grove Playhouse, his claims on that building ended recently when he was gifted the Bicycle Shop, a small building with extremely valuable Main Highway frontage. While the Playhouse is an entirely separate issue that also happened to involve Falsetto, the only reason to mention it here is to note how the aftermath of that Playhouse deal has made it worse for The Charles Avenue Historic Roadway.

Until that deal had been worked out Falsetto-connected companies (Double Park LLC and Paradise Parking Systems LLC) were able to pocket the parking fees on the lot between the Playhouse and the Bicycle Shop. However, once the Playhouse deal is certified (which is supposed to happen any day now) that parking revenue will revert to the Miami Parking Authority and Falsetto will be frozen out.

One blogger is calling for an investigation
into how those companies got the Playhouse parking concessions in
the first place. However, just like restaurants, parking lots are another business that deals in cash, in which skimming is notoriously rampant. Just saying.

So . . . remember those vacant lots on the north side of Charles Avenue that Falsetto may have acquired illegally? At least one of them is slated to be “flat parking,” presumably for the valet parking for the restaurants in The Monstrosity. This will replace some of the revenue lost to the Miami Parking Authority, which brings us to the latest Falsetto Bait & Switch. A while back he got the City of Miami to agree to a zoning variance on these vacant lots to allow him to shunt the valet car parking in and out of the lot behind the Playhouse. Now that variance will be used to create a surface parking lot on on what was always meant to be a residential street, before Gino Falsetto got his grimy hands on those properties.

In fact, before Gino Falsetto got his grimy hands on those properties there had been houses on those two double-wide lots on the north side of Charles Avenue. However, they were knocked down when The Monstrosity was being built so that Aries Development could use these lots as a marshaling yard for the construction of The Monstrosity. Rather than go out to Main Highway the construction materials were shunted in and out of the Stirrup property to the construction site.

Behind this sign honouring the original Bahamian residents of Coconut Grove
are the two vacant lots, seen here before 3 trees were removed from the that lot.
This vacant lot will apparently become “flat parking” on a street that had been
zoned residential before Falsetto started messing around. Now these lots will
be used for the fancy cars of the rich White folk who frequent Gino Falsetto’s
restaurants in The Monstrosity. Thus Falsetto profits his destruction?

I have been writing about the E.W.F. Stirrup House for 5 years. My stories on the house led to my stories on Trolleygate, which I have been writing about for the past year. However, it’s only been recently that I realized that what I was REALLY writing about was The Colour Line in Coconut Grove. My continued research has shown that The Colour Line has been shifting and moving in Coconut Grove for the last century. It’s only recently that the center has been shrinking at a rapid rate.

By that yardstick the E.W.F. Stirrup House crossed The Colour Line when Falsetto acquired control of it. The two houses, on the double-wide lots on the north side of Charles Avenue, crossed The Colour Line when ownership was slipped to Falsetto thru the back door, as it were, and they were destroyed to make way, eventually, for a parking lot. The property on which the Coconut Grove Playhouse sits crossed The Colour Line in 1926 when E.W.F. Stirrup sold it so that it could become a movie theater, bring culture to Coconut Grove. Prior to that the eastern edge of The Colour Line was Main Highway, the opposite side of which contains homes in the several millions of dollars today. That’s always been the White side of The Colour Line.

[Trolleygate is another issue in which several Black properties crossed The Colour Line. Those neighbours have banded together to wrest the 4 properties back to the other side of The Colour Line.]

It’s the rich cultural legacy of E.W.F. Stirrup that is being destroyed, along with his property. I won’t go into why Mr. Stirrup is important to the history of Coconut Grove here, as this post is long enough already. However, if you want to know how a Black man became a millionaire in the Jim Crow South and created a unique community in this country along the way, please read:


If you care about this issue, please join the facebook group Save the E.W.F. Stirrup House.

Oh, and in case I forgot, I’d like to wish you all a very happy and joyous Black History Month.

Here are two more video views documenting the most recent destruction of the E.W.F. Stirrup property at the hands of a rapacious developer, aided and abetted by the descendants of one of the most important men in Coconut Grove history.


What’s Going On At The Taurus Bar?

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Framework for an awning is being installed on The Taurus Bar, December 19, 2013.
This work may or may not be non-conforming, may or may be contrary to previous
promises, and may or may not have been built without benefit of a building
permit. With the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums in the background.

A recent visit to Coconut Grove to document The Bicycle Shop revealed work going on at The Taurus Bar, the venerable watering hole in front of the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums. 

Based on my previous investigations of [allegedly] illegal work going on inside the E.W.F. Stirrup House, it’s fair to ask the following questions: *


1) Does this work conform to all Miami and Miami-Dade bylaws?
2). Does this work conform with whatever promises were made to preserve The Taurus when the GGRC was built?
3). Does the owner have a building permit for the work?

I’ve written about The Taurus briefly, and only tangentially, during my research of Coconut Grove. It’s owned by an arm of Aries Development, builder of the GGRC, the monstrosity that dwarfs the little one-room building and the 2-story E.W.F. Stirrup House. Aries also owns the two other restaurants on the ground floor of the mixed use condo complex. Aries, in case you haven’t been following along chapter by chapter, also owns the two lots on the north side of Charles Avenue immediately behind the Coconut Grove Playhouse. Furthermore, Aries is about to get title to The Bicycle Shop — extremely valuable Main Highway frontage — in exchange for reliquishing all claims against the Playhouse for a previous loan.

The historic 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House — a 2-story modified Conch-
style house — dwarfed by the 5-story Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums

Far more important, at least as far as I am concerned, is that Aries also finagled a 50-year lease on the E.W.F. Stirrup House and has been allowing it to undergo Demolition by Neglect during the 8 years it has had control of the 120-year old cultural treasure. The Stirrup House is now believed to be the 2nd oldest house in Miami, after the Barnacle, Commodore Monroe’s house, which is now a Historical State Park and less than a tenth of a mile away. 

Charles Avenue has been designated an Historical Roadway and the E.W.F. Stirrup House has also been designated historical by the City of Miami. However, the practical effect seems to be no practical effect.on Gino Falsetto, the primary owner of Aries Development. His stewardship of this historical landmark has been nothing less than shameful.

Related: Why saving the Stirrup House saves important Black History?
Please read:Unpacking Coconut Grove ► Part Two ► E.W.F. Stirrup House

Preserving the Taurus Bar was among the promises Aries Development made in order to get its permits to build the Grove Gardens Residence Condominiums. So was preserving and renovating the E.W.F. Stirrup House. It’s interesting to compare and contrast the treatment of the Taurus vs. the fate of the E.W.F. Stirrup House. 

The Taurus goes back, at the very least, to 1906, when it was a tea room for the High Society of Coconut Grove. Over the years it went from being a tea house to a neighbourhood bar. It attracted those within walking distance, but another one of the attractions, especially for the old-timers, was — as downtown Coconut Grove became overly developed — there was a free parking at the Taurus Bar in the years just before the GGRC was built. [Drinking and driving? Never mind.]

The E.W.F. Stirrup House goes back to the 1890s. I’ve written so much about the Stirrup House, I won’t go into its history here, other than its recent history. Ownership of the house remains in the hands of the Stirrup Family, as dictated by the will left behind when E.W.F. died in 1957. Aries obtained a 50-year lease on the house through a complicated property swap that’s detailed elsewhere at Not Now Silly.

While Gino Falsetto (through Aries, of course) promised to preserve and renovate both the Taurus and the Stirrup House, only the Taurus was fixed up. It’s been open almost the entire time. During a period that coincides almost perfectly with the Taurus being open, the E.W.F. Stirrup House has been empty, undergoing Demolition by Neglect, as mold, mildew and termites work away at the house.

I was told the reason no work ever progressed on the Stirrup House was because Aries ran out of money. However, The Taurus has been generating money for Aries and Aries had enough money to loan the defunct Playhouse board some of it. But, isn’t it strange Gino Falsetto never found the money to fulfill its OBLIGATION to restore the E.W.F. Stirrup House. And now it’s spending MORE money to put an awning on the Taurus before it fulfills its promises on the Stirrup House.

The Taurus Bar on December 19, 2013
TO BE FAIR: The Taurus could use an awning. Any place that hopes to have a viable outdoor patio, which The Taurus hopes to, in South Florida needs an awning. Fans and mist-ers are also a good idea. However, can you just throw an awning on any old building? What about a building more than 100 years old? What about a building more than 100 years old that you’ve promised to preserve?

And, while I’m asking questions, where’s the building permit? I looked inside and out, but saw no building permit. Does this awning affect pedestrian traffic? Was a study done of pedestrian traffic? Does the awning encroach on the public easeway for the sidewalk? How is Main Highway impacted by this awning. Is this an [alleged] infraction against Miami by-laws, Miami-Dade by-laws, or both?

Based on the past performance of Gino Falsetto these are all fair questions to ask. By sheer coincidence these happen to be the same questions I’ll be asking city and county officials in the next few days.

* The work is probably finished by now in advance of The King Mango Strut with Grand Marshall Rob Ford.