Tag Archives: One Grove

Interview With District 2’s Ken Russell

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Ken Russell, potential Commissioner-elect for District 2
while the Veterans’ Day commemoration gathers to march

I originally met potential Commissioner-elect Ken Russell way back when — during Soilgate — when I called out of the blue to interview him.

We met at a local coffee shop just as it appeared his battle with [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff was finished. It was an epic battle over the toxic soil in Merrie Christmas Park and, in the end, the residents got the kind of toxic soil remediation they felt their children deserved.

While it appeared as if Merrie Christmas Park would be re-mediated properly, I was surprised when he moved on to his next concern, which was all the other toxic parks in the city. Russell was genuinely concerned that those residents might not have enough clout, or enough money, to hire a lawyer like he and his neighbours had. That’s when I knew Ken was about far more than his own property values. He had a Social Justice bone.

He wasn’t doing it for effect. At the time Russell had no intention to run for office, but the fight over toxic soil made him feel that he could do better than the current Commissioner. And, the secrecy in
which [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff went behind the backs of the residents, breaking several laws about proper notification for a Brownfield Site — not to mention when he lied to this reporter that it had never been so designated — told Russell there must be a better way to conduct city business on behalf of constituents.

It’s a sign!!!
The Veterans’ Day Parade marched right past this.

When he later declared he was running for District 2 Commissioner, Russell made transparency one of the cornerstones of his platform.

In one of the craziest election finishes in Miami history, Ken is engaged in a runoff election with wife of term-limited Teresa Sarnoff. However, with Sarnoff withdrawing from the race, the city lawyer says the runoff will still be held, but that votes for Teresa Sarnoff won’t count. Yet, Democracy dictates that the votes count and Ken maintains that he’s still in it to win it. He wants a clear mandate, so he’s still campaigning for every vote on November 17th.

Russell agreed to a sit down interview and suggested we meet in West Grove after the Veterans’ Day commemoration. As I drove down I couldn’t help but wonder if he had chosen the perfect photo op for a politician, or whether it was simply to accommodate me. I requested an interview, but told him it had to be on Wednesday because that was the only day I had free. I left it up to him to choose the time.

That we met in Coconut Grove for this interview seems appropriate because that’s where he received his highest support, with a nearly 20% turnout. It’s also the area I’ve been researching extensively since 2006. Watching Russell work the crowd was nothing like watching a politician work a crowd. There were enough hugs, kisses, handshakes, and genuine warmth in both directions, that it was obvious that Russell is already well-liked by this part of his potential constituency.

Russell surprised me by sitting in the grass his suit for this interview.

NNS: You’re making up for a politician that was reviled in this district. How are you planning to overcome that?

KEN RUSSELL: It’s true that part of the reason I got involved was seeing how my Commissioner operated and seeing how I felt things could be done better. The day he’s out of office, the day I get into office, that’s the first step and it’s really not that hard. A new tone, a new communication, a new conversation with the neighbours.

I’m already being told, and I’m not even in there, that this already feels different than it has for the last 9 years. So, the first step is to be open and even that, at the very least, wasn’t done to my understanding. And, that comes easy for me.

NNS: Especially in this neighbourhood of West Grove, the people here kinda felt burned by promises made years ago that were never fulfilled. Yet, you were able to overcome that to get a 20% turnout at the polls that went overwhelmingly to you. How are you going to keep that bridge open to the community?

KR: The community’s going to keep that bridge open. At this point, I owe so much to this area that I don’t even have a choice of closing the door. It’s too important. It’s been vocalized and it’s been publicized well enough where my heart is, that I couldn’t turn back if I wanted to, and I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the support of the West Grove and, despite advice I received early on, I could see that there was a community here with a lot to lose, that would turn up at the polls if they felt they had an advocate.

NNS: And, you’re going to be that advocate?

KR: Absolutely. I’ll be the best that I can.

NNS: One of the things I did during the elections is I did door knocks with you in various neighbourhoods. Where do you think your biggest support was coming from overall?


KR: I knocked [on] over 2,000 doors during the 10 month period, all the from the South Grove to the West Grove to Morningside. It was very difficult to knock doors in Brickell and downtown, but we found other ways to reach the community there. The largest support was from the Grove as a whole, all parts of the Grove together. There was nearly a two-to-one margin in my favor at almost every major precinct in the area.

NNS: Do you have any job you want to do on Day One?

KR: Day One is learning for me because I don’t pretend to have all the answers, especially within process. I have the intention of what I’d like to accomplish and, as you can see here today, just the conversation, the conversation that we’re having even today with folks, is part of the first step; is part of that first step of giving them a trust [and] a feeling of comfort that their Commissioner is going to be open with them.

NNS: Is there any big project you’ve got in mind? Something you want to try to do while in office.

KR: Yeah, I would like to see something good come of the Trolley garage. I’d like to see that building serve the community. And, I’ve heard a lot of good ideas, but not in a formal setting to where I could say what should be done with it, but it’s a symbol of how this part of town’s been treated and, I think, in the same symbolic gesture should be converted into something that builds up the community.

With that Ken Russell was off to a meeting at Miami City Hall, where the learning curve for a new potential Commissioner-elect is steep.

For further reading please see: Soilgate, Trolleygate, [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff, and the Anybody But Teresa facebookery, where so many of these issues intertwine.

Where The Sidewalk Ends, Racism Begins ► Chapter Two

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Our next destination in Where The Sidewalk Ends, Racism Begins.

This path runs along another section of The Colour Line in
Coconut Grove. Note the fence. We’ll get back to that later.

Before beginning our second West Grove stroll, it’s worth reading the last Where The Sidewalk Ends, Racism Begins. Since it was published in December, additional info about the Coconut Grove Colour Line has been found. In Dismantling Racism: The Continuing Challenge to White America [published by Augsburg Fortress, 1991], Joseph R. Barndt writes:

A southern version of these traceable corporate decisions to create a Black ghetto exists in Miami Florida. Running through the entire area called Coconut Grove on the South End of Miami are the remains of an eight-foot stone wall, built to separate Black and white residential neighborhoods. Resolution 745, adopted at Miami City Planning Board meeting of July 21, 1941, reads as follows: “A resolution recommending that the establishment of a permanent diving line between white and colored occupancy in the area north of Grand Avenue and east of Douglas Road.” There are also later resolutions that describe the placement, size, access, roads, and responsibility for maintenance of the wall. The wall’s remains still stand, but few citizens of Coconut Grove remember its original purpose, or the decisions that created it.

Fewer remember the next Colour Line we will visit on our Where The Sidewalk Ends, Racism Begins walking tour, although it’s far less hidden. Rather than running along the backyards of a neighbourhood, it’s in plain sight. An entire block of houses stare out at it. Furthermore, it’s not just in plain sight, but maintained and fortified to this very day. Let’s go for a walk.

From where one sidewalk ends to where the next sidewalk ends.

We begin right where we left off the last time. While standing on Douglas Road at The Colour Line facing The Wall of Shame, turn left, and cross Douglas. This will put you on Franklin Avenue. Walk east along the southern edge of the Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery, named after the wife and childhood sweetheart of E.W.F. Stirrup. This was once the only place in Miami where Black folk could be buried and, contrary to some references found on the internet, is not where Michael Jackson filmed Thriller. Past the cemetery is one modern 2-story home and then several single family homes in the Coconut Grove vernacular of being either modified Conch or Shotgun styles. Turn right at the little traffic circle at Plaza, the first street, and walk down to where the sidewalk ends. That’s where racism begins and Marler Avenue begins.

Marler Avenue is a funny little street in Coconut Grove, “little” being the operative word. It runs east-west for one short block, from Hibiscus Street to Plaza Street, with houses only along the north side. Every one of those houses looks out at a wall — overgrown with foliage and almost invisible in parts, unless you know where to look.

I first learned of Marler Avenue from an article called The Wall, which Kirk Nielsen wrote for Miami New Times way back in 1998:

One look at Marler Avenue clarifies [Marler resident David] White’s frustration: Not only are he and his neighbors fenced in at both ends of the block, but along the southern edge of the tiny street is a ten-foot fence. “This all used to be open,” White explains, standing in his driveway and pivoting 180 degrees as he points from one end of the street to the other. “We used to walk through there.” He gestures toward one section of fence with a coil of concertina barbed wire — the kind used in military operations: “Totally unnecessary,” White exclaims, shaking his head, his hands now tucked inside his back pockets.


Will Johnson, who returned home to the black Grove four years ago after eighteen years in the U.S. Army, is offended by the notion that white Grovites would put up barricades to protect themselves from their black neighbors. “The idea that a man would put that damn concertina wire on top of the fence there,” says Johnson, age 46, surveying the barrier with White. “The truth is it won’t make any difference at all. The guys know how to get over there and rob their ass anyway. It’s not a deterrent.”


White regards the barriers as vestiges of “segregation and white dominance. And I say, look, I pay taxes the same as anyone else. I don’t necessarily want to go into their community, but I do want to make sure that if I need to go over there for anything I have the accessibility. Now, if I’m going to go over to Plymouth Congregational, I gotta go all the way around” — he twirls slowly in a half-circle to indicate the circuitous route he would have to take — “instead of the way the streets were supposed to be.”

A map dated 1947-1949, before Marler Avenue was closed off on all sides.

That wall is the Marler Avenue Colour Line, but it also demarcates the end of the backyards of houses that front along Loquat, one block south. If you look closely at the map above, you will see a faint line running west from Marler, which would have extended the street all the way to Douglas Road, also known as 37th. In fact Marler was supposed to have gone through to Douglas, as this map from the late ’40s indicates. It also shows some other Marler mysteries. For instance both Plaza and Hibiscus were also supposed to link up to Loquat Avenue.

Back then Marler, Plaza, and Hibiscus were nothing more than a dirt roads that became mired in mud during the rainy season. However, a curious thing happened on what should have been the western end of Marler Avenue. The White homeowners on Loquat Avenue illegally extended their backyards into the right of way, closing off Marler. And, that’s how Marler Avenue lost access to Douglas Road. Quietly. Illegally. Racially.

Hibiscus Street never went through to Loquat as it should have either. Eventually that land was sold off and condos built. And, that’s how Hibiscus lost access to Loquat Avenue. Even more curious is the evolution of how Plaza Street lost access to Loquat.

Plaza Street begins its southward trek at the famed US-1. At Grand Avenue, once the thriving Black business district of Coconut Grove, it takes a slight jog. Today, it continues all the way down to Marler, where the sidewalk ends. According to that 1940s map, [above] Plaza Street was supposed to take another slight jog at Marler before continuing south past Loquat in South Grove, where at Poinciana Avenue, it would make a gentle left turn to connect to Main Highway. However, that was not to be.

When the lower section of Plaza, along with Marler and Hibiscus, were paved sometime in the ’70s, this dogleg, between Marler and Hibiscus remained dirt. It was little traveled by vehicles because it wasn’t well maintained and, quite frankly, South Grove had little reason to go north into West Grove, which was considered unsafe. West Grove, for the most part, traveled north to Grand Avenue to shop and be entertained. This little section of what should have been Plaza Street eventually became an overgrown footpath that crossed the Coconut Grove Colour Line from West Grove to South Grove, Black Grove to White Grove.

It remained a footpath until some time in the early ’90s when — without warning and city approval — a chain link fence was erected that closed off the bottom of Marler Avenue entirely. No one knows who paid to have it put up, but fingers were pointed at White residents in South Grove reacting to a perception of heightened crime, accusing the perps using this path.

The chain link fence didn’t stay up very long.

IRONY ALERT: Just like it was the complaints of White folk that got Old Smokey closed down, and
just like it was the White folk that finally got the western edge of the Wall of Shame taken down, it was the White folk of South Grove who were
responsible for getting the chain link fence taken down. A good many of the residents of West Grove worked for families in South Grove as gardeners, maids, handymen, and nannies. When the Plaza extension was closed off to foot traffic, these tradesfolk started complaining to their employers because, suddenly, they were forced to walk a lot farther to get to work. The fence came down.

There had been other leaks in The Wall of Shame. Along the south side of Marler that section of the wall had been porous. People remember using dirt paths to take shortcuts to Loquat and walk to Plymouth Congregational Church. But over the years one link after another was closed off until the Plaza foot path became the last surviving link between West Grove and South Grove along residential streets.

For the longest time it remained a dirt path. Eventually this rough footpath was improved by the City of Miami. Paving stones were added and the foliage would be cut back occasionally. However, it was poorly maintained over the years. That is, until quite recently.

In February this reporter first visited Marler Avenue to begin research on this post, and to scope out the lay of the land. Way back then the edges of the path were falling apart. Many pavers had been stolen. Sinkholes in several places made walking a baby stroller difficult. A second visit a few weeks later showed newer destruction. The post that would keep vehicles off the foot path had been flattened, probably by a vehicle. [A big rock at the south end of the path would have kept it from exiting on Loquat, however.] A third, more recent, visit held a much bigger surprise. A new, sturdier post had been installed to keep vehicles out and the path had been repaired. All the pavers were replaced and leveled, with the edges shored up. It wasn’t until I started taking videos to document the maintenance that I noticed something very disturbing.

BEFORE:

February 25, 2014: Crossing The Colour Line in Coconut Grove, from
Black Grove to White Grove, from Marler Avenue to Loquat Avenue

AFTER:

April 21, 2014: Note the brand new
addition to the fence along The Colour Line.

This is pretty much where maps say Marler Avenue should have met Douglas Road

As the path became more navigable, and the wild foliage cut back drastically, someone must have felt far more vulnerable. Why else would another 2 feet be added to the top of The Wall of Shame, The Colour Line of Coconut Grove? Furthermore, it was done in the cheesiest way possible, by just nailing new boards on top of the old ones.

No matter. It still makes a statement about keeping Black Grove separate from White Grove in 2014, 16 years after Black residents told Miami New Times how offended they are by a constant reminder of systemic racism. Despite the One Grove mural, the Black and White communities in The Grove are quite separate, and have been for decades.

As I said in the first entry in this series:

The Coconut Grove Wall of Shame™ is not unlike the wall in my home town of Detroit known alternatively as The 8 Mile Wall, The Wailing Wall, or the Birwood Wall. A search on the Googalizer for the 8 Mile Wall turns up references, history, as well as tons of images. However, one has to go digging to find any images or references to the Coconut Grove Wall, the history of which is being buried like much of the history of West Grove.

The Coconut Grove Wall of Shame is far longer that the 8 Mile Wall. The more I research Coconut Grove, the more I realize it is the story of Race Relations in this country writ large. However, West Grove is the exception that proves the rule. What has always put Coconut Grove into stark relief is the fact that, at one time, it had the highest percentage of Black home ownership than anywhere else in the country. Consequently it couldn’t be colonized; it had to be surrounded and walled in on all sides. Much of that wall still exists and the current invisible Colour Line can still be traced.

COMING SOON: Another walking tour along the Coconut Grove Colour Line.

Where The Sidewalk Ends, Racism Begins *

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Where the sidewalk ends. If you’re Black, you might want to stop right here.

Some day you simply must take a stroll southbound on the west side of South Douglas Road in Coconut Grove, Florida. Walk from Grand Avenue past Washington and Thomas Avenues and the Frances S. Tucker Elementary School. 

On your left Thomas Avenue jogs and Charles Avenue [on which the E.W.F. Stirrup House anchors the other end of the street, near Main Highway] ends; although Charles has an odd little western dogleg that can’t be seen from SW 37th Ave, aka Douglas. Crossing Charles Terrace, a street that only runs two blocks west and not at all east, you can’t help note the serene, stark beauty of the Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery on your left. While distracted you almost walk into a wooden fence as the sidewalk abruptly ends.

The wooden fence hides a cinder block wall that runs from this point west for two long blocks. The wall was built for one reason and one reason alone: to keep Black Coconut Grove out of White Coconut Grove. The sidewalk ends for one reason. Racism begins.

This wall represents the historic COLOUR LINE that divided the Black backyards on Charles Terrace from the White backyards along Kumquat Avenue. To heighten the sense of segregation, none of the streets along Charles Terrace were allowed to link to Kumquat Avenue or any of the White streets to the south or west.

The Coconut Grove Wall of Shame™ is not unlike the wall in my home town of Detroit known alternatively as The 8 Mile Wall, The Wailing Wall, or the Birwood Wall. A search on the Googalizer for the 8 Mile Wall turns up references, history, as well as tons of images. However, one has to go digging to find any images or references to the Coconut Grove Wall, the history of which is being buried like much of the history of West Grove.


A CAPSULE HISTORY OF THE 8 MILE WALL: Back in the ’40s the Wyoming-8 Mile neighbourhood was mostly farmland; while the city’s northern border was already established at 8 Mile, it hadn’t been developed yet. However, there was already a Black enclave in the area from earlier times. During The War Years Detroit was experiencing a war time boom and housing was desperately needed. Meanwhile, a developer wanted to build in the Wyoming-8 Mile area was having trouble getting Federal Housing Authority loans for the new tract due to the perceived undesirability of the adjacent Black. The developer struck a deal: It would build a 6-foot wall to separate the Whites from the Blacks. The Black folk could have their side of the wall and would be redlined out of the other side of the wall, and a lot of the rest of Detroit, for that matter.

Related: The Detroit Riots

Pic from Racial, Regional Divide Still Haunt Detroit’s
Progress, an excellent All Things Considered on NPR

The main reason you will find thousands of pictures of the 8 Mile Wall is because parts of it have been reclaimed and decorated with gayly painted scenes of iconic Black historic moments.

The 8 Mile Wall no longer divides Black from White; White Flight has seen to that. Both sides of that wall are now predominately Black in a city that is now almost entirely Black, except for all the new carpetbagging hipsters gentrifying huge swaths of Motown. But, that’s another story for another day.

The Coconut Grove Wall of Shame is of a slightly later vintage. The following comes from a much longer article — about the much longer COLOUR LINE that has West Coconut Grove hemmed in TO THIS VERY DAY. There are two distinct sides to The Wall, as Miami New Times writer Kirk Nielsen called it 15 years ago, when he asked and answered the musical question, “How can you tell where white Coconut Grove ends and black Coconut Grove begins? Just look for the barbed wire.”

In 1946 the Miami Housing Authority approved construction of a 25-acre tract of small single-family homes for low-income blacks on Charles Terrace, west of Douglas Road. By the time the houses were completed in 1949, workers had also erected a concrete block wall along the southern boundary of the new development. As reported by the Miami Herald (and cited by Marvin Dunn in his new book Black Miami in the Twentieth Century), the city planning board required the wall in order to provide “suitable protection” for the white neighborhood. A Florida Supreme Court ruling three years earlier had rendered illegal Dade County’s segregation of black residential districts. But that didn’t stop the city from putting the wall up.

Brown and weathered, the concrete block barrier still runs a quarter-mile, from Douglas Road west to the Carver Middle School parking lot. Six feet tall, higher in some places, it divides the leafy back yards of Kumquat Avenue on one side from the tree-starved lots of Charles Terrace on the other.

Lou-vern Fisher, who moved to Miami with her parents in 1936 from Georgia, bought one of the single-family homes next to the wall with her husband back in 1950. She still lives there, with a daughter, granddaughter, and grandson. “We enjoyin’ the wall,” says the jolly 73-year-old retired maid. “They put it here for a reason. And you know the reason. To keep us from going over there,” she wags a finger, letting off a loud gravelly ha-ha-ha.

Another section of the Coconut Grove Wall of Shame™ along Charles Terrace

However, get this: When the same wall became inconvenient for the White folk of Coconut Grove, a small section of it was torn down:

While Father Gibson’s petitioning [in the ’50s and ’60s] failed to inspire city commissioners to topple the wall, the fears of white parents proved far more effective. In 1970, the year Carver Middle School (then Junior High) was racially integrated, the western end of the wall was demolished, allowing a one-lane road to be paved from Kumquat Avenue to the school. White parents had demanded that southern access to drop their kids off because they considered the other route, down Grand Avenue in the black Grove, unsafe.

This isn’t unlike how (at around the same time, in fact) the polluting incinerator nicknamed Old Smoky was only closed when [White] Coral Gables — the town that racism built — started to complain, despite years of complaints from West Grove residents. As I like to tell my followers on Twitter and facebook, “History is complicated.” Racial history even more so. I will will be documenting the Coconut Grove Colour Line more fully as time goes on, but thanks for reading the first inn an ongoing series.

That doesn’t mean we can’t Rock Out while waiting for the next exciting episode. Listen to a speech by Ambalavaner Sivanandan set to music by Asian Dub Foundation.

Crank it up!!!

* With apologies to Shel Silverstein

A Century of Coconut Grove Racism ► Soilgate Is Trolleygate Writ Large

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One of hundreds of thousands of Racist internet memes

Follow the bouncing ball: Trolleygate is modern day Racism, pure and simple. Furthermore, the Racism that allowed for Trolleygate is exactly the same Racism that thought West Grove was the perfect place for Old Smokey, an incinerator that belched carcinogenics into the air for 5 decades. Racism — which is a cancer on our body politic — may have led to actual cancer clusters in Coconut Grove. I’m here to prove that thesis. 

Let’s start here: It’s been a truism since the founding of ‘Merka that People of Colour have always gotten the short end of the stick. There is no disputing that. But that’s a thing of the past, according to modern day Racists, because we now have a Black president. We are now living in a post-racial society. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!! Right?

For an explanation on the pics used to illustrate this article, please read my essay Racist Memes and Blogging ► Unpacking the Writer

Not even close. While some Racism is less blatant than it has been in previous decades, one can find hundreds of thousands of Racist memes against President Obama, each more disgusting than the next. However, make no mistake: It’s still Racism. Racism doesn’t have degrees. Like being pregnant, a meme can’t be a little bit Racist. It’s either Racism, or it isn’t. The entire story of Coconut Grove depicts a Racism that continues to this very day, culminating in Trolleygate.

West Grove is a quiet residential neighbourhood that has remained predominantly Black since its founding in the late 1880s. It was settled by Bahamians who came up through Key West, at one time Florida’s largest city. The Black Bahamians who settled in Coconut Grove worked for The Peacock Inn and Commodore Ralph Monroe, among the earliest residents. As a nascent tourist trade flourished, more Black folk arrived to do all of the backbreaking work and menial labour that made it all happen.

That West Grove wasn’t razed is due almost entirely to the efforts of one man, Ebeneezer Woodbury Franklin Stirrup. E.W.F. Stirrup was one of Florida’s first Black millionaires and, at one time, the largest landholder in Coconut Grove. On some of the land he owned he threw up more than 100 houses with his own hands. These he rented, sold, and bartered to other Bahamians. That’s why, at one time, Coconut Grove once had the highest percentage of Black home ownership in the entire country, making it unique.

It’s for that reason and that reason alone that The Powers That Be were unable to dislodge the Black residents of Coconut Grove. Overtown, just up the road and the second Black neighbourhood in Miami, had I-95 rammed through the middle of what had been the Black Shopping and Entertainment district. However, Overtown was mostly renters with absentee landlords, who were happy to cash out on their investments. The same pattern took place in Paradise Valley, in my home town of Detroit, which was leveled for I-75. The same scenario played out all across the country.

It’s not as if the Powers That Be didn’t try to get rid of Black Grove. There were three separate attempts to get rid of the neighbourhood. In 1921 an urban renewal project called The Bright Plan, approved but never realized due to an economic downturn, would have created a golf course on everything west of Main Highway to Douglas and north to Grand Avenue. In 1925 City Fathers tried to get Miami to annex around what was called Coloredtown, instead of including it. Miami decided to annex it all instead, which led to the creation of Coral Gables, the city that Racism built. In the ’50s, long after the rest of the city had indoor plumbing, West Grove still used outhouses. Honey wagons were just a way of life long after every surrounding neighbourhood (read: White neighbourhoods) had an indoor toilet. In the ’50s. The city wanted to raze the entire blighted neighbourhood and start all over, but the high percentage of Black home ownership defeated the proposal. People, who in some cases were now the 2nd or 3rd generation in the same house, refused to sell. They knew better. Where could they go? They would be redlined out of any neighbourhood they wanted to buy into. It was better to stay put and bequeath their homes to their children and their children’s children.

Which is to explain why the neighbourhood has remained predominately Black. That and the fact that White folk tend not to move into Black neighbourhoods. I’ll now let Nick Madigan, writing in yesterday’s New York Times, pick up the story of Old Smokey:

MIAMI — When she was little, Elaine Taylor remembers rushing home whenever Old Smokey fired up. Clouds of ash from the towering trash incinerator would fill the air and settle on the ramshackle houses and the yards of the West Grove neighborhood.

Her mother, who took in laundry, would be whipping sheets and shirts off the clotheslines. Often, the soot would force Elaine and her mother to wash everything again, by hand.

Old Smokey was shut down in 1970, after 45 years of belching ash, but its legacy might be more ominous than mere memories of soiled laundry. Residents of the neighborhood, established by Bahamian immigrants in the 1880s, have become alarmed by recent revelations that soil samples there show contamination from carcinogens like arsenic and heavy metals, including lead, cadmium and barium.

Ash from the old incinerator is being blamed, and residents are asking why none of this came to light sooner.

Something that Madigan leaves out of his story — because it makes a simple story of soil pollution and subsequent coverup far too complicated — is that the coverup was only discovered due to Trolleygate, the story I’ve been following since January. The documents were discovered by the pro bono legal team researching Trolleygate while preparing its case against Miami, Coral Gables, and Astor Development. While that suit was thrown out of court for a lack of jurisdiction, the documents kicked loose during the research are still bearing fruit. Friday I wrote about an email from a City of Miami Zoning and Building Department official who said that Trolleygate did not conform to the Miami 21 Plan. Yet, after some undetermined jiggery-pokery, [allegedly] corrupt Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff managed to get the project approved anyway, despite the fact that it screws his owns constituents and rewards a developer in the next town over. But, that’s now a side issue to Soilgate, the discovery of toxic soil throughout Coconut Grove and greater Miami. [Coral Gables is now suing to get out of ever having to use the polluting diesel bus garage.]

The Racism that decided a Black neighbourhood was the perfect place for a polluting diesel bus garage — despite it not being zoned for it — can be seen as a parallel to the decision in the 1920s to build Old Smokey, the incinerator that polluted Miami. Miami needed an incinerator. Why not stick it as far away from the White folk as possible? Stick it in West Grove. Again from the New York Times:

Across the street from Old Smokey’s former site lies Esther Mae Armbrister Park and its playground. Down the block is George Washington Carver Elementary School, a once all-black institution that traces its history to 1899. Former students recall ash blowing in through the school’s open windows.

[University of Miami law] Professor [Anthony V.] Alfieri [of the Environmental Justice Project] said that the construction of Old Smokey “in the middle of a Jim Crow community” in 1925 exemplified the city’s pattern of neglecting the West Grove, an area that has never experienced the prosperity so evident in its neighboring communities. In a 1950 article in Ladies’ Home Journal, Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote that when the city installed a water and sewage system in Coconut Grove, its western neighbor was left out of the project, and for years residents continued to use wells and outhouses.

Old Smokey was shut down in 1970 after many years of neighbourhood protests and a successful legal battle initiated by the White folk of Coral Gables. Yet, 98% White Coral Gables learned nothing from that court battle. When it needed a place to build its polluting diesel bus garage, Astor Development chose West Grove. This is the neighbourhood that’s been given the short end of the stick since it was called Kebo by the original Bahamian settlers almost 130-years ago. Even if you attempted to argue, against all logic, that the developer was unaware it was a Black neighbourhood, the only reason the land was cheap was due to the last century of systemic Racism, that depressed every economic indicator you can name in West Grove, especially when compared to the rest of the 33133 Zip Code, now considered one of the most exclusive in the entire country.

The Supreme Irony: Air pollution — emanating from a fake diesel-powered trolley bus or a giant incinerator — doesn’t abide by the Colour Line, of course. There appears be less pollution the closer one gets to Old Smokey’s former site. As the expression says, “What goes up, must come down.” It seems a lot of Old Smokey’s toxins came down in the Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park. Coincidentally, or not, that’s right across the street from where [allegedly] corrupt Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff lives. The New York Times again:

“Everything is testing to be residential standard,” Mr. Sarnoff said, referring to contaminant levels permitted under environmental regulations.

That may not be the final word. A cancer researcher at the University of Miami said that she and several colleagues discovered a cluster of pancreatic cancer cases in the West Grove several years ago.

“That’s the little region that lights up,” said the researcher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the issue. Although she found the discovery “puzzling,” she said she did not pursue it because of a lack of funds. But when she read a newspaper article this year about Old Smokey that said its ash had spewed arsenic and heavy metals into the neighborhood, she said “everything started making sense.”

The researcher noted that no correlation could be established between the cancer cluster and the old incinerator without more research.

Institutional Racism could be the answer as to why so many people in Coconut Grove are now being diagnosed with cancer. Yet, despite this ugly history of sticking the Black neighbourhood with what the White neighbourhood doesn’t want, [allegedly] corrupt Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff, the City of Miami, and Astor Development all still think it’s appropriate for them to have played a shell game in order to get Trolleygate approved.

That’s nothing but Modern Day Racism, pure and simple.

Enjoy some videos of the Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park from September 13, 2013, as the soil testing was occurring.




Coral Gables Now Suing Over Trolleygate

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Almost finished: The polluting vehicle maintenance facility on August 26, 2013

The residents of West Grove woke up to good news this morning. The Miami Herald is reporting the City of Coral Gables is now suing Astor Development over the Trolleygate diesel bus maintenance garage. It was just last month when Not Now Silly was forced to report in the story West Grove Residents Lose ► Polluting Trolley Bus Garage Will Go Ahead:

The residents of west Coconut Grove had their hopes dashed yesterday when Miami-Dade County Judge Ronald G. Dresnick ruled that a polluting diesel bus garage will go ahead in their residential neighbourhood as planned.

What a difference a few weeks make. As the Miami-Herald’s Jenny Staletovich reports:

Coral Gables has sued the company building a controversial trolley garage for the city in neighboring Coconut Grove, saying the garage doesn’t comply with zoning rules in the surrounding historic black neighborhood.

And unless a judge rules otherwise, Coral Gables will walk away from the deal it struck with the developer, City Attorney Craig Leen said Wednesday.

Oddly enough the Coral Gables lawsuit [PDF] is based on some of the same grounds as the resident’s lawsuit that was rejected, but comes at it from a business standpoint, according to Ralf Brookes, part of the pro bono legal team that represented the community last month.

“We’re delighted to see Coral Gables has filed suit. Of course we agree with the city of Coral Gables that the intended use is not commercial and is a government vehicle maintenance facility is an industrial use. That’s what we have been arguing all along, but Judge Resnick ruled he didn’t have jurisdiction,” Brookes told Not Now Silly by telephone this morning.

The City of Coral Gables is alleging in its suit that Astor Development is not complying with the Miami 21 Plan and that, therefore, it is not obligated to go ahead with a second deal to convey Coral Gables land to Astor for a huge mixed use development. The Coral Gables suit is asking the judge, who will not be Resnick, to either rule the polluting diesel bus maintenance facility conforms to Miami’s official plan, or allow the city to back out of the contract allowing Astor to redevelop the land on which the current polluting diesel bus maintenance facility sits.

If the judge rules in favour of Coral Gables, what would happen to the building that’s almost finished? One community activist sees this as an opportunity for the struggling neighbourhood. An adaptive re-use of the building could include a farmer’s market or an incubator for small business opportunities. I see it as being large enough to become an artist’s’ cooperative, like The Rust Belt Market in Ferndale, Michigan.

Whatever the building becomes it is beginning to look like everybody’s predictions will come true: This building will never be used as a vehicle maintenance facility.

YouTube videos I took of the soon-to-be mixed use building on August 26, 2013. They show the relationship of this building to the quiet residential neighbourhood and the One Grove mural:

Trolleygate Update ► The End Of The Line?

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Artist rendering of the Coral Gables’ diesel bus garage designed in a Bahamian style

Circle the court date: August 16th. 

At times it seems the wheels of justice turn ever so slowly. I posted An Introduction to Trolleygate just over 6 months ago. I followed up a few days later with The Trolleygate Dog And Pony Show, which documented the joke of a public information meeting conducted by (allegedly corrupt) Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff.

Ironically that was the very same day a lawsuit was launched by residents of Coconut Grove asking for an injunction to stop the neighbouring town of Coral Gables from building its polluting government vehicle maintenance facility in their residential neighbourhood. Ironic because it allowed Sarnoff to wriggle out of answering any of his VERY ANGRY constituents questions, since the issue was now in front of a judge. However, that didn’t stop him from presenting his Dog & Pony Show, during which I watched a masterful performance by (allegedly corrupt) Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff.

Diesel bus disguised to look like an old-timey, non-polluting, trolly bus

In late February I documented Coral Gable’s Modern Day Colonialism and Trolleygate and in March I spoke to plaintiff’s lawyer Ralf Brookes for An Update On Sarnoff’s Trolleygate aka Astor’s Trolley Folly. In fact, I’ve been the only journalist who has been covering this story on an ongoing basis. That may be why I was sent the notice of hearing for August 16, 2013, along with the pleadings from both sides in the dispute.

My source tells me this hearing should decide all matters and the judge will issue a ruling one way or another. Either Coconut Grove gets stuck with a polluting government vehicle maintenance facility, or Astor Trolly LLC will have to find another location for this building; a facility promised to Coral Gables so that Astor Development (another tentacle of the same company) can develop the site of the current government vehicle maintenance facility in order to make millions of dollars for itself and Coral Gables. [This paragraph was massaged slightly after being published for clarity.]

Neighbours opposed to the polluting diesel bus garage are calling for a protest on August 16th on the courthouse steps at 73 West Flagler Street for 9 a.m.with the hearing set to begin at 10.

It will be interesting to see how the court rules. I’ve been told off the record by several someones-in-the-know that this building will never be used as a bus garage. That would be welcome relief to the economically poor, minority neighbourhood trying to stop it, but it then begs the question:

What will happen to the building, which is almost finished?

THE DECISION IS IN! READ:
West Grove Residents Lose ► Polluting Bus Garage Will Go Ahead

Pictured below: 
Unveiling the One Grove Mural on March 3, 2013. immediately across the street from the polluting Trolleygate garage: