Category: Miami Stories

I was born in Jackson Memorial Hospital where my mother recalls laboring while Seminole Indian women squatted to deliver their babies. In the late 1940s through the ’60s, we lived in the Shenandoah neighborhood in a modest home where the police often patrolled around on horseback. We shopped at Katz’s Kosher Meat Market as well as Food Fair on Coral Way. We also filled in groceries by selecting fresh produce from a truck that came around, the milkman who delivered to our door, or by walking to Willingham’s Grocery on Southwest 22 Avenue and 16th Street.

Miami was a quiet, clean, safe, small and segregated town. We had a party line at home or could make a phone call from a telephone booth for a dime. Children walked to school unattended. We rode the buses alone and my friends and I often went downtown by bus to shop, eat at Burdines’ Tea Room or go to the Olympia Theater. In elementary school, we took our salami sandwiches to the Tower, Trail, Tivoli, Miracle or Parkway theaters to attend movies for 25 cents. We spent a lot of time at Shenandoah Park where we had a library, swimming pool, tennis courts and a free kindergarten. I was a Brownie and Girl Scout in elementary school and we camped out at Camp Mahachee near Matheson Hammock.

My family often went to Policeman’s Park on Sunday afternoons where there were various rides. Sometimes, we drove across the Rickenbacker Causeway to Crandon Park. While crossing it, we always noticed Virginia Beach (the only beach where “colored “people could swim). We would grill or swim at Crandon Park and sometimes visit the zoo which was located there. Our schools were not air-conditioned and neither were most homes. We were so thrilled when my parents won a room air conditioner at an auction.

At Shenandoah Elementary, the principal, Miss Eloise Hatfield, read from the New Testament every morning over the PA. We were to recite psalms and sing Christmas carols even if we were Jewish. Girls had to wear dresses no matter what the weather. There was a green bench near a staircase in front of the principal’s office where children, usually boys, sat when they misbehaved. We were not allowed to chew gum, smoking was for the “hoods” and parents were involved in the PTA. I never had a “colored” classmate, teacher or neighbor. I did, however, march during the civil rights movement at the University of Florida in 1963-64. Also, when Dade County schools were integrated in 1970, I was sent to teach at all-black Frank C. Martin elementary.

My family attended synagogue at Beth Kodesh on Southwest 12th Avenue and 12th Street. On a few occasions, I remember the sounds of bombs that were thrown on the “shul.” We would go and see the broken chandeliers and windows and the fear in our parents’ eyes. My father emigrated from Poland in February 1939, six months before Hitler marched in and killed the rest of his family.

I went to Shenandoah Junior High where we had P.E. every day and girls had to take up home economics and the boys took shop. Students that misbehaved were paddled by “Mr. K.”

I will always remember the teachers crying during class after they learned on TV that the Russians had launched Sputnik. We had subsequent duck-and-cover drills where we had to get under our desks and cover our heads. Years later, during the Cuban missile crisis, we were terrified as we witnessed American troops marching down Flagler Street.

By high school, most of the Jews at Miami High (approximately 20 percent to 30 percent of the student body) stuck together. The service clubs at the school were predominately Christian, but we had our own clubs through the “Y” on Southwest 17th Avenue or the B’nai B’rith Organization. We hung out before and after school on the east outdoor patio known as “L.J.” (Little Jerusalem). We rarely dated outside our religion and although most of our parents were not college educated, most all of my friends finished college.

One of my painful recollections at Miami High was that the High Holy Days for Jews were unexcused absences. (They later made them teacher work days.) Sometimes, the rabbi at Beth David would write notes asking the teachers to not penalize us for observing our holidays. My friend Miriam and I were in the same Spanish class and were each given an F on a test that was administered on one of the holidays. We went to the department chair and pleaded our case and were permitted to take a make-up exam.

Overall, these were the best of times. Innocent in every way (no birth control yet), we had a blast at the Red Diamond Inn, Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlor and formal dances at famous hotels on Miami Beach. We saw Johnny Mathis, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme among other star performers. We went to drive-in movies and often stuffed some friends in the trunk to avoid paying for entry for all of us. I met my husband, Steve, in 11th grade TV history class. He was a great athlete for Miami High and is in the Miami High Sports Hall of Fame. We had pep rallies before football games, which were held at the Orange Bowl. Unfortunately, it was later demolished. At Miami High, the school spirit in that architectural giant of an auditorium was unforgettable. We wore jinx dolls to spook the opposing teams and took pride in our school, which won a national championship. The Stingarees won big in sports and while there, we actually had the first Jewish homecoming queen. We were required in our senior year to take a course called Americanism vs. Communism, which reflected the fears that eventually took many of our classmates to Vietnam, some of whom never came back. However, being kids, our life was simple, people were respectful and we had no clue that almost one-third of our graduating class was made up of newly arrived Cubans.

I love this cosmopolitan city with its beautiful beaches and diverse culture. I also feel so grateful to have raised both of my wonderful sons here. Additionally, I have been blessed with teaching ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) both in Dade County Schools and now at Miami Dade College for over 40 years. My students from all over the world and many different cultures have taught me so much. Miami has changed a lot, but my heart is still here in this balmy metropolis with ocean breezes and life-long friends and memories.

In early 1941, Europe and Asia were at war and the threat of United States involvement was growing exponentially. Not to be deterred, the Bennett family (Mom, Dad and 5-year-old Billy) stuffed its belongings into a cream-colored 1937 Packard convertible and set sail for the land of coconut palms and sea breezes.

With Miami the ultimate destination, the odyssey launched from Upper Montclair, New Jersey, but was impeded by a six-month hiatus in Wilmington, Delaware, for Dad to work and refurbish the family fortune.

On the move again, the 1,161 mile-trip south dictated two motel stops; it was not unusual in 1941 to travel all night and not find an open gasoline station, even on U.S. 1. The first morning, motoring below the Mason-Dixon line, I savored, for the first time, grits for breakfast (I never made that mistake again).

Mission completed, the trip terminated in the Magic City in August 1941, where we immediately checked into a Miami Beach hotel. And what was the first thing a red-blooded American kid would do next? HIT THE BEACH! And Mom and I did — for more than five hours.

All the exposed parts of our bodies were lobster red and we were splotched head to toe with Noxzema and looked like a couple of cherries jubilee. Welcome to Florida.

After a month on the beach, we found a house in Coral Gables, Mom and Dad got jobs, I was enrolled in school and we settled in as Miamians — for the next 50 plus years.

The first marine went over the fence, parlez vous

The second marine went over the fence, parlez vous

The third marine went over the fence

And milked the cow with a monkey wrench.

Hinky, dinky, parlez vous!

Mozart it wasn’t, but this little ditty was an integral part of my musical education in the summer of 1942.

I was 7 years old, living in Miami Beach at 87th and Harding Avenue, one block from Collins Avenue, hotel row and the Atlantic Ocean. The world was at war and the military had commandeered all the hotels on Miami Beach.

Each day, I arose early, ensuring an opportunity to march with the Army soldiers down Collins Avenue. What a thrill and what an experience. I learned all their march cadences, sang their songs and, though young, shared a sense of belonging and camaraderie with them as well. Also, it didn’t hurt that those same soldiers treated the “marching kids” like gems.

The nights, black as charcoal, were marked by darkened street lights, the few cars running with only slits of headlights visible, blackout shades in every home drawn and constant rumors of Nazi subs offshore. A small light from your house earned a visit from the air-raid warden.

A trip to the movies? Gasoline rationed, we walked the several blocks to the Surf Theatre. Of course, in those days we enjoyed a feature, a newsreel, a cartoon and maybe a sing-along where we followed the bouncing ball over the onscreen lyrics.

I lived the remaining years in Miami proper — without blackouts, military exercises and the rumors and much of the fears. But I missed being a part of the training and excitement of our United States military — and, of course, my unparalleled musical education.

I moved 12 times during my 12 years of public school in Miami. The year 1947 found me living with my parents on a wooden 31-foot cabin cruiser at Pier 4 1/2, adjacent to Bayfront Park in downtown Miami. That location placed me smack dab next to Pier 5 where the charter boats plied their trade, taking tourists deep-sea fishing in the nearby waters of the Atlantic Ocean. In the late afternoon, when the fishing fleet had returned, I would walk over to Pier 5 and check out the various small fish tossed on the dock. Occasionally, Mom would purchase a dolphin for that evening’s dinner.

Just as you entered Pier 5, and a little to the left, sat the Tradewinds Restaurant. I remember one night I was perched on a bollard at the end of a dock listening to the Tradewinds’ juke box with strains of “Heartaches,” played by the Ted Weems orchestra, drifting across the shimmering moonlit water. Other nights, I would walk over to the Bandshell in Bayfront Park and join the crowd enjoying a free concert. Not a bad life for a 12 year old.

My only other year living on the boat was up the Miami River just below Musa Isle Indian village and tourist attraction. Not my finest hour, but I would row to the river side of the village, sneak in and without benefit of an admission ticket, watch the alligator wrestling.

Boat living? Bittersweet. Lots of fun going out on Biscayne Bay most weekends and rowing on the Miami River — but little privacy, miniscule closet space, midget head and, regardless of the season, icy cold on-dock showers. Fun for a while but, truth be told, kind of glad to get back in a house.

In the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, the Citrus Grove older elementary and junior high kids, when not playing school sports, played park ball at the Annex. Annex Park, located on the south parking lot of the Orange Bowl, housed a softball field and a basketball court. A well-hit softball to left field might tag an Orange Bowl ticket booth.

Depending upon the season, we played football, basketball and softball, doing fierce battle against other City of Miami parks. Uniforms? Pants, T-shirts, and most of the time, bare feet.

The park supervisor, a local character, answered to (I kid you not) “Itchy.” The kids loved Itchy Schemer, but his greatest claim to fame was probably his brother, “Lefty.” Lefty Schemer played briefly in the “bigs” (New York Giants). Occasionally, Lefty would drop by the park and, farther than we had ever seen, rocket some balls out to right field which was deep and where the Orange Bowl wasn’t. Of course, we were in absolute awe.

The Annex eventually yielded to the need for more Orange Bowl space and the Orange Bowl itself would, not long ago, disappear from the Miami skyline. But for many of us, what will never fade is the memory, in a simpler time, of those youthful and playful Annex Park Days.

Growing up in South Dade in the early years was a great time. I was born in 1923 at home in Redland. My father came to Florida from West Virginia in about 1917. My mother came from Massachusetts.

My father tried tomato farming for about a year, and failed. He then began growing avocadoes. We had about 25 acres where our home was built. My brother John was born in 1920. When I was 5 years old I was sent to Redland Elementary School. They put me in the first grade class, and when I transferred to the Homestead Elementary the next year, I was put in second grade.

We took the bus from Redland to Homestead. We walked about a fourth of a mile to catch the bus. I had great teachers; including Neva King Cooper, who was my sixth grade teacher.

We used to swim in the many rock pits around Homestead. There was a particularly good one west of Avocado Drive. They kept digging out more coral rock for construction, making the pit larger. The town also had a pool east of of Eighth Street.

On weekends, we would go to the beaches around Miami. A favorite was Tahiti Beach. I think it was near Coconut Grove. There was an admission charge, but it was a great place for us little ones. We also swam at the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables.

My aunt lived in the Gables. When I was about 5, we spent a few weeks on Miami Beach in an apartment near Eighth Street. It was a short walk to the beach. When I was six, I was sent to summer camp in Alabama with my brother. The camp was owned by L.B. Sommers, who was the principal of Homestead High School. Later he founded the Miami Country Day School with C.W. “Doc” Abele.

In 1938, we rented a house on 88th Street in Surfside. We were a few blocks from the Surf Club. It is hard to believe that in those days so many places, including large hotels in Miami Beach, were restricted based on religion or race. Key Biscayne and Crandon Park came a little later. Virginia Beach was created for the non-white residents.

We had an annual festival in the Spring in Homestead. The fairgrounds were west of Route 1 off of Campbell Street. A lot of the farmers and growers had exhibits, as well as the commercial establishments. There were sideshows, rides and other amusements for the younger crowd.

My father always had a booth to show his nursery and grove planting business. (He, like many others, became a real estate dealer during the boom years of the 1920s. He had an office in Miami at 28 S.E. First Ave. It, of course, closed at the end of 1929). This festival in Homestead lasted for many years, and I think it was replaced by the festival at Fruit & Spice Park.

When I entered seventh grade, I moved across the street to Homestead High School. When I became a freshman I got a job at Brown’s Drug Store. I worked there after school and weekends until I graduated from Homestead High in 1940. My brother and I took music lessons for several years. I played the clarinet, while he played the trumpet.

I was in the high school band. We always marched in the Orange Bowl Parade and played at the Orange Bowl games. This was quite an honor for us kids from Homestead.

In 1935, one of the worst hurricanes struck the Florida Keys. There were many fatalities and the railroad to Key West was destroyed. The roadbed and the bridges were converted into a highway that was opened in 1940.

My Aunt & Uncle and my Mother and I drove to Key West and spent the night at the La Concha Hotel. We also went to the Aquarium, and that was about all there was to see. It was a very small town in those days. It was quite a trip.

I spent one year at college and returned to Homestead. I worked at the Dixie Drug until 1942. A friend and I went to a camp to study sheet metal work, so that we could get a job in the aircraft industry. We got a job with an aircraft company in Miami. I lived in a boarding house on Southwest First Street.

I enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942, and spent three years in the service. I was in North Africa and Italy. I was discharged in 1945 in Boise, Idaho, and went to Connecticut to visit an old classmate.

I stayed in Connecticut after I found employment with a department store. I retired in 1980. We still go to Florida in the winter. We rent a condo in Venice. I still visit Homestead now and then. I plan to go down there again soon.

The Homestead High School still has a reunion every year. The last class was in 1950, so it probably will end soon. I miss my old classmates, and each year there are fewer. It is true that everything changes with time, but that is the same all over this country.

April is National Poetry Month. In South Florida, that means the month-long annual O, Miami Poetry Festival. As part of the 2016 festival, students from all over took part in programs that encouraged them to write and share their own poetry. These Miami Stories feature poems from some of those students. The poems are based on their lives in Miami-Dade County.

 

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PUT THE GUNS DOWN! THIS NEED TO STOP!

I pray for the children who woke up this morning and lost their life to gun violence
As soon as a tragedy happens the person you call is God
Now people obeying’
They praying’
I’m sayin’.
It’s odd.
Look at the world now
How you going to say it now?
We out here
Just living life
Music is life now
What are we doing for the life of people that’s gone now?
They never coming back
Music is our life now.
My loved ones lost are in the sky with God
Angels with wings on their back
Living a new life
This is why music is life
You got the trap boys living the life
This is a cold world
Music is life
It’s our life now
Too many boys out here
Living this life
Losing their life
We’ve got to come together as one
And make it for our love ones
They are gone and never coming back
Now I’m rapping for y’all and writing these poems
Because I believe in y’all
Music is my limit, while for y’all the sky’s the limit

— Kayla Ingraham, 15, eighth grader at North Dade Middle School

 

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Maybe

I wish I could change my name
Or the frame on the picture that everyone is looking at
From the outside in
They swear they lookin’ deep with
And all they could see is my skin
Maybe I’d change it to something pretty “Lisa” or “Mary”
And then people would approach me and then
Maybe then I wouldn’t look so scary
I could get out my story
Then I wouldn’t have to worry
If I would have to eat alone
Maybe I’d change it to something brave like “Johann” or “Melissa”
Maybe the I could’ve scared away the monsters under my bed
Then they wouldn’t have crawled inside of my head
Or maybe change the frame
I’d put sparkles so you’d think I was pretty
Sign it with X’s and O’s so you’d think I was nice
So tell me when you look at me what do you see?

— Yazzmine (YazzTheGreatest) Brown-Livingston, 14, eighth grader at North Dade Middle School

 

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DREAMS ARE ILLEGAL IN THE GHETTO

DREAMS ARE ILLEGAL IN THE GHETTO
YOUNG KIDS CAN DREAM BIG BUT
THEY ARE INFLUENCED BY DRUGS GUNS
AND VIOLENCE.
PEER PRESSURE
AND THE DEVIL IS THE MAIN FACTOR.
SCREAM LOUD LET EM KNOW
HIT EM WITH THE FOLKS!
SPIN AROUND!
CLAP TWICE!
DREAMS ARE NOT ILLEGAL IN THE GHETTO! CRIPS
BLOODS, GANGS, GANGBANGERS, IS ALL I KNOW BUT
I DO BELIEVE IN GOD AND THE DEVIL CAN’T BRING
ME DOWN.
I WILL DREAM AND I WILL DREAM BIG.
I WILL SUCCEED I WILL NOT FAIL BECAUSE DREAMS
ARE NOT ILLEGAL IN THE GHETTO.

— Da’Juan Bethel, 14, eighth grader at North Dade Middle School

 

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Where I Am From

I am from Miami where the waves go swish,
and people chat, and the highway
sounds like an elephant stampede.
I live in an orange building
that has four stairways and 18 apartments.
My street is near the school (only 3 blocks away),
and a corner store
where I shop for food for the next day.
I am also from Haiti where the people party all night
and use a pool to celebrate birthdays.
And the food tastes like spaghetti with meatballs.
I lived with my grandma and inside it is freezing,
more freezing that the arctic pole.
And my grandma’s cooking smells better
than hamburgers and vanilla ice cream cake.

— Dieneka, fourth grader at Orchard Villa Elementary School

 

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This Is My Home Town

I am from Liberty City
where sometimes the temperature is just right.
I am from a place where the balls
dribble, dribble, dribble all day.
I am not from a place like yours.
I live in a dangerous place.
I am not from a place with bad people.
I hear police sirens screeching.
We also have many parks with red slides
and hurricanes with strong winds.
I am from a place where flowers like to bloom.
and the sky is blue like God loves you.

— Francklin, fourth grader at Orchard Villa Elementary School

 

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What Miami is Like

I am from Miami
where the rain pops

— Jaykayla, third grader at Orchard Villa Elementary School

 

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Ode to the Beach

Yellow sand, blue waves.
The water is so wavy, so wavy
it looks like the spikes of a boy’s Mohawk.
It feels like I am taking a vacation.
It feels like peace and quiet and making
a sand castle with my mom.

— Mia, Culter Ridge Middle School

 

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Odes to the Ocean

Flying up to the sun, falling through
the air like leaves falling from the tree branches,
rain jumps off of the umbrellas onto the ground
cold as the frozen pole, warm as water sweat
as the body movement moves from the pores
running through pipes out from sinks,
sipping water from the water bottle, tastes
like it’s healthy for the body, this is the life of the ocean.

— Tony, Cutler Ridge Middle School

 

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It’s softy wave, calm
is blue.
I get in the ocean
and feel like I’m going
into the world of donuts.
It has fish made of donuts
and shark friends.

— Justin, Cutler Ridge Middle School

 

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“I am warm, wide, I need someone to jump in.”
I jump in.
I see urchins and starfish.
I taste salt.

— Zamare, Cutler Ridge Middle School

Vivid memories of Miami in early 60s

I arrived in Miami with my mother on Friday, July 7, 1961 a little before 7 p.m. I consider myself Miamian, Dade-ian, South Floridian, Southeastern, all of those demonyms.

Bus fare was 20 cents. Newspapers were on wire racks at sidewalk curbs on the honor system with a cigar box or a tin can. The main post office at Northeast First Avenue and Third Street was open until midnight. Domestic postage was 5 cents an ounce and national air mail, 8 cents.

The closest supermarket was a Kwik Chek. Supermarkets gave trading stamps, Kwik-Chek gave yellow Top-Value. I got many gifts with them at Northwest 27th Avenue, including china, luggage and a Bible. Publix didn’t open on Sundays.

Service stations sold Dade and Puritan milk at 98 cents a gallon. “Home” milk, on Northwest Seventh Avenue, had a carton spinning in front and it advertised, “If it were any fresher, it’d moo.” The Walgreens drug store on East Flagler Street and Second Avenue served food on four floors.

Some self-serve cafeterias were Tyler’s and Polly Davis. At the White Castle on Southwest 27th Avenue and Flagler Street, a square hamburger was 14 cents, root beer 9 cents. Richards Department Store on Northeast First Street and First Avenue had six floors, a bargain basement and a coffee shop with green ivy and trellis pattern wall paper. I worked part-time at their jewelry counter in the 1963 Christmas season. The wages were $1.15 an hour.

Homes didn’t have air conditioning. Roberts’ Drug Store on West Flagler Street and Sixth Avenue was open all night and it had a television set in a wooden box in the parking lot across the street with benches for the viewers. Television was black and white, and there were five channels, 4 CBS, 7 NBC, 10 ABC, 2 WPBS and 6 Independent.

My favorite radio station was WIOD 610; others were WGBS, WINZ, WQAM. The main library was in Bayfront Park on Biscayne Boulevard and Flagler Street, and it had an open Bible in a glass case under a banyan tree in front. Vendors sold bags of peanuts to the people to feed the pigeons in the park.

I learned how to drive on the parking lot of the Orange Bowl. Drivers’ licenses were issued by the Florida Highway Patrol, on West Flagler Street at 26th Avenue, and they were pink, typed, and didn’t bear a photograph. I bought my first car, a used cream-colored 1961 Falcon with 5,000 miles, at the Joseph Abraham Ford dealer on Southwest Eighth Street and 27th Avenue.

Gas was around 32 cents a gallon, and the oil companies were American, Standard Oil, Texaco, Atlantic, Gulf, Pure, Shell, Sinclair, Sunoco, Cities Service, Hess, Phillips 66, Union 76. Most gave street maps of Miami and road maps of Florida. The parking meters took nickels. The overtime parking fine was $1.

The telephone company had an office on Northeast Second Street and Miami Avenue where you could consult out-of-town telephone books and place long-distance calls. There were seven movie theaters on Flagler Street, Town, Paramount, Florida, Olympia, Miami, Flagler. In Coral Gables were the Miracle, the Gables, the Coral and Riviera. Federal savings & loan associations gave 5.25 percent interest on their savings accounts and stayed open until 3 p.m., state commercial banks gave 5 percent and were open until 2 p.m.

In the summer, two girl friends and I spent every Saturday and every Sunday at Indian Beach Park on 46th Street. In the evening, we went to the amphitheater in Pier Park on Ocean Drive by Pier 1 to dance. We went to dances at the Police Benevolent Association, the Hungarian-American Club, the Polish-American Club.

There were no shopping malls. There were three arcades downtown on East Flagler Street. There were juice stands. The nearest shopping center was Central Shopping Plaza at Northwest Seventh Street and 37th Avenue.

The population of Dade County, according to the 1960 census, was 935,047.

There were two bus stations, Greyhound on Northeast First Street and Third Avenue, and Trailways across the avenue. There were three railroad stations, Atlantic on Southeast First Street and Second Avenue, Florida on Southwest First Avenue and Third Street and Seaboard on Northwest Seventh Avenue and 22nd Street. Northwest 36th Street was lined with car dealers.

On Fifth Street in Miami Beach, there were many car agencies that would give cars to people to drive up north for, and deliver to its owner, and in one direction, going up in summer or coming down in winter. They provided a tankful of gas. Little booths on Bayfront Park sold boat rides on the bay.

Postal zones had two digits. Is there anyone left who remembers the old telephone exchanges? I remember CEdar, EMerson, FRanklin, JEfferson, MOhawk, MUrray, NAtional, NEwtown, OXford, PLaza, TUxedo, UNion and WIlson.

I got married at Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic Church on Southwest 26th Road. My son was born at Mercy Hospital on South Miami Avenue.

I got an associate in arts degree in business administration at Miami-Dade Community College New World Center, and worked as a corporate banking assistant at Southeast Bank in Miami Springs.

I am the youngest of the Wood brothers — Hayes, David, Hugh “Hooty” and Tom — all born between 1926 and 1931. We were very close and shared many things together in Old Miami. We all were born at Victoria Hospital on Northwest 10th Avenue, which still exists as a nursing and rehab center.

We were raised on a truck farm on Southwest 19th Street, about five acres that is now part of Shenandoah Park and middle school. We were always playing ball in the park. The park had many famous supervisors who went on to play pro ball, including Al Rosen with the Cleveland Indians and Lefty Schemer with the New York Giants. My only buddies still around are Lester Johnson, Fred Kirkland and Ed Woitke.

We attended and were baptized at the Riverside Baptist Church on Southwest Ninth Avenue and First Street (the congregation moved to Kendall in the 1970s and the church sanctuary now houses the Manuel Artime Theater).

As kids, we worked with the farm’s chickens and vegetables and created Wood Brothers Poultry and Produce Co. We sold the products to Wrights Market on Southwest Eighth Street and 22nd Avenue. My brothers and I all attended Shenandoah Elementary and Junior High schools. I also went to Coral Way Elementary when it opened in 1937 on Southwest 19th Street and 13th Avenue. We all went to Ponce de Leon Senior High School on U.S. 1 in Coral Gables. My brothers Hayes and Hugh and I were president of the student council. I met my beautiful wife, Virginia, in high school in 1949 and in June we will have been married 60 years. Ponce is now a middle school and the high school is now Coral Gables Senior High on Bird Road.

My brothers and I founded a band and played at high school dances, New Year’s Eve parties and other events. Hayes played saxophone; David and I, trumpet; and Hugh was on the trombone.

Someone gave my brother Hooty an Indian Pinto horse. He would hop on bareback and pull me up behind him and we would ride all the way down 22nd Avenue to the bay, where we would swim in cold, ice-blue water so clear we could see the bottom and the fish clearly.

We watched the roller derby at the Coliseum on Douglas Road. It is now a Publix and eight-story condominium. John Rosasco was the star of the team. He later ran Venetian Pool in Coral Gables, where everyone loved to hide in the caves. Fader’s Drug Store on 22nd Avenue and Coral Way was a popular spot for milkshakes and root beer floats. I remember watching Pan Am Clippers on the bay in the Grove on the site of what is now Miami City Hall.

It was only a bike ride to the Tower Theater on the Trail and for nine cents I could see two double features, a cartoon and a live amateur show. We could hop the Dunn bus at the corner and go downtown to various theaters — the Rex, Town or Paramount — and have a grilled-cheese sandwich at the counter of the Red Cross Drug Store, or a hotdog at Woolworth’s for a dime.

There were many favorite eating spots: Rosedale Delicatessen, owned by the Pont brothers (I would have corned beef on rye with a slice of onion and mustard, a big kosher dill and some potato salad); Kitty and Jean’s on the Trail; hotdogs at the Pig Trail Inn on Miami Beach. Who remembers the Mayflower Doughnut Shop on Biscayne Boulevard sporting a sign that read, “As you wander through life in search of your goal, keep your eye upon the doughnut and not upon the hole.”

Sometimes all four of us would take a long bike ride to the deserted University of Miami skeleton campus, where we would swim in the lagoon. Today, UM is one of the finest private universities in the country. I am honored to serve as a member of the Board of Trustees. All four of us worked our way through UM. Three of us graduated with juris doctor degrees and one with a master of engineering.

All of us served in the armed forces: three Naval officers and one Army Air Corps technician.

One of my favorite memories was riding on the handlebars of my oldest brother’s bicycle on a Saturday morning as we and my other brothers went to the Ringling Brothers Circus in the vacant lot on the northeast corner of Coral Way and Douglas Road. There, we watered the elephants until the matinee started. We got free admission plus money we spent on hotdogs.

My brothers always looked out for me and I will never forget them as I am blessed to still live in Miami, the Magic City.

It was late 1959 when my parents decided to follow my mother’s sister and her husband down to South Florida from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., where I was born a year earlier.

We settled in North Miami on 200th Street. My older sister, Susie, and I attended the Little Red School House on 183rd Street and later Norland Elementary School. My parents divorced and soon thereafter we moved to Miami Shores where I attended second grade at Miami Shores Elementary. In 1966, we moved again to Coral Gables and lived in the 1300 block of Obispo Avenue for the next 14 years.

It was while attending the third-grade class at Coral Gables Elementary that I became involved with Cub Scouts. First with a friend’s parents who were our pack leaders, and later at a home near the Coral Gables Youth Center. Most of the kids I knew grew up at the Youth Center played Civitan baseball, football or soccer.

When the time came to cross over to Boy Scouts in 1970, I joined Troop 229 at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church across the street from Coral Gables High School. Scouting opened up a world of learning for all of us. We participated in numerous service-type events in South Florida, such as carrying the banners in the Orange Bowl parade, beach clean-ups and participating in the Scouting Shows and Camporees in places like Tahiti Beach off Old Cutler Road, and the old blimp base by the zoo.

We would camp out at Fish Eating Creek, Camp Seminole, the Everglades and attend the Seminole Indian Tribe’s “Wild Hog Barbeque” weekend where we participated in the greased pole climb and took free swamp buggy and air boat rides through the Everglades. I remember sitting in front of my tent at Camp Sawyer in the Keys on a dark starlit night with flashlight in hand memorizing my Torah portion for my upcoming bar mitzvah at Temple Judea. We traveled to Sebring to attend summer camp and when it closed in 1971, we moved to Inverness, to the new McGregor Smith Scout Reservation where I was also a counselor and taught handicrafts.

In the early ’70s, my mother had an office in the corner building of Main and McFarlane Road in Coconut Grove where she was quite active in the business community. Through her affiliations, I met numerous artists who had homes and studios in the Grove. After school, I would visit the studio of a wood sculptor who helped me earn my wood-carving merit badge. As a teenager, I would attend art openings in the lobby of the Bacardi Building and other galleries around Miami.

While attending Gables High, I participated in metal shop class where I learned the art of welding, copper and metal work and eventually produced numerous award-winning entries for the Dade County Youth Fair art competitions. All these skills and experiences eventually led me to my success and career as an architect.

In 1970, the school board enacted “integration” and for seventh grade we were bused from Coral Gables to attend George Washington Carver Middle School in the Grove. The first few months were a struggle for everyone, but we all settled down and the transition to Ponce de Leon Junior High the following year was uneventful. At Carver, I befriended a black student. We became good friends and we taught each other about our respective cultures.

I presented the idea to my new friend to join our Boy Scout Troop that year and that opened up the door of racism, which I experienced for the first time. I stood by my friend and made sure he shared the same experiences that I did in Scouting. For his first camp out, we shared a tent and I taught him outdoor skills that were taught to me.

In my early college years (1977), I would venture down to Key Largo to stay at my aunt and uncle’s weekend house. One evening I was on the 18-mile stretch and came upon debris all over the road. After I stopped, I noticed the lights from a partially submerged pickup truck in the adjacent waterway and found two individuals slumped in the front seat with water up to their chests. The first aid skills I learned in Scouting kicked in and I acted quickly and carefully to remove the injured driver and passenger. I was later told by the truck’s owner that the passenger would have died if first aid had not been administered.

My wife and I have been blessed with two wonderful children who were born and raised here in South Florida. Over the many years, we have all grown to appreciate all that this area has to offer. My sister (a nurse practitioner in the Broward hospital system) and her husband have two boys who are both Eagle Scouts and a daughter who has always been active in the Scouting community. Whenever I see Scouts in the community, I express that it is important to make sure they put the effort in to pursue the rank of Eagle. Only 2 percent of all Scouts make the rank of Eagle and I am grateful that I earned mine.

Let’s set the scene: It’s early 2004, and my mother is taking my younger sister and me to go watch Cats: The Musical at what was then known as Jackie Gleason Theater on Miami Beach.

At 12, the only prior experience I ever had with anything related to theater was multiple viewings of The Nutcracker ballet and, to be honest, after the third time, the excitement dwindles. But this time felt so different, even before the show had begun; the whole atmosphere was more inviting, not as repressed as the behavior expected at a ballet.

I sat excitedly as the curtains rose to reveal a wonderful set, and by the first chorus of the prologue, I was hooked.

I watched in awe as these characters danced and sang before me, keeping my interest the entire time. Not once did I tire of any aspect; it was love at first sight. I was so enamored with the show that once it was over, I promptly begged my mother to buy the DVD of a special Broadway recording of the show. My sister enjoyed the performance as much as I did, and we reveled in watching the DVD over and over again.

After a couple of weeks, we knew each character’s name, the lyrics of each of their individual songs, and even learned the choreography to most of the pieces. We would shamelessly put on shows for our parents, grandparents and little brother and ensure that the world knew of the greatness that was CATS. I am not ashamed of the affection I had and continue to have for this musical. It was that one performance at age 12 that ignited in my heart a love for theater I didn’t know I possessed.

I had taken dance class starting at age 6, and as much as I enjoyed being with my friends and going to class, I knew deep down that I wasn’t very good. I tried my hardest but at best, I was second-line material. But nevertheless, I danced my little heart out for years to come, seeing my sister grow into a beautiful dancer and leave me in the dust. My sister was born to be a dancer; her natural ability is undeniable. A part of me wished I hadn’t made the silly decision of stopping my jazz/ballet training to take one year of hip hop, and I did find my niche in tap dance, but as comfortable as I felt doing that, I longed for more. I continued to dance tap well into my teen years, and even started volunteering in the summers at the studio where I took class, The Roxy Theatre Group.

Year after year, I worked with the youngest group of children and would accompany them to their dance, singing and acting classes, even participating in the activities so as to encourage all of them to do the same. It was all good until one day, during the summer before, I turned 17. I opened my mouth in singing class and someone actually noticed.

The voice teacher asked me to speak with her after my group’s session ended. “Have you ever taken lessons before?” she asked, to which I shook my head silently. “Well you can sing!” I was overcome with emotion.

I had sung in my room or in the shower and always assumed that I sounded nice, but never to a person who could actually tell me so. She asked me to perform in the end-of-summer show with my group, as Fraulein Maria from The Sound of Music in “Do-Re-Mi.” The day of the show, my nerves were at their peak; I had danced in front of an audience countless times, why would this be any different? I sang with my beloved group and surprised not just my family and peers, but myself as well.

I couldn’t pursue my love for theater while in high school because I was heavily devoted to my academics. However, upon entering college and having a little more wiggle room to do what I pleased, I was able to venture out and audition for shows. It wasn’t until I was 19 that I got my first role in a show: Gloria Thorpe in The Roxy Theatre Group’s production of Damn Yankees. Sure, I wasn’t the only one playing the part (the role was shared between another young lady and myself), but it was the principle of it. I was doing what I secretly loved, and that was just the beginning.

I never expected to get caught up in the Miami theater community. To be honest, I wasn’t aware of how prominent the arts even were in Miami. But I’ve seen how much it’s grown since I was a child watching my first musical: from community productions at The Roxy Theatre Group, Actors’ Playhouse on Miracle Mile, Area Stage in Coral Gables, to new and innovative plays at New Theatre in Cutler Bay, and even to professional touring shows at The Adrienne Arsht Center in downtown Miami, there are so many outlets where one could be exposed to quality theater in Miami.

I don’t, however, want to limit Miami’s art prowess to just theater. The dance community here is a fierce one, with so many studios vying for talent. The visual art field in Miami is also a force to be reckoned with, not only in traditional museums, but with areas like Wynwood, a culturally diverse area of artistic freedom with beautiful art, both modern and classic, and excellent food.

I love not only supporting the arts here, but being a part of the arts and growing with that community. This city is bursting with talent, and yet so many people are unaware.

Of course, people automatically connect the performing arts with New York City or Los Angeles. But so many great artists originate from right here at home. Miami is a place that thrives on creativity. I’m proud of the place that it’s become and am very excited to see where it will go from here.

My father was a traveling salesman for my grandfather’s haberdashery business, Dixie Company, which manufactured white suits for the poor to buy on layaway in the rural areas of the deep South. He would be more centrally located out of a base in Florida, so my parents, baby sister and I moved to Miami Beach from New York City when I was 6 years old.

We first rented an apartment on Pine Tree Drive near 41st Street. There were hotels on nearby Collins Avenue, but no apartments at that time. That area of Pine Tree was all apartments, not single family homes as it is now. Indian Creek Canal was a lazy waterway with sight-seeing boats docked a little to the south of 41st Street.

The first thing I remember was going over the MacArthur Causeway and seeing the old Flamingo Hotel. The roof would light up at night and it was spectacular. After the hotel went out of business, a group of us kids would bicycle over there to look at the pool. It was a salt-water pool and full of fish, though the hotel was uninhabited.

The MacArthur Causeway was an old drawbridge made out of wood. That, and 79th Street Causeway, were the only ways to access Miami Beach. My grandfather’s brother would take me fishing off that old wooden bridge.

When I was in second grade, we rented a house on Nautilus Court, just off Alton Road. I had a friend whose father was a doctor and he lived behind Mount Sinai Hospital on an island with homes for people who worked in the hospital. It was connected to the hospital by a pedestrian bridge. Mount Sinai’s location originally housed a hotel called The Nautilus.

I went to Nautilus Elementary and in the sixth grade I attended North Beach Elementary on 41st Street, where it still stands and functions today for my friends’ grandchildren. There was a vacant lot on Nautilus Court where soldiers had been bivouacked during World War II.

My father saw the opportunities in Florida development and real estate and began building in North Miami Beach. He built custom homes in a section named Skylake, and then went on to build in an area quite remote, called Kendall.

I started building there years later where Brown’s Airport had been, on Southwest 104th Street and 77th Avenue.

My parents bought a lot at 5004 North Bay Rd. and we built our house in 1950. There was no air conditioning at that time; our house had a hurricane fan to cool it. Jalousie windows and vented wood slats in the interior spaces allowed the air to move freely within the residence.

Carl Fisher’s mansion was a few lots down and we bought the land from his estate. He reportedly had gone bankrupt at some point and in order to save on taxes, he filled his land in. To our chagrin, when we put the pilings in to build the home, we hit his magnificent pool made of thousands of pieces of mosaic tiles.

The house was on Biscayne Bay and as a teenager I would ski in front of the tourist boats that would come to show off Millionaire’s Row.

Some of the families made their parties and celebrations very ostentatious. One of my friends had Tony Bennett as the entertainment at his Bar Mitzvah. They could not stop outdoing one another. Eddie Fisher sang on another’s yacht.

I would take my boat to what is now Fisher Island. On the south side of the island, we would all go fishing. Nothing was there but an abandoned Vanderbilt mansion and rows of large gas tanks kept for storage. There was a road around the island, but it was uninhabited except for an occasional vagrant.

Also, at that time, Lincoln Road was a two-lane street for car traffic. One could park one’s car and do high-end shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue or The Dinghy. The street boasted three theatres — the Carib, the Beach and the Cameo.

In ninth grade I was sent to a boarding school in St. Petersburg called Admiral Farragut Academy. In 10th grade, I entered Miami Beach Senior High School. The old Beach High was on Pennsylvania Avenue and Española Way. It was not air-conditioned and most of the students were Jewish.

I have kept in touch with my friends all these years and have watched Miami Beach and South Dade grow beyond my wildest expectations.