Tag: Written

My mom and dad came to Miami around the turn of the century. The Everglades reached eastward to about where Milam Dairy Road is now located (named after the dairy that used to occupy the land).

The first half of my life was spent watching the effort to drain the Everglades. Without dry land, there would be no place for newcomers to live. Now we are trying to put the water back. When I was born, the Tamiami Trail (US 41) was still under construction. Fill for the roadway was dredged with a walking barge.

My earliest memory is of the 1926 hurricane, which devastated South Florida. The family was gathered in our house, a two-story, box-like wooden affair located at 529 NW 28 Street. We had not received a warning — we didn’t have a radio, but even with a radio, warnings were sparse.

My oldest brother (14 years older than I) was caught in the early part of the storm on Miami Beach at a beach party. He said waves were breaking over the roadway and they were almost blown into Government Cut.

During the storm cleanup, accomplished by residents, there was no looting. The National Guard was deployed with orders to shoot to kill anyone seen looting. An almost-demolished grocery store displayed a sign, “If you can’t pay, pay me later.”

We lived with various neighbors for months, until Dad could build another house – with borrowed money and voluntary labor. The other storms that followed, we tolerated them well.

For the next five years, we lived beside a rock road and had no electricity, running water, sewage, or any of the modern conveniences. There were no welfare programs or government help of any kind. Churches, Salvation Army and Red Cross did the best they could, but neighbors did more. I didn’t know we were poor, because everyone I knew had it tough. Water came from a well with a hand pump.

Dad built a small out house (privy) out back – a two holer with just enough room inside to drop your pants. Some sections of the city did not receive sewage until after World War II. I think the last privy to be removed was in Coral Gables. When the sewer was installed, it was piped underground to outlets along the shore of Biscayne Bay.

It was Sunday school and church every Sunday at Stanton Memorial Baptist on NW 2 Avenue and 29 Street, where my uncle Bill was a deacon. The church has since moved to North Miami. Buena Vista Elementary School was located just a block north. I rarely wore shoes to school, but always to church.

In the second grade I was allowed to work in the cafeteria and earn a free lunch. I must have been about ten years old the first time Dad took me to see the Olympia Theater. I can still visualize the rounded ceiling with twinkling stars and variety shows. The famous, buxom Mae West always drew large crowds.

There were many fishing trips down to the Keys. US 1 ended at Lower Matecumbe and the railroad continued on to Key West. There was a ferry if you wanted to take your car. When a hurricane destroyed the tracks, US 1 was extended along the same route, using some of the railroads supports. The road was narrow and rough, and we had a ball, bumping along on the back of a flat-bed truck. Wild lime trees grew on most of the larger islands, and some of the residents grew rock melons.

In my adult life I have never seen another rock melon. They looked something like a cantaloupe, but tasted better.

My schooling after elementary school was Robert E. Lee Junior High, just a few blocks from home. Like most teenagers in the ninth grade, I went a little bit crazy, skipping school so much it made passing unthinkable. I quit school and suffered a failed attempt to join the Marine Corps. I lied about my age, got a chauffeur’s driver’s license, and a job driving a delivery truck for Biscayne Chemical Co., located on Miami Avenue and NW 37 Street.

Seared into my mind is the memory of delivering, with no help, 50-gallon drums of chemicals to businesses on Flagler Street in the heart of Miami. After that work experience I was more than ready to return to school. Miami Edison High was six miles away. There were only three high schools. Transportation was provided by Mama, neighbors, or hitchhiking.

Miami Edison High consistently had the best football team in the state, sometimes the best in the nation. There was no age limit for football players until about 1938. When I graduated, the age limit was 20. Every Thanksgiving Day, Edison and Miami High played in the Orange Bowl. The game was always sold out, a feat the small University of Miami was never able to duplicate. Betting was widespread.

I graduated in midterm 1940, after flunking English twice. By the fall of that year I had learned the rudiments of welding and was hired by Eastern Airlines as a cleaner.

My Miami experience began in 1958 when we moved from Tampa, which was considered the big city, compared to Miami. Miami was the small town and just a place for tourists to visit, where Tampa, old and established, had it all.

In November 1958, we loaded up the ubiquitous ’57 Chevy station wagon and headed south to Miami down U.S. 41, the Tamiami Trail.

We rented a home in the Westwood Lakes area of southwest Miami while searching for a new home in southwest Dade, where my father’s job was located. Travel was not an easy affair, since the Palmetto (826) Expressway had not been built and all other roads were two lanes in all directions. Any trips north, south, east, or west always seemed to take a full day so we planned accordingly.

In the fall of 1959, my mother found our new home in the Builder Estates development located between Coral Way and Bird Road. These lots were barren, no trees and maybe no grass – sod was only available for additional dollars, and of course there was no air conditioning.

Our home was so close to Tropical Park race track, we could hear the horse races. For Saturday night entertainment, we would go to a drive-in movie at one of the two drive-ins located close by, Coral Way or Tropicaire. As with the rest of the country, drive-in theatres are now just in the history books.

There were no shopping malls close by, so shopping meant traveling down Bird Road or to Coral Gables. The closest, Red Bird Center, was located at the corner of Red and Bird roads. Grocery stores also were different. I remember Grand Union, Kwik Chek (Winn Dixie) and Stevens Market.

So many department stores came and went – Zayre, Treasury, Gold Triangle, Jackson’s (J Byrons), Jordan Marsh and, unfortunately, Richards and Burdines.

In June 1961, the Palmetto Expressway opened with much fanfare. I recall that to prepare the right of way for this road, houses at the end of our street were jacked up and hauled away on trailers to their new location. Before it opened to traffic, it was a great place to race our bikes and to play. After it opened, travel to other parts of the county was much easier. On Saturdays, my father and mother would pack us into the car and go on an adventure to explore parts of the county that, at that time, were completely undeveloped. Many trips took us to areas along Old Cutler Road and then to dirt roads to the bay; no homes were there and it was open to all. We would fish or look for things that had fallen off freighters making their way either to Miami or to some other far-off place.

Other trips took us way out to the one-lane Kendall Drive, where we would pick vegetables or fruit. In that same year, we began to hear of a proposed mall that was to be built on the property border by Kendall Drive and the new Palmetto Expressway. Everyone thought the developers were crazy, as this was out in the boondocks. In 1962, Dadeland Mall opened as an open-air mall with the seahorse fountain at the center and a grocery store. Business, as expected, was terrible given the far-out location, and many stores closed in the first few years.

My brother, sister and I attended public schools: Emerson, West Miami, Southwest and Miami-Dade Junior College. Because of the large population shifts into the south part of the county, many additional schools were being built, it seemed on every corner. No longer were the high schools few and far between. Soon, Coral Park, Killian and South Miami were built to relieve Southwest and Gables.

Another important piece of “history” was the Dade County Science Fair. Back in the early years, it really wasn’t a fair; it was where students presented incredible projects they had built. The Youth Fair part came later. The Science Fair originally was located at Dinner Key in Coconut Grove. Due to its popularity and the traffic problems, it was moved to its current location on Coral Way.

The old Pier 5 downtown was for our Sunday excursions and to see the fish that were being caught right off our door step. Today, those old piers have been replaced with offices or condominiums.

The places that used to seem so far away, such as Cutler Ridge, I now call home. My family lives in the Lakes by the Bay community, and we were there when Hurricane Andrew hit. Andrew was not like any storm we had ever experienced. Our house, with us inside, was basically destroyed around us. If it weren’t for the downstairs bath located under the stairs, we (four of us, two dogs, bird and hamster) most likely would have been injured, or worse. Andrew took everything, but we rebuilt and stayed in the Cutler Ridge area.

My first job was with Richards in 1971 at the Midway Mall, now called Mall of the Americas. After a while, I was promoted and spent some years in the downtown Miami store, which was a classic in both architecture and layout. Before my time, it had a second floor tea room that opened to the first floor. The other interesting feature was the basement store, which was actually a basement.

I am now semi-retired from the public schools, and I am enjoying my family. The memories of the old Miami will always stay with me and I like to share them with my friends and others about the way it was. They are memories of my childhood that I will always treasure.

I may be the only person who can say they were born on Sesame Street.

I did not live with Big Bird, but instead in a house at 1216 Sesame St., in Opa-locka, where I was born in 1934. I lived there with my parents, my brother Danny and my sister Judi until my marriage to Larry Ricke in 1953.

My family has been in Dade County since the late 1800s. My great-grandfather, Bartholomy DeWinkler, was the first postmaster at Arch Creek. He arrived in Arch Creek, now known as North Miami, in 1904, and my father Wilbur Dale was born there in 1908.

My mother Margaret Anderson Dale moved to Opa-locka from Wisconsin in 1926. Her father Charles Anderson was persuaded to move after her grandmother returned from a visit to Miami and called it “paradise.” My mother’s family of nine traveled to Opa-locka in a flatbed truck on which my grandfather built a small structure, rather like today’s mobile home or camper. When they arrived, they removed the structure and lived in it and tents until they could build a permanent home. My grandfather got a job right away with the city of Opa-locka doing general maintenance and landscaping and stayed until his retirement.

My parents both attended Dade County Agricultural High School, which later became Miami Edison High. They met at a local dance that was held on the tennis court in Opa-locka. (I like to play tennis and my mother said it was because my parents met there). They were married and settled in Opa-locka in 1934. My father held various positions with the city, including city manager, commissioner and mayor. My grandmother, May Anderson, started the Opa-Locka Woman’s Club and the city library.

My brother and I went to school at Opa-locka Elementary, William Jennings Bryan Junior High, and Miami Edison Senior High. The elementary school was within walking distance, but we had to travel by school bus to junior and senior high. Our younger sister is quite a bit younger than we and attended Westview Junior High and Hialeah High, which were closer to home.

Growing up in Opa-locka was a lot of fun. We had so much freedom to walk around town, and play basketball, tennis and softball at the park behind the City Hall. After the U.S. Naval Reserve air base was closed, the city took over some of the facilities and we had access to swimming pools, a movie theater, an outdoor skating rink, and a bowling alley, where my brother worked as a pin setter.

The theater was where I first saw Gone with the Wind, which was so long it required an intermission. We also participated in the Arabian Nights festivals by dressing up in our Arabian costumes and parading on the main street, Sharazad Boulevard.

Even as preteens, my brother and I were able to travel safely by bus without our parents. We loved to go to the movies at the Center Theater in Edison Center. There was always a cartoon, a short subject and a serial episode before the main feature. The serial always ended with a “cliff-hanger” that kept you in suspense until the next week. The main feature could be a western, Tarzan, or Abbott and Costello.

Sometimes we even traveled all the way to downtown Miami by bus to see a movie in one of the movie theaters on Flagler Street. The most interesting theater was the Olympia Theater (The Gusman), with its beautiful architecture and lighted ceiling that was painted to look like the night sky. At the Olympia, there was also a live stage show with a comedian, singer or magician before the movie.

On our walks around downtown, we might stop in the five-and-dime stores like McCrory’s or Woolworth’s to see a live demonstration of the latest toy or kitchen gadget. We might pass by the shop of Jahn the Magic Man to see the magic tricks and games, or pass by the psychic, Dr. Seward. Of course, we never went into Dr. Seward’s establishment, but he was a fascination to say the least. Some kids nicknamed him Dr. Seeweed.

Right next to the bus stop where we waited for the bus to go back to Opa-locka was a fruit stand that sold fresh-squeezed orange juice. I can still remember the aroma of oranges and other fruits. We could spend the whole day in downtown for around a dollar, including the bus fare. My brother and I are now amazed at the freedom we had to travel around safely.

During high school at Miami Edison High, I was a member of the Miami Edison Cadettes Marching Team. We marched in the New Year’s Eve parade and during the half time at Miami Edison football games. My brother was on the first Edison High football team to beat Miami High in 28 years. There was fierce rivalry between Miami High and Edison High and the Thanksgiving Day football game at the Orange Bowl was well attended.

My husband’s family moved to Miami from Chicago when Larry was an infant. We met through mutual friends at Edison High, were married in 1953 and bought a house in Opa-locka. We had nine children and all but one, who was born in Germany when Larry was in the Army, were born in Dade County. Most of our 17 grandchildren were born in Dade County as well. We now have a fifth generation born in Florida, a great-granddaughter born in Jacksonville and a great-grandson born in Orlando.

South Florida has changed greatly in my 78 years. Now I am a great-grandmother and I agree with my great-grandmother that it is still paradise.

Miami became my home in February 1960 when I was based here as a Delta stewardess.

I lived in Miami Springs, on a lake, with three other stewardesses – one from Eastern, one from National, and one from Delta. Other airlines were flourishing at that time, too; there was a large contingent of personnel from Pan American and TWA, as well as a number of South American airlines and Flying Tiger cargo airline.

During that era, we got new expressways that connected the mainland to Miami Beach. And culturally, we had opera. During the ensuing 54 years, I have seen our incredible city grow into a most amazing and iconic location between North and South America.

Back then, we thought we were big city dwellers, but the limits of the “city” at the time only went as far west as eastern Hialeah and the Opa-locka airport. To the south was the University of Miami and U.S. 1 to the Keys. The Palmetto Expressway was originally constructed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but by the 1970s, various sections of the 16-mile corridor were expanded to six lanes. That connected motorists to the west to places such as the Doral Hotel and Country Club.

As the 1980s began, our community exploded. The Dolphin Expressway connected to the Palmetto, and I-95 and I-75 expanded the breadth of our amazing South Florida locale.

Among the highlights for me were the creation of the Miami City Ballet with the help of Toby Lerner Ansin. The inaugural performance was on Oct. 17, 1986, under the artistic direction of Edward Villella. The New World Symphony was established in 1987, co-founded by Lin and Ted Arison with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. Bringing the genius of conductor Thomas to our growing Miami venue and securing the Lincoln Theatre on Miami Beach for concerts also elevated the cultural magnificence of our city.

In the late 1980s, the Miami Heat basketball team was founded, and later came the Florida Panthers hockey team. The first Miami Arena was built downtown, and sometimes there were games as many as five nights a week. So many Miami sports fans nearly lived in that arena.

At the same time, the University of Miami was expanding and became an internationally recognized and respected university.

Additionally, we had the Grand Bay Hotel in Coconut Grove. It housed the internationally known “Regine’s” nightclub. Michael Jackson and his entourage occupied the top floors during their stay in 1984 before the late singer’s Orange Bowl Victory Tour concert.

As the city grew, so did the need for broader cultural experience. That paved the way for the construction of the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. A new sports arena also rose downtown, now known as the AmericanAirlines Arena.

Major shopping facilities were opening everywhere, although the Bal Harbour Shops, which officially opened in 1965, continued to grow throughout the next three decades and it is still known as a high-end spot to shop.

Miami Beach and South Beach began to blossom in the late 1980s. Before that, many hotel pools were green with algae and doors leading out to the beach were boarded up.

South Beach had many unique stages of growth and attracted flocks of Europeans, South Americans and celebrities. New nightclubs were springing up weekly. During that time, there was also the Miami-Dade Cultural Center with the Historical Museum of Southern Florida and the Miami Art Museum, which was relocated downtown from its original Bayfront Park site.

In more recent years, Miami and Miami Beach also became home to Art Basel, the internationally acclaimed art fair. With the Art Basel venue here, art sophistication exploded and very positively impacted our South Florida environment.

We now have the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), which opened in December on the same weekend as Art Basel. Coming soon to the Museum Park is the anticipated opening in 2015 of the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science and planetarium.

When I look out my windows at our incredible city, I marvel at what Miami has become. It is now a destination for people from all over the globe. Still underway is the continuing expansion of the Miami Design District as well as significant additions at Mary Brickell Village.

I have been living and working as an interior designer in our great city for these past decades, creating residences of some of Miami’s most interesting, accomplished and extraordinary families. The progress makes me so appreciative of all who have dreamed, struggled and created what this amazing Florida community is today. I feel so privileged to have passed this way during these times.

My father came to the Magic City in 1916 at the tender age of 3. His mother had taken a new job and moved from Chicago. She wanted to start a new life in what was truly a “frontier” on Biscayne Bay.

With perhaps only 10,000 people calling Miami home, it was a tropical paradise with inexpensive land and crystal blue waters teeming with marine life.

My grandmother, Althea Altemus, brought my father Robert to Miami after accepting the job of James Deering’s private secretary at the new “Gilded Age” mansion, Vizcaya. She spent seven years attending to the wealthy industrialist’s business needs while he was in South Florida.

I vaguely recall stories of my grandmother “rubbing elbows” with the Deering brothers (James and Charles), Phineas Paist (associate architect of Vizcaya, who would later design many landmark Coral Gables buildings) and the politician, William Jennings Bryan, who was once Deering’s neighbor and a major contributor to Miami’s real estate boom of the 1920s.

Dad would graduate in 1931 from the then high school, Ponce De Leon. He would go on to become a prominent CPA and banker. My brother Robert, who passed away earlier this year, and I started our own journey in South Miami, living east of U.S. 1 on Kendall Drive, across the street from where Gulliver Academy stands today. I rode my bicycle to Pinecrest Elementary at Southwest 104th Street and Red Road.

There was no development for miles, which left peaceful woods and fields to explore and fuel a child’s imagination. No one bothered to lock homes or car doors when going into South Miami to shop or eat. I drive by my first school, Pinecrest Elementary, every workday morning on my commute to my Coral Gables office. Seeing the children in the playground reminds me of a “simpler Miami.”

My father’s generation, often called the “greatest generation,” was tough-minded and persevered through one of the most difficult periods in U.S. history. As I enter the fourth quarter of my business career, I now realize what my father passed on to me. I am a banker who has survived over 40 years in the financial service industry. After navigating six bank mergers since 1980, I am still employed. Thank you Dad, for your silent and enduring strength and what it stands for.

My father was not a “communicator.” What little I learned about him and his mother strangely came from my mother Rosemarie.

In 1985, when I got married at Vizcaya, the destination was solely based on its beauty. At that time, I had little knowledge of my father’s and his mother’s intimate experiences at Miami’s landmark residence. My father would ride his bicycle after school to Vizcaya to wait for his mother to get off work. Fishing off of Vizcaya’s famous barge would quickly yield a boat full of fish and lobster. Miami then was the Bahamas of today.

Last year, my limited knowledge of my father and grandmother’s role in early Miami history quickly changed with a discovery of a long-forgotten manuscript, written by Althea Altemus, following a chance encounter with Joel Hoffman, the current executive director of Vizcaya Museum and Gardens.

The encounter has contributed to a wealth of knowledge about Deering and his famous actor guests and other industrialists who would come to inspect the newest home of the “Gilded Age.”

Althea Altemus was employed at Vizcaya for seven years, leaving in 1923 to return to Chicago before returning to Miami a second time to retire.

The discovery of my grandmother’s ties to Vizcaya and its famous people in early 1900s Miami has driven a renewed interest in our family tree. Think of the excitement of the moment, if I had known more about my father’s relationship to this grand estate! I can only hope that he felt some nostalgia for his youth and early Miami experiences.

Miami is a very young city, unlike Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., with their excess of written history. Now that Miami is an important international city, it is important that families contribute to “her story” by sharing their experiences. Without the knowledge of how our city came to be, Miami cannot be truly appreciated.

As our city continues along its evolutionary timeline, don’t forget to speak to your sons and daughters.

Every mother who wanted to buy her daughter a stunning dress will remember the name “Dorissa of Miami.”

This is the story of our mother, Doree Fromberg, a girl who won a scholarship to attend the New York Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) after graduating high school, began designing and sewing dresses in her home in Miami and developed the business into an international company.

Starting with $5 and a talent, Doree became an icon in the girls dress manufacturing business. Her dresses were eventually sold all over the world including top retailers such as Bloomingdales, Macy’s, Lord and Taylor and Saks Fifth Ave.

After Doree graduated from “FIT” she did an internship at a manufacturer of childrensware. She then got married and moved from NY to Miami, and had two sons. Her mother, an energetic and affable woman, recognized Doree’s talents and took her samples on the road around the state of Florida to try and sell the dresses to specialty children’s shops.

Orders started to pour in, requiring more home sewers. She was very fortunate to find Cuban women — who had fled the island and resettled in Miami in the 1960s — and who were outstanding seamstresses. They were able to sew the dresses in their homes.

Within a short time, it became necessary to buy a small factory to handle the increased business. Without any formal business training, and no capital or financial backing, she somehow was able to build the business. She modernized the equipment, hired and trained the staff and managed the business. She also designed the dresses for all five seasons; buying the fabric and accessories and creating a sales team.

At the time, the official name of the business was “Dorissa Of Miami.” Her girl’s dresses became recognized all over the United States. The lines catered to girls party wear, communion and baptism dresses produced in sizes from infants to preteens. An additional label of “Nicole” was introduced and took off immediately.

The business kept expanding and the increased demand required a larger building. A large auto showroom building was purchased in 1972 and converted into a factory. The address was 2751 North Miami Ave. in Wynwood It was a two-story building.

On the first floor were offices, a reception area and spaces for sewing machine operators. There they pressed, ticketed and prepared garments for shipping. On the second floor was the cutting department and areas designated for stocking fabric and trim. There were also additional sewing machines, the purchasing department, designing rooms, pattern making areas and Doree’s office.

The company opened a showroom in the manufacturing center of New York City where a major part of sales volume was generated. In addition, sales were generated for the “Dorissa Collection” by a staff of independent sales people with their own showrooms in all major United States cities.

The company produced a Back-to-school, Fall, Holiday, Spring and Summer collection.

As the business continued to thrive, Doree needed to find other sources of production. This was available in factories in Honduras, Mexico and Guatemala. The cut goods were air-shipped to those factories, which had qualified seamstresses and were able to finish the goods quickly.

A girls’ sportswear line was added and received immediate national acclaim. After just one year of production, “Dorissa Sportswear” won the national award in 1989 as “the best sportswear line in the USA.”

A retail outlet store was opened to the public 1987 at NW Fifth Avenue and 29th Street. It was called “Dorissa Children’s World, The Place to Shop for Children.” In addition to the Dorissa, Nicole and Dorissa Sport lines; the business carried out other well-known children’s lines, including boys wear. It became a very popular outlet-shopping place for local families. On “Sale Day,” a twice a year event, lines of customers would form around the corner waiting for the store to open.

The Dorissa company experienced a number of very outstanding events. Doree appeared on The Merv Griffin Show representing the girls dress-manufacturing companies of America. Other well-known designers appeared with her on the same show, i.e. Aldolfo and Oscar De La Renta. One of the covers of the New York Times Magazine section featured two girls together wearing Dorissa dresses.

There was a strong camaraderie that prevailed in the Dorissa factory. The employees became family and many continued to work at Dorissa for years. They were treated well and responded with loyalty. There was a lovely outside lunchroom where many a birthday occasion was celebrated with loud cheering and singing.

Between 2004-2006, Doree Fromberg decided it was time for her to “stop and smell the roses.” Her sons were successful in the medical field. Her husband of seven years — a prominent attorney and former Mayor of Miami Beach — wanted to travel and both of them desired to have more time to pursue some other interests.

Doree decided to sell the Dorissa label to another girls dress company. In that way the company name and label was preserved and Doree was fully relieved of all responsibilities. She did, though, consult on occasion.

The people who purchased the factory building requested that the name “Dorissa” appearing in large letters across the front of the building be left on the building. They felt it had become a landmark.

Their request was granted. It now remains the nostalgic landmark of a remarkable children’s dress manufacturing company that started out many years ago in Miami with $5 and became an internationally recognized company. This all due to the help of the influx of talented Cuban seamstresses and garment manufacturing workers.

Doree is now retired from manufacturing and has her own art studio. She’s still is able to use her creative ability in painting and making decorative collages on many themes and for special occasions. She and her husband Malcolm travel the world. They also derive pleasure from supporting many local charities.

My parents, John and Muriel Greist, my sister, Judith, and I were all born in New Haven, Connecticut. The Greist name was pretty well-known in the area because the Greist Manufacturing Company was a major producer of sewing-machine attachments.

I don’t remember much about New Haven because I was only 3 when our family moved to Miami in 1948, coming via train, except for my father, who drove from Connecticut.

My dad had a chance to pursue some new banking ventures in South Florida that were very promising. He eventually ended up at the Pan American Bank of Miami on Southeast First Street in downtown Miami. The bank was founded in the mid-1940s by P.J. Serralles, a Puerto Rican sugar planter. The story is that he decided to open a bank due to his difficulty cashing a check in Miami because almost no one spoke Spanish.

One of my earliest memories of Miami was Hurricane King in October 1950. We were living in our new house on Irvington Avenue in Coconut Grove, and my dad was in the hospital when the hurricane hit. I remember kerosene lanterns guiding us through the power outage during the storm, which was one of the strongest to strike the Miami area since the 1926 killer hurricane.

Other early memories of Miami included Christmas holiday fun at the Burdines in downtown Miami, with a merry-go-round and a Ferris wheel on the fifth-floor level bridge connecting the two sections of Burdines over South Miami Avenue; the annual New Year’s Eve Orange Bowl Parade, including some great views from the Walgreens’ second-floor cafeteria on Flagler Street; and the old Miami Baseball Stadium, where I got to sit in the Brooklyn Dodgers dugout in March 1956, the year after they won their first World Series.

In the summer of 1955, I had attended a Dodgertown camp in Vero Beach, where my counselor was Peter O’Malley, son of Dodger President Walter O’Malley. The following year, I was invited to attend a Dodger spring-training game at Miami Stadium. The Dodgers trained there before the Baltimore Orioles moved in a few years later. I got to meet many of the Dodger greats: Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges and Duke Snider, my favorite player. What a thrill for a young kid 10 years old.

In addition to the summer I spent at Dodgertown, my sister and I attended summer camp a few times in North Carolina. One of our trips was “immortalized” on the cover of The Miami Herald’s old “Fun in Florida” Sunday magazine on May 30, 1954, as we prepared to board the train for our journey to Eagle’s Nest Camp in Piscah Forest, N.C. The cover photo was taken by Herald photographer John Walther, and the inside cover story was written by “Fun in Florida” magazine editor Betty Garnet. (Full disclosure here: I think the photo was “posed” because we didn’t actually go to summer camp until sometime in June.”

I attended first through sixth grade at Coconut Grove Elementary School. Our principal was Oliver Hoover, a native-born Miamian and longtime educator. An elementary school in The Hammocks is named after him.

During elementary school, some of the “Old Grove” memories included after-school trips for sodas at the Liles Pharmacy and the Florida Pharmacy in the Engle Building and Saturday matinees at the Coconut Grove Theatre (yes, it was a movie theater before it became the Coconut Grove Playhouse).

Another favorite spot in the Grove was the Krest 5&10 next to the school. That 5&10 store sold almost everything one could imagine, and it stayed in business for over 60 years. I also spent a lot of time at Bryan Memorial Methodist Church on Main Highway, from my younger years all the way through college. A minister from that church performed my wedding ceremony.

After spending seventh grade at South Miami Junior High, I attended the newly constructed Palmetto Junior-Senior High School in Pinecrest beginning in eighth grade. My sister was in the first graduating class in 1961, and I graduated two years later in 1963. The school celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2008, and the class of 2011 will be the 50th graduating class from the school. My senior year in 1963, I was newspaper editor, president of the Key Club, chairman of the Dade County Student Traffic Safety Council, and was the school’s Silver Knight nominee in journalism.

Favorite hangouts in high school included the Hot Shoppes at U.S. 1 and Bird Road; Jimmy’s Hurricane at Bird and Douglas Road; the Burger King on U.S. 1 just south of Dadeland; the original Shorty’s; Royal Castle, where we could easily consume a six-pack of Castleburgers along with their birch beer; the Krispy Kreme on SW 8th Street; Suniland Shopping Center; A&W; drive-ins; and Central Stadium on Coral Way, where Palmetto’s home football games were played.

Local area attractions included Bill Haast’s Miami Serpentarium; South Dixie Bowl-O-Mat; Dixie and Tropicaire Drive-Ins; Colonial Palms Golf Course; and, of course, the Parrot Jungle. Before multiplexes, there was the Coral, the Gables, the Miracle and the Riviera theatres. We loved the aromas from the Holsum Bakery in South Miami. Restaurants included The Flame, Grentner’s, Flynn’s Dixie Ribs and the Dixie Belle Inn.

My best friends in high school are my best friends 50 years later, even though they were in the class of ’64. Those friends include Ron Lieberman and Dexter Lehtinen – both still practicing attorneys in Miami – and Fred Luss, a retired Chrysler financial executive. Another member of the class of ’64 was Vicki Campfield. I didn’t know her in high school, but she would eventually become my wife.

The first paycheck I ever received was for a one-day job as a press-box assistant for the 1963 Orange Bowl game won by Alabama over Oklahoma 17-0. The game was attended by President John Kennedy. I was near the locker room under the stadium when the game ended and JFK was leaving. I reached out to shake his hand but was rebuffed by the Secret Service. The president smiled and waved at me. Sadly, just eleven months later, he was gone.

I met my wife, Vicki, in 1967 and married her a year later. Vicki had a wonderful career in pediatric nursing at Miami Children’s Hospital and the state of Florida Children’s Medical Services. After almost a decade with Burger King Corporation and Florida Power & Light, combined with some part-time sports broadcasting on local radio, I spent the remainder of my career with Miami-Dade County. Vicki and I raised two sons, John and Patrick. Both attended Sunset High, Miami-Dade Junior College and Florida International University.

My overall favorite Miami memory was the many years of watching University of Miami football at the Orange Bowl, from the 1950s with my parents to the years with Vicki and my sons in the West End Zone family section, to the last event ever held there. That was a flag-football game in January 2008 between former Miami Dolphins and University of Miami players. The event was extra special because my two grandchildren, Zachary and Taylor, were with me. It was their only time at the Orange Bowl, and it represented the fourth generation of the Greist family to attend an event at the Orange Bowl.

Vicki passed away too prematurely in 1997, but we were blessed to share 30 special years together and many happy experiences in Miami raising our two sons.

My 60-plus years in Miami have been filled with a lot of wonderful memories. In a strange way, I guess you could say I owe all my Miami memories to a Puerto Rican sugar planter who opened a bank in Miami in the 1940s due to his difficulties cashing a check because almost no one spoke Spanish.

I was born in New York City to Hispanic-American parents. Osvaldo Hernandez, my father, arrived in the United States in the 1940s, served in the U.S. Army and met Maria, my mother, in 1950.

They married and two years after my birth we traveled to Havana, Cuba, where I stayed and was raised by my grandmother, a Canary Islands native. I lived in a middle-class Havana suburb and attended Cambridge School, where I received English and Spanish instruction.

Unexpected changes in Cuba occurred, however, when Fidel Castro took over in January 1959. In 1962, seeing that the situation on the island had worsened, my father requested my departure, through the Canadian embassy.

On Jan. 25, 1963, at age 11, I returned to the United States on the last American Red Cross flight for U.S. citizens. I have never forgotten my unpleasant exit from the Havana airport, where militia men searched me, kept my valuables and called me gusana (a disrespectful term for Americans that means “earthworm”) and gringa before I prepared to board the plane.

I traveled alone, but was warmly received at Miami International Airport by my father, aunt, uncle and cousin, who were residing on Alton Road in Miami Beach.

The city of Miami Beach became my new home. My father and I were the only American citizens who spoke English in my immediate family. My school days happily unfolded at Central Beach Elementary. At Ida Fisher Junior High School, I learned how to swim at Flamingo Park’s pool and practiced tumbling at the school’s gym.

My saddest experience at that time was hearing the announcement, over the loud speaker, that “President Kennedy has been shot!” It was Nov. 22, 1963.

During the 1960s, South Beach consisted mainly of small stores that sold beach wear, surf equipment and souvenirs. When I was 12, I would assist a souvenir store owner by arranging the merchandise and assisting tourists with their purchases – for 25 cents an hour.

After my part-time job, I would join my friends at the Cameo Theater on Washington Avenue and 14th Street for an ice cream and a movie. The 25-cent ticket admitted me to popular films of the time, such as Psycho and The Great Escape.

A half-dollar Kennedy coin was my weekly allowance. When I had saved a dollar, I would embark on a visit to downtown Miami on Saturdays, via public bus. I loved viewing the store window displays of Kress, McCrory’s, Woolworth’s, Sears, Burdines, Baker’s, Lerner’s and Jackson Byron’s. Shopping trips with my father to Baker’s always led to a new pair of shoes with a matching handbag.

We also munched on sauerkraut hot dogs at the Sloppy Joe’s shop, next to the Tower Theater. At Jackson Byron’s, I bought my first 45 rpm record for 49 cents and began to collect music memorabilia. An ultimate treat was to watch a movie at any of the downtown theaters: the Olympia Theater, the Tower Theater and the Paramount Theater.

My most cherished Beatles experience occurred at the Paramount Theater where, with more than 100 other teenage girls, I eagerly watched the Beatles’ first feature-length motion picture, A Hard Day’s Night. I still have the admission ticket from this event.

The Beatles’ revolution in the United States had a profound influence on my musical preferences. On Feb. 13, 1964, I remember hearing on my pink transistor radio that the Beatles had landed at Miami International Airport to tape their second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

A local Miami radio station, 560 WQAM, and its announcer, Rick Shaw, heavily promoted the Beatles’ arrival. I purchased a promotional pamphlet of The Beatles from WQAM for one dollar. Many students did not attend school on that day, hoping to catch a glimpse of them.
I fondly remember twisting with other teenagers to the sounds of Chubby Checker, The Beach Boys and The Beatles at the Miami Beach Recreational Center on Tuesday nights.

The Miami Beach High School Ensemble and the Acapella Choir fulfilled my interest in music. Rehearsing for school performances and singing at the Fontainebleau Hotel were standard practice for all chorus members. My overnight stays at the San Souci Hotel – to prepare for district music competitions – were exhilarating.

In June 1969, the Jackie Gleason Theater was the host of my graduation ceremony. Throughout my teens, I had visited the theater, attending rock music concerts by Three Dog Night, The Who, Chicago and Rare Earth.

I used to ride a tram from Alton Road to Washington Avenue, through the Lincoln Road Mall. As we traveled aboard the tram, we eyed the variety of luxury stores such as Lillie Rubin, where TV personalities purchased exclusive evening wear.

Finally, my recollection of the Miami Beach Lions Club is of utmost importance. The Lions Club funded a college tuition grant that enabled me to further my education at Miami Dade Community College and Florida Atlantic University.

I majored in education, began as a teacher, and now serve as a director for the public schools. I will always appreciate how the Miami Beach Lions Club helped shape my future.

The city of Miami has been my home for the past 36 years. I still hold a deep affection, however, for the Beach.

I now work in downtown Miami and own a condominium in South Beach. I cherish my precious preteen and teenage years’ memories of South Beach during the groovy and colorful ’60s.

My father, Osvaldo, passed away in 2005 at 84. He last lived on Meridian Avenue. He truly loved the Beach as much as I did.