Six men crowd into a back hallway of the Palm Beach Mall. It’s an emergency exit, an employee entrance, and, with its nondescript concrete walls, the perfect place from which to stage a robbery. Dressed in black, the men are as burly as bouncers. They have guns tucked into their…
Pembroke Park is the little town that Broward County forgot. It’s a decidedly working-class, if not poor, industrial burg on the Miami-Dade County border with about 6,000 people, most of whom live in mobile homes. Town officials have long complained that the County Commission has largely ignored the town. Last…
“I always play the same numbers, and sometimes I get three of four matches, but usually nothing,” says Norman, a short, gray-eyed man. “And then I think, I won’t play. But what if that’s the week my numbers win?” Norman’s tiny blond wife, Sylvia, nods in affirmation while the rest…
How Not to Name a City When state representative Ken Gottlieb penned the bill that may create a new town out of four unincorporated neighborhoods in south Broward, he tentatively named it “West Park.” But several residents of the area, which includes Carver Ranches, Lake Forest, Utopia, and Miami Gardens,…
Bike Ballyhoo Death be not two-wheeled: Regarding Jeff Stratton’s October 14 story, “A Pain in the Bike Lane”: Anyone who could possibly think that the five-foot lanes aren’t necessary is out of his or her mind. I have been riding A1A for the last six years. Once, I was hit…
A throng of teenage boys mills around the registration desk at the Palm-Aire Racquet Club. It’s just before 8 a.m. on a breezy Saturday in September as 32 boys, age 16 and younger, await pairing off for this weekend’s tennis tournament. A mix of tension, anticipation, and nascent testosterone swirls…
Like most bad government deals, it wasn’t on the agenda. Broward County Commissioner Ilene Lieberman brought it up without giving staff or her colleagues on the dais time to study it. Her motion may have seemed misguided at the time, but it now seems to be something much worse. On…
John McCurdy knew riding his bicycle down Delray Beach’s scenic stretch of A1A could be treacherous. Sharing the road with cars meant he ran the risk of getting cursed out, being swerved at, becoming a target for beer cans, or enduring much worse. But on a sun-drenched late September morning…
Ramblin’ Robert Wexler NPR’s “Marketplace” recently blasted Sen. John Breaux (D-Louisiana)for accepting the most free travel out of 582 federal legislators over the past four years, and it posted the complete rankings on its website, www.marketplace.publicradio.org. Lo and behold, number two is our own Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Delray Beach). The…
Poetic Praise End the mano a mano: Jeff Stratton’s cover story on the death of Lorrie Tennant was sad and moving (“Requiem for a Murdered Poet,” October 7). I hope her example of cooperation and support forever suffuses the South Florida poetry/spoken word scene. It might be naive to suggest…
Hall Pass was Lorrie Tennant’s last poem. She read it aloud on the night of August 25 at Hollywood’s Ginger Bay Cafe, one of a string of venues in South Florida that hosts a weekly open-mic poetry event. Memories vary about Tennant’s delivery that night, but the poem itself has…
Maurice Denis wore a look of profound irritation as he stood on a Port Everglades pier September 24. Portly and balding but dapper in a beige suit, the 60-year-old Haitian-American looked out of place among the shipping containers. Two gun-toting U.S. marshals stood before him, blocking the way to the…
The new, enormous, retro South Beach-import club thumped as a crowd of 1,200 partiers kicked it to EMF’s “Unbelievable.” Four female bartenders in micro-skirts and scanty tanks hopped onto the bar top, danced in Coyote Ugly-inspired routines — yikes! — and poured shots down the necks of crisp-shirted partiers. Two…
Hamilton Forman is Fort Lauderdale’s equivalent to Mr. Burns on The Simpsons: a multimillionaire with so much power and wealth that he sometimes seems to believe he owns his fair city. Forman bought Broward County land early and often, from downtown Fort Lauderdale to the western cities; he is the…
Good Cop, Bad Cop Vigilante justice: I was interested in Trevor Aaronson’s September 30 article about the Hollywood police, and for good reason (“Strong Arm of the Law”). I have been, along with another guy in South Central Hollywood, patrolling our neighborhood for three years. We report drug activity, which…
Vincent Del’Ostia, a tattooed, five-foot-nine, 160-pound 31-year-old with a history of drug abuse and psychological problems, paced outside the office door of the Entrada Motel on Federal Highway in Hollywood. High on cocaine, he wasn’t there to rent a room. He wrapped his hand around the doorknob and banged on…
Frank Cabadiana is a short, pit bull of a man who, as a 41-year-old National Guard sergeant, used to awe the younger soldiers in his unit by doing 20 one-handed pushups with each hand while delivering a lecture on the virtues of keeping fit. But he has lost a lot…
When John Kerry stumped in West Palm Beach last week, the pro-Bush sign-wavers were out. One young couple jiggled a banner that read “Florida Is Bush Country” beside the life-sized bronze elephants that freeze-frolic in the median of Okeechobee Boulevard. And a man in a white cowboy hat demanded that…
President Bush is coming to town Thursday night to debate John Kerry and try to earn your vote. But the question emerging now is not whether he should be elected but if he should be impeached for war crimes. Remember when the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal broke with all…
Columnist Cop Georgie Porgy, look out! Thank you, Bob Norman, for again being kind of the “morality police” for the right wing. Your article about Felix Rodriguez (“Contra Campaign,” September 23) and his campaign against John Kerry again highlights the moral depravity of the right-wingers such as the Swift Boats…
On an objectively perfect weekday afternoon at Fort Lauderdale’s Swimming Hall of Fame aquatic complex, dozens of squirming teenagers take laps in the 50-meter pool. Jack Nelson, stout as a runt pumpkin, with a mall-Santa belly and the built-in smile befitting a grandfather of 13, strides across the deck and…
A lot of South Floridians, seeing film crews set up on local streets or fashion models drape themselves across Fort Lauderdale’s famous seawall, believe we’ll be the next Tinseltown. Not in this century. If there is any real local connection to the pic biz — that entrepreneurial yeast culture in…
