RAMP 48 is a low-budget affair, 25,000 square feet of raw commercial space that used to be a West Palm Beach indoor flea market. Now, with the aid of many unpainted two-by-fours, plywood, and industrial-grade, mesh-metal fence, it’s separated into several distinct zones of skateboard topography including ramps, platforms, and…
Pay to play: I read Bob Norman’s article in the New Times with great interest (“Red Alert,” September 20). As a downtown New Yorker who lived through the September 11 tragedy and as a passenger on Continental Airlines this weekend, I can assure you that nothing has changed. The security…
The beep of the money-wiring machine is almost nonstop, the line is growing, and Agnes Essien is working harder than she expected during the last days of August. If the customers don’t want to send cash to loved ones, then they’re bringing in payments for the electric company. Or they’re…
It happened in the waning days of one of the greatest orgies of conspicuous consumption in American history, an era when investors threw millions at baby-faced dot-comers, where the stock market reached stratospheric heights, and boomers saw their retirement nests get super-sized to Jurassic proportions. It happened with terrifying ease…
The Biggest Story Anyone Can Remember poses a conundrum for any hometown newspaper from a hometown that isn’t New York or Washington, D.C. On one hand the story of the terrorist attacks and their aftermath is epic, moving, and deeply relevant to every American. On the other hand it is…
An inferiority complex bred their racism: In regard to “The Heart of Whiteness” by Adam Pitluk (September 6), I am not Jewish or African, and I am not a racist. I am of Russian descent, 35 years old, and male. I grew up in north Philly in a rough neighborhood…
Inside the palatial Palm Beach County Courthouse on March 29, 2000, Melvin Donald Ruth pleaded for his freedom, trying to convince the judge he wouldn’t run if he were let go. Ruth, who had been jailed on a probation violation stemming from a 1996 fraud conviction, had reason to feel…
They say we were taken completely off guard. Since suicide hijackers crashed airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, government officials have repeated in media reports that the country had been caught completely by surprise. U.S. intelligence officials have declared that they knew terror was planned but expected assaults…
The smooth, mellow sounds of the Grateful Dead reverberate throughout Luke Lukasik’s black Land Rover in the early morning hours as he winds from his home in Port Orange toward New Smyrna Beach, 50 miles northeast of Orlando. “Ripple” is the song of choice this morning, from a recently released…
Watching the Hollywood City Commission is like sitting down to tea with the Mad Hatter; gibberish is table talk, sense doesn’t make any, and time seems stopped at six o’clock. That’s when the 12-hour discussion of a zoning issue began September 12. Twelve hours. Zoning. Four hours into the madness,…
Some of his best friends are…: I thought Adam Pitluk’s September 6 article (“The Heart of Whiteness”) was interesting and good, not the usual smear of white people and their interests that seems to be the rule nowadays. I’m not a member of any of the groups associated with white…
The streets breathe heat. Wavy vapors liquefy distant sights. A stop sign ahead evokes the work of Salvador Dalí. In the rear-view mirror of Bernard Benson’s silver 2009 Saab Nomad, things are closer — and stranger — than they appear. “The Persistence of Memory,” Benson mutters, recalling the famous painting…
Twenty years ago Jahib Daher bought ten acres of mosquito-ridden, melaleuca-choked swamp in far western Broward County. The land around his still looks the same, but Daher has turned his property into a private Eden. The 53-year-old, his wife Dalva, and their three children share their land with five dogs…
Sometimes life is so good. For example Undercurrents spent a recent Thursday morning in a Boynton Beach trailer home listening to a trans-transsexual sing Sinatra tunes in a dead-on, Ol’-Blue-Eyes baritone and got a needed reminder that the world is a big place full of surprises. David King was the…
Aryan gods are who they think they are, silly: Upon reading Adam Pitluk’s latest article (“The Heart of Whiteness,” September 6) I am once again left feeling emotionally drained, pissed off, frightened, hopeful, confused, and nostalgic for my Bubby’s and Papa’s hugs. While I understand the importance of education and…
On an overcast, oppressively muggy mid-August afternoon at John Prince Park in Lake Worth, the “Racial Holy War” seems far away indeed. As I sit at a picnic table under a pavilion by the bank of a stagnant creek that meanders through the park and empties into Lake Osborne, six…
At 33 years old, Ivette Mendive had wearied of her job as a dental hygienist and craved a dramatic change in her life. So early this year the Coral Gables resident posted her résumé on the Monster.com job board, hoping to break into a more challenging field. Mendive had good…
As one in a series of public-service columns penned to fulfill Undercurrents’ probation requirements, we herein present installment four of “Politics in the Real World.” Today’s topic: How to turn a drab zoning issue into a sexy assault on freedom of religion. Step one: Buy property in a neighborhood of…
On the writer…: I’m impressed! Finally somebody took the time to dig into the manure pile and come up with a gem. Bob Whitby’s piece on the Boca [Raton] News (“Bad News,” August 30) is the kind of writing I did when I was an investigative reporter… when newspapers encouraged…
For a newspaper that hasn’t made money in more than 20 years, the Boca Raton News sports some headquarters. “The Palace,” as employees sneeringly refer to it, is a square office building nestled in arboreal splendor at 5801 N. Congress Ave. in Boca Raton. Past the $10,000 fountain that looks…
In daylight it’s easy to find the massive, two-story, square, white building trimmed in cobalt and gold with its name etched in Flintstones-like letters above the front archway. Kids and adults, playing and exercising, are clearly visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows of both stories of the Palladium Athletic Village in…
Late one afternoon Cheryl Sadar walks into the backroom of her pet-grooming business, Kritters Pet Supplies, and retrieves a sealed, transparent plastic bag packed with black and white matted hair. When she opens it, the odor of stale urine fills the air. Another, smaller bag holds a handful of short,…
