As Gold Coast magazine gears up for its 50thanniversary celebration, we have been noting all of the things that aren’t here anymore – along with a few that have been around as long, if not longer. Nearly none of the original 1965 advertisers still exists, at least not in the form they had then. Virtually every bank has changed its name through mergers. Even the Sun-Sentinel goes by a different name. The Fort Lauderdale News belongs to the archives. Even most of the older hotels go by different names. The exception is the hallowed, modernized Riverside.
Maus & Hoffman is still here. It is 75 years since William Maus and Frank Hoffman opened their high-end men’s clothing store on Las Olas Boulevard. And Carroll’s Jewelers, which started in Dade County and later opened on Las Olas, was among the handful of 1965 advertisers. Mark McCormick, our company president, likes to joke that their original ad pulled so well that Carroll’s didn’t have to buy another for 40 years.
Two now large educational centers, Florida Atlantic University and Nova Southeastern University, both started one year before the magazine, but they were just abandoned World War II runways looking for a second act. Broward County, of course, was already here. It celebrates 100 years in October of 2015. And it was just three years later that the Florida East Coast gave up passenger service, ironically just at a time when the rapid growth in cities up and down its tracks were making its rails ripe for a commuter train. That train came, but not on the FEC tracks, and now Henry Flagler’s railroad is having trouble convincing people that its renewed passenger service is a good idea.
Naturally, the magazine is pleased to tie in with companies and institutions celebrating anniversaries. Its April issue will salute many of them, and the individuals – many now gone – who altered and illuminated our times. An interesting anniversary, and this is hard to believe it has been that long, is the 30thanniversary of Covenant House. It seems like just yesterday that we wrote about the Rev. Bruce Ritter who brought the idea from New York, and made his center for runaway kids flourish with the community support of such people as Judge Estela Moriarity and Keith Koenig of Furniture City, who with his late brother took the water bed craze into a major furniture enterprise.
Covenant House is planning a big time celebration. The Night of Broadway Stars will be Feb. 21 at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts (speaking of things that weren’t here in 1965). This year’s honoree is Harry Durkin, who has volunteered at Covenant House for 25 years. A retired criminal attorney in New Jersey, Durkin is also known locally as a staunch supporter of his alma mater, Notre Dame. For six years he was president of the Notre Dame Club of New Jersey, and held the same office for eight years for the large and influential ND Club of Fort Lauderdale.
Recently a senior acquaintance made a profound observation.
"These days, when I get together with friends, they don't talk about things they used to talk about," he said. "Nobody is talking about last night's hot date, or who won the FSU game, the weather, or any of the stuff we used to talk about. All they talk about is their health. Who died, who is dying, what medications they are taking, what their wives are taking, what doctors they go to. How much does Medicare cover? It's all about health. That's all they talk about."
We agreed that this is a serious national health problem. Studies have shown that people who talk about nothing but health tend to die three or four hours sooner than people who never talk about health. But, based on our own recent experience, we offered our friend a suggestion.
"There is only one subject that can stop older people from talking about health," we said.
"What's that?" he asked, quite sincerely.
"Dogs."
"Dogs?"
"Dogs. We recently attended a gathering of what we expected to be interesting people. One worked for the power company and was an expert on wind and solar energy. Another was a former cleric who ran off with a 17-year-old he met in a drug program. Another was a woman who had been married to a former mob hit man. One man had been with the Rumanian army at Stalingrad. We looked forward to an illuminating night. The only problem was that our hostess had just gotten a dog and had also invited the dog to the party. As soon as the guests saw the dog, they began playing with him, or her, or it – whatever it was. All we know is that it was one of those little hair-in-the-eye dogs that kept sniffing our feet.
"We let them go for about 20 minutes, well into our second cocktail, but every time somebody told a story about their dog, somebody else wanted to talk about their dog. We tried to change the subject. We asked the energy expert if it was true that Florida is not that great of a wind state. We said it blows here all the time. The others kept talking about dogs, and he, trying to manage two conversations, said Texas had a lot more wind, and did we see the TV show about the dog that knew 10,000 words?"
“I saw that show,” said our acquaintance. “That dog was amazing. But, you know, dogs are smart. My dog knows people by names. And he remembers everybody. If somebody comes in that he doesn’t know, he gets shy and runs away. But if he knows you, he goes crazy. If I go away for a week he jumps all over me. And if he hasn’t seen you for a few days, he gets very excited, but not quite as much. But if he just saw you a couple hours ago, no big deal. And dogs know each other. I walk my dog in the morning and there are five or six other dogs that we see, and they know each other. It is Illegal to live on my street unless you have a least two dogs. Some families have enough to pull a sled in the Arctic. Some dogs my dog like better than others. You know, walking your dog is a great way to meet neighbors. People you never see at a homeowner’s meeting are out there walking dogs. And you meet interesting people. They love to talk about their dogs. There’s one woman who has a mongrel, looks like a little deer, and believe it or not, that dog is on tranquilizers. She thinks a previous owner abused him, and it was probably a man. The dog hates men, loves women. And if he sees a dog on television he goes nuts, attacking the screen. My boss has three tiny dogs that should be on tranquilizers. You walk in and they attack, you. One actually tore my pants. And he says ‘don’t move, he thinks he’s an attack dog.' Thinks he is. I saw online there are 20 breeds of dogs that should not be around small children. They are all loving, friendly dogs and very loyal and protective. But some are just too big. They can mistake very small children for biscuits and eat them. I hate people who don’t pick up after dogs. There’s one guy who has this enormous Great Dane and he lets him do it on my swale and he doesn’t pick it up. He would need a shovel and a wheelbarrow for that. But my dog isn’t afraid of him. He doesn’t know he’s barely as big as a mouse. He wants to fight all these big dogs.“
Our acquaintance paused for air, and we moved in.
“Everything okay. You feeling good?”
“Yeah, but I volunteered for a study on who has the potential for Alzheimer’s. Sometimes I forget names. And sometimes I mix up my telephone with the TV changer. I think a lot of people do that. Boy, get people on that subject and they never stop. All they talk about is health, and all the pills they take. Did I say this before?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry. They can give you something for that. And they say dogs help. Maybe you should get one.”
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| Grand Central Station |
There were hundreds of them, all over the place. Like most major rail terminals, Grand Central devoted a considerable amount of space for benches where travelers could wait until their train was called. But there were almost no travelers using the benches because homeless people were sprawled every which way in the waiting room, trash around them, aisles blocked by stuffed plastic bags. It was, to one who remembered Grand Central from an earlier time, an appalling scene, something from the third world, a dirty chaotic affront to thousands of travelers, many of them visitors from afar.
Fortunately, for those awaiting trains, there was a place of public refuge. In a mezzanine overlooking the many gates to the tracks, there was a bar, a New York landmark of sorts. It was always busy, especially at rush hour. It was hard to find a seat there and the drinkers were often several deep. No homeless were among that crowd; they couldn’t afford the drink prices.
Now, to people from New York, the homeless situation was no revelation. But to those from outside the city, seeing it for the first time was a shock, for the national news did not pay much attention, and no television satirists mocked the officials who tried to do something about it. And the city did try, constantly removing the people, sometimes busing them to shelters, trying to keep the waiting room orderly and available for travelers. Advocates for the homeless called this heartless, forcing people into the cold nights and citing the constitutional right of poor people to mingle with those better off.
Cops were quoted as feeling constrained; they could not arrest people for simply being in a public place. Some homeless were quoted, saying they did not like public shelters because of the rules. Homeless people do not like rules.
We did not see it firsthand, but eventually over 25 years the situation improved. That is, until recently. News reports on the Internet from last year said the situation at the terminal was returning to the 1980s. One newspaper, clearly no friend of the homeless, described “hobos” picking through trash cans for food. And again, the city was confronted by advocates defending the constitutional right of people to exist where they want to.
To this observer, the situation at Grand Central was light years more serious, and far more of a public nuisance, than what has been happening in Fort Lauderdale, with the efforts of the city to keep homeless from congregating in public parks and being fed on its popular beach. And yet Fort Lauderdale got a storm of bad national press, making the city look callous in its approach to a problem that is growing nationally, and which is not being handled well anywhere.
It has been pointed out that South Florida may be bearing more than its share of the problem, for it is warm and when people drift toward the sun, this is as far as they can go, unless they try Central America. Perhaps that’s what happened to New York’s unfortunates in the 1980s. They may have simply moved to Florida, but probably not by train.
***
The recent issue of Gold
Coast and Boca Lifemagazines carried a story on the transformation of Dillard Elementary School in northwest Broward from a failing school to one that is much in demand. Enrollment is the best indication of a community’s response to a school. We failed to note that in just three years under the leadership of Principal Angela Brown, Dillard Elementary has proved so successful that it went from under-enrolled to almost doubling its enrollment to more than 800 students. It is now over-enrolled, and has become one of the larger grade schools in Broward County.
Coast and Boca Lifemagazines carried a story on the transformation of Dillard Elementary School in northwest Broward from a failing school to one that is much in demand. Enrollment is the best indication of a community’s response to a school. We failed to note that in just three years under the leadership of Principal Angela Brown, Dillard Elementary has proved so successful that it went from under-enrolled to almost doubling its enrollment to more than 800 students. It is now over-enrolled, and has become one of the larger grade schools in Broward County. |
| Jason Robards (left) and Ben Bradlee |
The death of legendary Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee a few weeks ago was widely noted, especially in Washington, D.C. where his funeral was the biggest send-off since Tim Russert six years ago. Bradlee was universally praised as a great editor, who took over an average newspaper in the 1960s and turned it into one of the best, exceeded today in influence by only The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He was the man who broke the Watergate story that brought down an American president. He had the unusual advantage of becoming a media star when Jason Robards captured his appearance and style so vividly in the 1976 film “All the President’s Men.”
Say nothing but good of the dead. However, with the 51st anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination upon us this weekend, we must note that Ben Bradlee was not a flawless editor. One of the great curiosities of his long tenure at the Post is that for a man who was friendly with JFK, and one who was constantly pushing his paper to greatness, he seemed to take little interest in one of the biggest stories of the 20th century – the murder of an American president.
We will never know exactly why for sure, and it was not until late in his life that Bradlee discussed the matter publicly. In 2007, David Talbot interviewed him for his book, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, and asked why his paper was not more aggressive in investigating that tragic incident. Bradlee answered vaguely, saying that he was new in his job at the time and was cautious about getting involved in what most people thought was reckless speculation about a high level conspiracy. He was speaking of 1968, five years after the assassination. It took that much time for the first critics to begin gaining credibility with challenges to the Warren Commission’s findings that a lone gunman killed Kennedy.
Very few knew it then, and by 1968 he was also dead, but Robert Kennedy suspected all along that his brother had been killed by a conspiracy of government figures. Whether he ever shared that view with Bradlee is unknown. What we do know is that in 1980, by which time the Washington Post had broken the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate stories, Bradlee was at the top of his game. He had no reason to be insecure. But that was the year a sensational story broke right under his nose, in another publication.
The publication was Washingtonian magazine, which had been around for some time and was widely read throughout D.C., particularly when it covered political matters. It ran a story that appeared at the same time in Gold Coast magazine and its related Florida publication, Indian River Life. The story by Gaeton Fonzi was the result of his five years work for two congressional committees that had reopened the JFK investigation. It began with Pennsylvania Sen. Richard Schweiker, who had made his own examination of the information advanced by various critics. Schweiker concluded that the accused killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was not the “lone nut” the Warren Commission claimed. Schweiker said Oswald “had the fingerprints of intelligence all over him.” He asked Fonzi to check it out.
Coast magazine and its related Florida publication, Indian River Life. The story by Gaeton Fonzi was the result of his five years work for two congressional committees that had reopened the JFK investigation. It began with Pennsylvania Sen. Richard Schweiker, who had made his own examination of the information advanced by various critics. Schweiker concluded that the accused killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was not the “lone nut” the Warren Commission claimed. Schweiker said Oswald “had the fingerprints of intelligence all over him.” He asked Fonzi to check it out.Fonzi, working in South Florida with anti-Castro Cuban sources, developed a link between an important CIA agent and Oswald. A very credible Cuban source had seen his handler, a mysterious Maurice Bishop, with Oswald in Dallas shortly before the assassination. Out of understandable fear, and the fact that he wanted to keep working with his CIA contact in efforts to overthrow Castro, he had kept the story to himself for years. It was a sensational piece of information, made even more credible with corroboration by other sources over the years. It was to become the germ of Fonzi’s book, The Last Investigation, which was published in 1993, and is now recognized as a landmark work on the JFK assassination. But in 1980, it was just a long magazine article.
In Florida it created little stir. Our presentation was not ideal. The story was so long we printed it on cheap paper and ran it as in insert. Gold Coast’s lifestyle audience was not the natural readership for such matter. Washingtonian, however, had been doing the kind of provocative journalism that Ben Bradlee admired. The publication of Fonzi’s story was a major event, so major that David Atlee Phillips, the CIA agent identified with Oswald, sued the magazine for $7 million, serious money at the time. The suit was ultimately dismissed. In Florida, we had expected all hell to break loose when the Washington Post followed up. We figured it would go all over the world fast. But Ben Bradlee’s crusading Washington Post also dismissed the story. It did nothing.
Coast’s lifestyle audience was not the natural readership for such matter. Washingtonian, however, had been doing the kind of provocative journalism that Ben Bradlee admired. The publication of Fonzi’s story was a major event, so major that David Atlee Phillips, the CIA agent identified with Oswald, sued the magazine for $7 million, serious money at the time. The suit was ultimately dismissed. In Florida, we had expected all hell to break loose when the Washington Post followed up. We figured it would go all over the world fast. But Ben Bradlee’s crusading Washington Post also dismissed the story. It did nothing.Jack Limpert, editor of Washingtonian at the time, recently recalled the non-reaction. “The Post and pretty much everyone else ignored Gaeton’s piece,” he said.
Now, it is not unusual for publications to ignore being scooped by a rival. When Gaeton Fonzi exposed a corrupt Philadelphia Inquirer reporter in the 1960s, both the Inquirer and rival Evening Bulletin ignored the story – until it broke nationally a few weeks later. Fonzi in the 1960s also challenged Arlen Specter, the man who came up with the impossible “single bullet” theory, in Philadelphia magazine. It set the city buzzing, but again the newspapers remained mute. Even compared to those important stories, Washingtonian’s JFK piece was a giant, and for the Post to ignore it seems an inexcusable lapse of integrity.
Fonzi’s magazine article evolved into a book, by which time he had developed considerably more information and his work was being followed up by a number of researchers. Even then, the Post largely ignored him. Ironically, one of those influenced by Fonzi was former Washington Post reporter Jefferson Morley, but he had a difficult time getting the paper to run some of his dramatic revelations. He wound up giving a story about Oswald’s CIA connections, and the efforts by the CIA to impede Fonzi’s investigation, to the Miami New Times.
One can only speculate on what might have been if the Post had used its investigative resources to follow Washingtonian’s 1980 story. Most of the people now identified as part of the conspiracy, and its equally sinister coverup by the Warren Commission, were still alive. Today all are dead, safe from the arms of justice. The list included high-ranking members of the CIA, important elected officials, possibly military leaders and mafia figures – although the latter, if involved, were not the prime movers of the crime. Jack Ruby, who killed the alleged assassin, was mobbed up, but also had CIA connections. That has come out in dribs and drabs over the last 30 years, but the Washington Post long ago could have broken down the wall of silence and provided the truth – if only it had the will.
Ben Bradlee – great editor. But.
Rank has its privilege. That is a term used in the military to explain why generals live better than privates. And why, at a cocktail party, the general never need get his own martini. He simply says to the colonel, “I want a martini.” And the colonel asks the major, who asks the lieutenant, who asks the sergeant who asks the corporal who asks the private (if one is available) to get the general a martini.
The private gets the martini and gives it to the corporal, who gives it to the sergeant, who gives it to the lieutenant who gives it to the captain who gives it to the major who gives it to the colonel, who says to the general, “Sir, your martini, sir.” And, because rank has its privilege, the general may take a sip and say to the colonel, “too much vermouth” and hand it back for a repeat performance.
Rank also has its privilege in civilian life, as we see all the time. And as one who has followed the John Goodman DUI homicide trial as a fan of both polo and expert witnesses, we note that the “rank has its privilege” mantra still thrives. The average poor slob would be three years into a jail term right now, but Goodman is still trying to extend his limited freedom (he’s in the brig as we write) with legal maneuvers.
Unlike many commentators, we sympathize with the man. We met him once and he seemed like a good sport. And, while it is clear the poor rich guy is guilty, one has to feel for anyone who has spent so much money and still may do serious time. Many people forget that he gave the family of the man who died some $46 million. We don’t think the jury in his two trials heard that piece of trivia.
We wonder if he could do it again, would Goodman have used his wealth more wisely at the early stages of his problem. Perhaps he was not thinking clearly (who could, after a night of fun and a serious accident?) but Goodman might have just disappeared for a day or so, on the grounds that he was disoriented with a concussion. Therefore the very incriminating blood test might never have occurred. Alternatively, he might have gotten a total transfusion, getting the bad stuff out of his body, before reporting for a test. There certainly must be some bloody technician out there that could be bought for the right amount.
Expert witnesses could be bought to cover any discrepancies in this strategy. Experts always tell the truth as they see it. Ask any career expert witness what is the truth, and he or she, under oath, would say the truth depends on the size of their fee. And that’s the truth.
There are other legal precedents up with which creative lawyers might have come. For instance, why not argue that Goodman be allowed to send a substitute to jail, much as rich guys did in the Civil War? You could certainly find some fellow who deserves to be in jail for a crime he intended to commit, which obviously Goodman did not.
Perhaps it is time for us, as a society, to consider whether a rich man should simply pay to stay out of jail, providing he also makes a perfect act of contrition. Many would suggest that Gov. Rick Scott would make an excellent expert witness in that case.
Rank has its privilege.
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| Attendees at the Cox's Landing dedication ceremony. Photo by Art Seitz. |
As the monstrously successful Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show was in full sail around them, a high-powered group of local people met to celebrate the memory of a man who started it all. Cox's Landing, a modern boat launching facility, was inaugurated under perfect Saturday morning skies at Lauderdale Marina, founded by Bob Cox 67 years ago. His son-in-law, Ted Drum, who now runs the operation along with his own high-profile real estate company, reminded the audience of Bob Cox's history with the boat show. Although the modern show is rightly credited to Kaye Pearson, who in 1977 came up with the idea of having it in the water at Bahia Mar, it was Cox, who 55 years ago, decided that a boating capital such as Fort Lauderdale deserved a marine show. It began in an armory off State Road 84 (which is still there), quite a distance from today’s sprawling seven water-related venues.
It was just one of several fascinating anecdotes relayed by Drum about the man who died last year at 95, and who for 67 of those years was devoted to the South Florida marine industry, and equally strongly identified with sensible government at a time of spectacular growth in the city. He was on the Fort Lauderdale City Commission for more than two decades, five of them as mayor. His language was often as flamboyant as the sport coats he fancied, and it got him in trouble a few times, but he never lost the respect of those who knew him and appreciated his contributions to the area. Among them were deepening canals that have given Fort Lauderdale the nickname "Venice of America." That grew from his first experience in town when he arrived with a boat in 1946 and found it difficult to find a place to dock. He found a spot where the Navy had tested torpedoes in World War II and turned it into Lauderdale Marina.
Not many knew that this old salt had exceptional academic credentials; he was a graduate of prestigious Cal Tech. He was also a masterful marine mechanic, a skill that served him well in his early days. He was also a bit of a journalist, contributing several articles on the marine industry in the early years of Gold Coastmagazine. Later in politics, he was a mix of conservative social values and progressive ideas when it came to city planning. He was among those who discouraged the out-of-control spring break by supporting a major rebuilding of Fort Lauderdale's public beach.
To those living in the city's old Colee Hammock section, at least those who have been there long enough to remember the occasion, Bob Cox's memory has a special place. In the mid-1980s that neighborhood, which was once the eastern border of the city, found itself besieged by fast-moving traffic headed to and from the developing beach. Its once quiet, oak-shaded streets were becoming dangerous speedways. There was a quiet movement, led by real estate man Tom Adler, to close off the busiest streets. It was approved by the city with little comment, and then all hell broke loose when people on the beach and Las Olas Isles realized their raceways were gone. There was a contentious hearing at city hall - contentious until Bob Cox took charge. He explained the history of the city's growth, and how Colee Hammock was the last neighborhood before the beach – which was once virtually an island, before all the bridges were built. He said the city should not have let the traffic problem go unaddressed for years.
"We made a mistake, and now what we're doing is correcting it," he said. His argument prevailed, and soon neighborhoods all over the city saw similar street closures. The benefits of that movement have been widespread. With the naming of Cox's Landing, it is good to see the man's legacy preserved.
Browardization. New term, old refrain.
We heard this refrain before. Back in the 1970s, Boca Raton officials were alarmed at the threat of runaway development. They were looking south toward Broward County, especially Fort Lauderdale, where new oceanfront condominiums were leaping from the ground like spring tulips. “We don’t want to become another Fort Lauderdale” was the battle cry of the day.
The result was a density cap, limiting the number of people allowed in the city. It was eventually overturned by the courts, but it gave time for Boca to enact other rules that effectively slowed and controlled development. Indeed “Perfect Town,” as we once called it, is much different from Fort Lauderdale.
Now they are at it again. The Palm Beach Postreports opposition to ambitious development plans for the western part of Palm Beach County, some of it on land that was supposedly reserved as open space. People are again looking south for a bogeyman, with the slogan “We don’t want the Browardization of Palm Beach County.”
Different phrase, same idea. Alas, the complaint has merit. In both Dade and Broward counties, growth has been permitted well into what was once the Everglades. Miles of farmland is gone, wetlands turned to asphalt. Some think it sets us up for an ecological disaster, or at least a water crisis that could destroy much of the environment that draws people to South Florida in the first place.
For Broward, it is too late to retain the lifestyle that brought people here in the beginning. The traffic seems beyond the point of repair, even if All Aboard Florida and Tri-Rail achieve their desirable goals. All that will do is slow traffic growth a bit; it cannot correct the past. As we prepare for Gold Coast’s 50th anniversary next spring, we ask old timers what they think of growth. Almost all, including some who have prospered conspicuously with the development of Broward, say it was a much better place to live and raise a family 30 or 40 years ago.
And those are just the people still here. Many of those who grew up in the 1950s and ’60s have fled to places such as Stuart and Vero Beach, where high-rise buildings are non-existent.
Browardization. It’s an unfortunate, but apt term.
The Goodman DUI/homicide trial has temporarily knocked the campaign to stop All Aboard Florida off the front pages, but it will be back as soon as the judge declares a mistrial because of juror misconduct and postpones the matter for a few more years, by which time the defendant should be eligible for social security to help defray his considerable legal costs.
Meanwhile, while the debate rages over whether the Florida East Coast Railway should be allowed to be a railroad, the FEC doesn’t seem terribly worried about the outcome. Although it is making a big PR effort to meet with those who oppose its plan for high-speed rail between Miami and Orlando, assuring them that all the commotion associated with 32 new trains on its tracks will cause no commotion, it is going ahead as if it isn’t concerned about all the commotion.
It has announced plans to begin construction of a very big time complex, called Miami Central (pictured above), which will be the station for All Aboard Florida and Tri-Rail. The latter is anticipated to move some trains to the FEC tracks. Miami Central will be a lot more than a train station. The four-block complex on the site of the rail yard the FEC has owned forever will include a hotel, apartments, office buildings and retail, plus a huge parking lot to accommodate all this activity. It is more like the underground stations in New York, where Madison Square Garden sits over Penn Station, or Philadelphia, where blocks of offices are above the busy downtown commuter stations.
, apartments, office buildings and retail, plus a huge parking lot to accommodate all this activity. It is more like the underground stations in New York, where Madison Square Garden sits over Penn Station, or Philadelphia, where blocks of offices are above the busy downtown commuter stations.If anyone hasn’t already guessed, this shows that All Aboard Florida is at least as much a real estate play as it is a transportation initiative. The ambitious Miami plan, a boon to that city – turning a depressed area into a financial asset – will face no opposition. Combined with announced plans for new stations in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, the economic benefits to the FEC and surrounding communities are substantial. But the FEC needs the train to make it all work.
When Tri-Rail begins using the same tracks for commuter service, similar benefits could come to other locations in Palm Beach County. Not too many people up there seem to grasp this. We have noted before that All Aboard Florida initially will only serve West Palm Beach to Miami, but that could be a fall back plan if the Orlando route does not materialize. With a few more stations at key locations, the FEC would have a fast intercity service that by itself would justify the real estate investment.
.One way or the other, All Aboard Florida is going to happen, and in the long run – perhaps a very long run – give all of South Florida more than just a modern rail service. Given the way traffic is going, it is more than an asset. It’s a blessing.
Ever since the inspirational 1973 film, “The Sting,” in which Paul Newman and Robert Redford (with the help of screenwriter David S. Ward) took down a mobster, all America has admired great con men. Last week the Miami Herald’s Evan S. Benn reported on one of the current breed. Jimmy Sabatino apparently enjoyed his sentencing hugely, especially the revelation that even in jail he managed to rip off the government to the amount estimated (by him) at $247,000.
Sabatino, who loves publicity and calls the Heraldregularly, is serving time for fleecing hotels out of $594,000. According to Benn’s entertaining piece, last year, posing as a music-label executive, Sabatino enjoyed the good life at four Miami hotels, ordering $100,000 of booze to go with expensive rooms. He could not drink it all. Some $50,000 worth of Champagne was in his car when police arrested him.
While in jail, he talked his way into getting eye surgery, which he claimed cost taxpayers $247,000. Sabatino, who is only 37, has been conning most of his life, including a 1995 event in which, posing as a Blockbuster executive, he managed to get 262 free tickets to the Super Bowl, which he then sold. Unlike most con artists, who dislike being caught, Sabatino seems to crave recognition for his craft. Benn quotes the man’s father as saying he “needed attention like a drug,” allegedly the result of being abandoned by his mother.
What Sabatino does share with some other famous con men is a strange body. He carries more than 300 pounds on a 5-foot-6 frame. The photo in the Herald made him look like a smiling Humpty Dumpty. His girth, however, is far from a record for his profession. Back in the 1960s in the Philadelphia area, Sylvan Skolnick, whose specialty was bankruptcy for fun and profit, weighed 600 pounds. His nickname was “Cherry Hill Fats.”
One of South Florida’s most notorious con artists was also a bit of a freak. Phil Wilson, who masterminded the Bank of Sark fraud from a Fort Lauderdale office, was a tiny fellow. His specialty was producing beautiful documents that fooled even sophisticated investors. His bank, which actually had been chartered but never activated, was in the Channel Islands off Great Britain. It was a room above a gas station. It operated for four years until exposed. In the 1970s he wrote us from jail after Gold Coast magazine described his work:
“When you said I was a small con man, did you mean small in stature or small in the money we took? We took $40 million.”
By the 1980s, Wilson was out of jail and arrested locally again for running a scam based on taking fees from troubled businesses in return for phony certificates, which theoretically would help get them legitimate loans. Compared to Sark, it was minor league.
Although people such as Sabatino and Wilson enjoyed using their wits to take people’s money, at least they did not kill. The same can’t be said for Michael Raymond (aka Michael Burnett). Raymond attracted attention when he was suspected in the disappearance of Adelaide Stiles, a social writer for the old Fort Lauderdale News. Raymond, another fat guy whose lack of physical assets was offset by smooth talk, romanced the lonely Stiles. After he took what money she had (not nearly as much as he thought), he was suspected of murdering her aboard a boat and dumping her dismembered body in waters off the Florida Keys. It was later discovered that two other Florida business associates of his had similarly disappeared in the 1970s.
Raymond’s special gift was his ability to con the federal government, sort of. He managed to stay out of jail by convincing federal authorities that he could help them in various stings to catch bigger fish, especially political figures. He was a key player in the parking collections scandal that rocked Chicago and New York City in the 1980s. It was a story that began in South Florida when Gaeton Fonzi, a partner in Gold Coast at the time, began looking into Adelaide Stiles’ disappearance. The law finally caught up with Raymond when he was convicted in the mid-1990s of ordering the murder of a New York bank employee who was a witness in a fraud case against him. He died in jail.
Whether their physical appearance had anything to do with turning these men to crime, or whether their mothers are to blame for their unusual bodies, is a mystery. Maybe there is no connection at all. Certainly Paul Newman and Robert Redford did not seem to have any problems with their appearance.
At this time of year, when football season is about half over and many of the players on all levels have yet to be indicted, it is traditional for us to rate the uniforms and fight songs of the teams. Normally, we vote for the best uniforms, mostly on the college level, but this year there have been so many uniform changes, most of them nauseating, that the spirit of public service dictates that we rank the most awful uniforms.
Keep in mind that by tradition we favor tradition, so such teams as Notre Dame, Penn State, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Southern California and Harvard have an unfair advantage. They know what they look like and, like the Marine Corps, take great pride in their traditional look, and never change it, unless there is a lot of money involved. So forget them for the moment and let us focus on schools that have such bad taste that they should give up football, and in fact close their doors for good.
Starting close to home, the University of Miami gave away 10 points last weekend when they came out looking like clowns against a Georgia Tech team that wore a novelty uniform for what they call “white day.” The uniform was white, gently accented with gold, the Papal colors. By tradition, we oppose such novelty uniforms, but this one looked elegant. Miami, in contrast, gave fans stomach cramps with awful green helmets and bilious green pants. The helmets lose the impact of Miami’s “U” logo, one of the most distinctive and recognizable symbols in football. It goes back to the early 1970s before the Hurricanes became a national power. But that logo, orange and green, demands a white background. Green against green just doesn’t work.
How could a team that won national championships wearing white helmets, where the logo stood out majestically, and usually white pants with orange jerseys, have fallen so far in taste? Especially when Coach Al Golden came out of Penn State, which prides itself on a classically conservative look, with hardly a stripe to be found on its blue and white livery. You would think a Nittany Lion would resign before letting his team dress like buffoons.
Notre Dame appalled its alumni (even the TV guys mentioned it) with novelty uniforms against Purdue. But they came back, reportedly at the insistence of the Pope himself, to their storied unadorned blue and gold uniforms to go 5-0. They were helped when Syracuse gave them 10 points by coming out in putrid ash and Prussian gray uniforms. That a team, which once featured Jim Brown, Ernie Davis and Floyd Little with orange helmets and blue jerseys, could lose its sense of history is a failing matched only by a dozen other teams that have given up classic uniforms to look like drunks on Halloween.
Washington, which used to dress pretty well, is catching up with neighbor Oregon in making its players look like demons from the lower regions, but neither compares to Maryland, which has taken one of the most attractive state flags and desecrated it by sprawling it all over sterodic uniforms. The only thing for Maryland to do at this stage is give up football and design a new state flag.
Let us abandon this depressing subject, and move on to fight songs. Fortunately, great fight songwriters come along only once in a century, so you don’t have much to change. The only additions are an occasional theft of a tune written for a different purpose, as when Texas A&M appropriated the stirring theme from the film “Patton.”
Years back, when he was coaching the Tampa Bay Bucs, we asked John McKay if he liked fight songs. “Notre Dame has the best,” he said with authority. This is a man who regularly beat Notre Dame while he was the coach at the University of Southern California. We suggested “Fight On For USC,” Michigan’s stirring “Hail To The Victors," “Fight On Brave Army Team” and Georgia Tech’s “Ramblin’ Wreck” as worthy of consideration.
“No, Mac,” he said, “when you lead USC into South Bend and Notre Dame’s fight song inspires your team, that’s a great fight song.”
