Category: Miami Stories

My family moved to Miami from Philadelphia in August 1959 as I was nearing my 6th birthday. My father, Nate Adelman, owned a successful furniture store in Philly and at the ripe old age of 40 decided to hire someone to run the business for him while we would live in sunny Miami and enjoy the beautiful weather and sandy beaches. After spending our first year in the Shenandoah neighborhood we moved to a beautiful new house in the Skylake section of North Miami Beach.

North Miami Beach was a wonderful place to grow up. The neighborhoods were very safe and kid friendly. You could play outside at all hours of the day without any fears and there were many fun and interesting activities to partake in. At the back of our home was Sparling Lake. We would swim and fish in the lake and my older brother and sister, Nolan and Linda, would go water skiing in our 15-foot Boston Whaler boat. We lived just a few blocks from Greynolds Park and you could spend the day there hiking through the trails, fishing, and riding on the paddle boats.

My mother, Zena Adelman, would roast the most amazing rotisserie chickens and the family would enjoy our lunch sitting on the picnic tables in one of the park pavilions overlooking the lake. Each Sunday the family would spend the day together at nearby Haulover Beach along with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We would grill burgers and hot dogs, go swimming in the ocean, and play games of horseshoes in the sand.

The 163rd Street shopping center was an open-air center back then and was the place to go. Besides Burdines, Richards, JC Penney, and Woolworths there were the movie theaters and the little amusement park full of rides for the children. It was also the home to such wonderful eating places back then as Corky’s, Wolfie’s, Mr. Coney Island, Mr. Donut, and Figaro’s Pizza.

Back in the 1960s the public schools in North Miami Beach were not air conditioned or heated. In the winters you would really have to bundle up to stay warm and the rest of the year you had to battle the heat. I can remember the sweat running down my forehead onto the papers I would be writing on throughout my years at Ojus Elementary, JFK Junior High, and Miami Norland Senior High.

North Miami Beach had a very large Jewish population during the time I grew up there. I attended Hebrew school at Beth Torah and later on at Temple Adath Yeshuron. These were both wonderful congregations and along with my magnificent parents they taught me important family values that have stuck with me throughout my life.

As I got to be an older teen I experienced the wonders of downtown Miami. My best friend and I would take an hour-long bus trip to Flagler Street to check out the stores and restaurants and take in a movie or two before taking that long trip back home. It was like visiting another country for us back then with all of the Cuban cultural things we would find there that were so different than what we were accustomed to at that time in North Miami Beach.

After graduating high school I began what was to be a temporary weekend job as inventory help at the new JByrons department store at the Skylake Mall. That temporary job ended up lasting 25 years. I worked as a stock boy and salesperson while attending Miami-Dade Community College and later FIU. After graduating from college in 1975 I went into their management program and was the store manager at many of their locations from 1977 until they unfortunately went out of business in 1997.

During my 20 plus years in retail management I worked in numerous areas of Miami-Dade County, such as Allapattah, Suniland, Cutler Ridge, Homestead, Kendall, Skylake, Hialeah, and Coral Gables. I was very fortunate to work with so many outstanding people during those years of all different races, ethnicities, and cultures that help make Miami the incredible city that it is. It also allowed me to meet my beautiful wife, the former Susana Suarez.

We have been married now for over 38 years and have the pleasure of living a multi-cultured life of American-Cuban, as well as Jewish-Catholic. We, along with our loving daughter, Michelle, son-in-law Lu, and new baby grandson, Angel, speak in both English and Spanish, celebrate a number of diverse holidays such as Hanukah and Christmas, and cook and enjoy foods like matzo ball soup and arroz con pollo.

We get to attend the bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs of my sister Linda’s beautiful grandchildren and also Noche Buena celebrations with all of the wonderful members of my wife’s family who have been very loving toward me from the very first day I met them. I wouldn’t want to have lived my life in any other way.

As mentioned earlier, these are just some of the things that make living in Miami so unique and I am so happy that I was able to grow up and live here the vast majority of my life.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Robert Conner died on March 3, 2012 before he was able to finish compiling his Miami Story. His wife Linda Conner submitted the article for publication on the one-year anniversary of her husband’s death:

I was born at Jackson Memorial Hospital, but my life really began when I was fortunate enough to be adopted by Wilton and Enid Conner.

Dad, “WW” as he was known, grew up in Washington, D.C. Mom is from Marietta, Ohio, and grew up on a farm. Dad was transferred to Miami by the U.S. Quarantine Service in 1943.

They first lived on Biscayne Boulevard, and then, in 1946, bought a home in Hialeah. The house was quite small, especially by today’s standards, at about 700 square feet and it cost less than $6,000. In those days, there was a cow pasture across the street and Hialeah was a very small town. Henry Milander was the mayor – often referred to as “King Henry” – and he got me my first job, with the trash department.

Most of my friends went to Hialeah High School, but I ended up at Miami Springs High the first year it opened. During high school, I joined the civil air patrol just so I could go flying in airplanes. We spent the most time in C119 Boxcars, flying out of Opa-Locka airport, and had bivouacs in various places, including Greynolds Park.

I looked forward to the special occasions when we ate out at Pickle Herring Charlie’s or went for ice cream at Jahn’s on Miracle Mile. We went to the Essex theater on Hialeah Drive, the Olympia Theater downtown and the Drive-in on LeJeune. On the way to the drive-in or to Jahn’s, you might get stopped by an airplane on LeJeune Road, because the hangars were on the east side of the street and they would taxi across to the runways on the west side.

The family attended the Presbyterian church and mom sang in the choir. After high school, I was going to go to Central America to work with a missionary group from the church, but plans changed and my girlfriend, Pat Walters, and I got married. We found a garage apartment in Biscayne Park and I went to work for Winn-Dixie, and a little while later we welcomed our daughter, Tamara. As too often happens when couples marry young, Pat and I parted ways and Tami now lives in Alabama with her husband, Charles Anderson, an Iraq war veteran.

I stayed on in South Florida and went to work for flood control, part of the water management agency. My route took me all over the county and out into the Everglades. Later, I became a manager at Arby’s on Coral Way, and started the most interesting part of my life.

It was the early 1970s when I became a volunteer at Switchboard of Miami, often referred to as the “hippie hotline.” The cast of characters volunteering at Switchboard was an interesting one – Vietnam vets, commune members, bored-but-committed rich kids, high school and college students looking to find their way.

Volunteers were given basic first-aid training and on-the-job training for answering the phones. Phone calls also ran the gamut from callers just looking for someone to talk with and listen to their problems, to partiers looking to identify the drug they were about to ingest, to the more serious calls from people contemplating suicide and those who had taken too much of a drug and were afraid to go the hospital.

We also directed people to various agencies for everything from food stamps, to housing, to spousal or child abuse. We ran first-aid rooms or tents at all the concerts, which was a particularly popular job with volunteers as it got us into all the concerts free.

In the summer of ’72 we had a call that there was a riot on Miami Beach and all hands were needed to go to Flamingo Park to render first aid and help with the situation. It was the Republican National Convention and many were braced for trouble.

Miami Beach was blessed to have at that time an amazing police chief in Rocky Pomerance. Chief Pomerance was smart and calm, and he created a “no bust zone” in Flamingo Park . So rather than a riot, we arrived to find “Beat Poet” Alan Ginsburg sitting in a large circle reading his poetry and smoking – and he was completely nude. It was quite a sight.

I would say that it was a wasted trip but something happened that would change my life forever. I grabbed a ride home from someone with a car and, when I got in, I met Linda Schimmel, my future wife. We got married in 1975 at the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables. Linda always says it was a much larger wedding than originally planned, as every time I ran into old friends I would invite them. It was an interesting guest list and the best party I ever went to!

At the time, I was working as a bridge tender running the Brickell Avenue Bridge, and then I transferred into bridge maintenance. Eventually, I left work with the state to pursue my talent, which was working with plants. I went to work as grounds foreman at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, and then in plant cultivation and production, and finally to work for myself doing landscaping and lawn maintenance.

Linda and I loved to eat out, but many of our favorite places no longer exist. Later in life, we were not much into concerts anymore, but were big Marlins fans and really looked forward to the new ballpark.

From Linda Conner:
Bob was diagnosed with cancer in 2004 and suffered many challenges. Back when “Miami Stories” started appearing, we began working on our own stories and, as Bob’s health declined, it fell by the wayside. He passed away March 3, 2012, never having quite finished, and never getting to sit in Marlins Park. As his wife, I have gone back and done a little “polishing” of Bob’s Miami Story, but it is a fond remembrance of his life in South Florida.

During the early 1940s, my dad was making uniforms for the Armed Forces, but by 1944 it was time to move on.

Dad had experience working in his father’s hotel in Hartford (The Hotel Bond) and his brother already owned a hotel in South Beach. When they learned The Betsy Hotel was available, Dad (Abe Libman) leased it with his brother (Lou Libman), and that began our life in Miami Beach.

The hotel was a great pride and joy. I handled the beach chairs and towels for our guests and made great tips. I knew Rocky Pomerance then, when he was just a rookie on the police force. He was on a six-month trial period, but Rocky was bright. He wore an arm band that read in Spanish that he could speak Spanish, but he couldn’t speak a word.

We leased the downstairs of the lobby of The Betsy to S & G (a gambling syndicate) and that’s where I would go and have my lunch with my brother. They would be on the phones, and we would have cold cuts – corned beef, salami, and every other kind of cold cuts you could think of, plus cold drinks and coffee, and they would help me with math homework.

When my dad entered into an agreement with the National Baptist Convention, The Betsy became one of the first hotels to allow a black convention to be held in Miami Beach. Our friends at the Henrosa Hotel around the corner promised us that nothing would go wrong, and they sat in the lobby keeping watch. It was a great convention.

When my friend Irwin Meltzer and I were teenagers, we thought a night club for teenagers would be great idea. We made a deal with the owner of the Wofford Hotel, next to the Roney Plaza, and we started the Rhythm Club, with ice cream, soft drinks, and jazz from Liberty City. It was a blast.

South Beach was a kid’s playground, but the graveyard for old people. At The Betsy, we had Mrs. Tisch, Larry and Bobby’s mother. Larry (Laurence Tisch) told me he was going to build a high-rise hotel in Bal Harbour, and call it the Americana. I told him he was nuts, too far from the beach. Was I wrong!

My brother and I went to different schools. I went to the Lear School, on West Avenue, and my brother, Larry (the smart one), went to Beach High. My brother went off to the University of Florida and I went to the Air Force.

I was stationed in San Francisco and took advantage of being in the Air Force by going to the University of California, taking night courses. I also taught judo and life-saving training. I moved up to sergeant very quickly and was discharged 3 1/2 years later.

When I returned, I got a job at the Robert Richter hotel as an assistant manager. Later, I went to the Versailles, and then I became the assistant manager at the Floridian. I ran the card games for Mike Wassell, Meyer Lansky and others, and supplied the food and was allowed to cut the pot. Later, I became the manager of the Floridian, and then the manager of the Fleetwood, next to the Floridian.

I was introduced by mail to Bleema, a very beautiful girl in Montreal, and after three years of writing, but not seeing her or calling her, I went to the Cornell School of Hotel Administration in Ithaca, N.Y. My father said I was so close to Montreal, I had to meet her.

Three dates and now 58 years later, we are still married, with four children and seven grandchildren. What a lucky break. You should always listen to your parents. We came back to Miami Beach, and I took over the Bal Harbour Hotel as manager.

Those years were exciting. When a friend of mine, Irwin Gars, got out of law school, we started to develop commercial real estate in New England, but remained living in Miami Beach.

Much has happened in Miami Beach, and it’s still the greatest place to live. The future of Miami Beach is in the leadership it will have, and I think the new convention center will make a big difference. Miami Beach will be here for the next generation. Enjoy it – it’s one of a kind.

Sheila Presser (Bronx born) and Norman Litz (a Philadelphian) both moved to Florida with their families in 1946. Sheila graduated from South Broward High School, named “The Wittiest” in her senior class. Norman graduated from Miami High, a left-handed star pitcher on the baseball team; he was also known as “Lefty Litz.”

Upon graduation, the University of Miami offered Norman a baseball scholarship; he pitched for two years as a Miami Hurricane. He had offers from the St. Louis Cardinals and the Boston Braves, but instead he made the decision to enlist in the United States Air Force, during the Korean War. It was 1951.

Norman, also known as my father, was sent to Los Alamos, N.M., for two years. During this period, Dad worked in the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, and was then sent on temporary duty to the Marshall Islands (Eniwetok Atoll and Bikini Atoll) and the Mercury Proving Grounds (outside Las Vegas) where he participated in the testing of the atomic bomb and the H-bomb. He speaks often about this experience of a lifetime, remembering every detail. He has always spoken very proudly of his service to our country.

Fast forward to 1957. Sheila, my mother, a radiology technician, worked at Mount Sinai through the early ‘60s, and continued her career managing physicians’ practices for many years thereafter. Her finest job, however, was that of being our mom, and no one ever did it better.

Mom and Dad met in 1960. They married in 1961, and embarked on their life together, living on Miami Beach. Dad’s career began with the City of Miami Beach, first as an auditor. He was soon after offered the job of assistant manager at the Miami Beach Convention Center. In 1971, Dad was promoted to director of the Convention Center (and the Jackie Gleason Theater of the Performing Arts), where he remained until his “first retirement” in 1993. Dad spent 22 years in this extraordinary position, hosting the 1968 Republican National Convention and the 1972 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, the major expansion of the MBCC in the late 80s and, if you give him an hour or two, he could come up with innumerable experiences while there.

Though Dad loved his work, it required so much of his time – many weekends and evenings, too. That left Mom with the gigantic task of raising their two children, kind of single-handedly. You know what? They made it work. Moreover, they raised two children who love life, cherish their family immensely, and enjoy their flourishing careers.

Post-Miami Beach Convention Center, Dad came out of retirement, bored to death, and finished up his long career with the Lincoln Theatre-New World Symphony as facilities director, from 1994 through 2008. Like the Lincoln Theatre, Dad, too, is truly a Miami Beach “landmark!”

Now, the children: Steve Litz, political reporter for NBC-6 with a career in television that has spanned 20 years; and me, Ronni Litz Julien, nutritionist/author/media consultant for the past 28 years.

Steve and I had what you might consider a “normal and happy” childhood. We are both Miami natives, born at Mount Sinai, and have remained loyal Miami residents most of our lives. The public schools we attended – North Beach Elementary, Nautilus Junior High, and the beloved Miami Beach Senior High – educated us well. We grew up with tons of love, a meaningful value system (and a true zest for life and a desire to be successful, joyful and well-respected adults. Our parents instilled so much good in us, which we hope we have now “paid forward” to our children, the next generation of Miami natives.

Seven years ago, Steve took a reporter position in Miami at NBC-6 after a 10-year stint working for the ABC affiliate in Charlotte, N.C. It was a very special event when Steve moved back home, which meant our nuclear family was reunited, along with Sheila and Norm’s three grandchildren (my children, Jamie and Jordan, and Steve’s son, Seth).

My own career as a nutritionist began in 1986, after completing my undergraduate college education at Florida International University, then receiving my master’s degree from Boston University. After only one winter in Boston, this Florida girl ran back to Miami.

I had the good fortune to have done so many things, and am blessed with a job I love, teaching healthful eating habits, longevity and behavior change. I have authored three nutrition-related books (national book tour included), plus a parenting manual on how to teach children better eating habits. Additionally, I have been a media consultant to most of the television stations here in Miami and have taught at the college and high school levels, but most of my years have been spent in private practice. Presently, I have expanded my practice to “concierge nutrition,” in which I go into the home and develop nutrition programs for the family, focusing on any and all nutrition and medical-related conditions. I am blessed with a wonderful life here for the past 50 years, and can only hope it continues as long as good health allows it.

Steve recently covered a special story on the possibility of the Democratic National Convention returning to Miami in 2016. He called Dad and asked him for a few “sound bites.” Once I saw the piece air that night – when Steve Litz interviewed Norman Litz – I realized that our lives here in Miami had come full circle.

I was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania and moved to Ft. Pierce, Florida, in June of 1940. Shortly after we moved to Ft. Pierce the Japanese attacked Hawaii and we entered WWII.
Back then the newspapers were not allowed to print everything that was going on. There was a slogan: “a slip of the lip will sink a ship!”
When a boat was blown up off the coast of Fort Pierce, we could feel the vibration in our homes. There was no news on the radio or anything in the paper and for some reason we never talked about it. I think being teenagers, we had no idea how serious it all was.
One late afternoon, two girlfriends and I were sitting on the beach watching a convoy of several big ships go by. They were so close that we could see the sailors wave their shirts at us and we knew they were watching us. That night every one of those ships was sunk. We went to the beach the next day and watched the ships still burning—I don’t know if there were any survivors. This was not on the news or in the paper.

The Ft. Pierce beach was an island by itself and the only way to it was over a drawbridge. There were a few houses on the beach, a Coast Guard station, a Coast Guard tower that was manned 24/7 and a casino with a dressing room, rest room, and a snack bar that was right on the beach.

The Coast Guard fellows had one day off, one day stand by, and one day duty on the tower. It was within walking distance of the casino. They usually spent a lot of their “time-off days” at the casino. As dating teenagers, we too spent our free time at the casinos when we went to the beach. As we had no cars and gas was rationed, we rode our bikes everywhere or we walked.

One night Hazel and I went to a movie and in the middle of it, an usher came in and announced that all Coast Guard men were to report to duty, then all Coast Guard auxiliary were to report, and then any doctors were to report to the hospital, and so on until there were just a few of us left in the theatre.

When I got home, my dad took us over and parked our car by the hospital and we saw ambulances go to the hospital and then to the funeral home. Later we learned a whole American convoy had been bombed, burned, and sunk. We often heard bombing blasts that were so drastic that our windows and walls shook. A couple of places in town could hardly keep glass in their windows because of the vibrations.

We had a United Service Organization (USO) in Fort Pierce which organized programs, services, and entertainment for the troops. Any young, unmarried women who wanted to volunteer had to be approved by a committee of the organization before they could participate in the activities.

All activities were well chaperoned. Camp Murphy, now Jonathon Dickenson State Park, was a radar military base, located south of Stuart. They would bus us girls to Camp Murphy once a week to a dance. The bus was stopped at the base entrance and thoroughly inspected. We were not allowed to leave the bus until we got to the dance hall and then we were escorted by military men on each side of the sidewalk and not allowed to leave the dance hall at any time.

Ft. Pierce was financially in bad shape during the war. There were no tourists and no money was coming in. The politicians were trying to get a military base to come into town to bring in money and finally, a surprise! A train load of sailors came into Ft. Pierce; no one knew they were coming so the city did not know where to put them or how to feed them.

A Red Cross city manager and everyone in town went to work to solve this problem and the result was an amphibious Navy training base in Ft. Pierce. They took over the south beach which included all the mosquitos and sand flies! The beach closed to everyone except military. Again we had a lot of explosions as they built concrete waits and then practiced blowing them up. By then, we were used to the explosions so didn’t think anything about them.

During the time I lived in Ft Pierce I met my husband Les who was in the Navy as Medical officer. After discharged from the Navy, Les took employment in banking and was also in the National Guard. Over time his banking career took him down the east coast of Florida and eventually landed in Miami were we took up permanent residency in Homestead. We’ve been here since 1972 and love it.