Miami's Many-Accented Party

[PEDRO MARTORI]

 

From: "ricardo a gonzalez" <ricar...@msn.com>
Subject: Date: Monday, May 13, 2002 10:59 PM

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May 12, 2002

Miami's Many-Accented Party  /  By MIREYA NAVARRO

ONE needs only to hear the accented English spoken everywhere in
Miami, or smell the mud-thick coffee wafting from the counter windows
of Cuban diners, or watch the parade of cruise ships from the Port of
Miami to the Atlantic Ocean most afternoons, to feel in the midst of
an international hub.

The population on the streets is a hodgepodge of immigrant cultures —
people from Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, from Colombia, Argentina and
Brazil — and a sampling of more than 10 million visitors a year, about
half of them foreigners.

But surprisingly, it can take some work to fully absorb the area's
international flavor, because what the world knows as Miami is really
Miami-Dade County, with more than 30 municipalities besides the city
of Miami spread over 2,000 square miles.

In Little Haiti, a neighborhood that sprawls over dozens of blocks
north of downtown Miami, points of interest for a tourist require a
drive rather than a stroll. Little Havana, to the southwest of
downtown, known for its bustling Southwest Eighth Street, or Calle
Ocho — with restaurants, fruit stands, botanicas and shopping centers
— is less expansive, but just a tad. It is possible to park near
Domino Park, the corner of Eighth Street and Southwest 15th Avenue,
and eat some arroz con frijoles negros at the homey Exquisito
restaurant, buy a stogie at Las Villas cigar shop and browse for
souvenirs like coasters with Cuba's coat of arms at Little Havana to
Go.
But for New York-style walking in a compact area with an international
feel, the South Beach section of Miami Beach wins hands down. There,
you can stay in a European-owned hotel like Hotel Ocean on Ocean Drive
near 12th Street, where the restaurant Les Deux Fontaines has French
waiters and fado music. Or be served burritos or teriyaki salmon by an
Argentine waiter at Nexx Restaurant on Lincoln Road, and have the car
parked by a valet from Brazil. Or sunbathe topless at certain spots on
the beach along Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue, then while away the
afternoon nibbling on sushi under white canopies at Nikki Beach, a
St-Tropez-style club.

On a recent visit — admittedly during spring break — teenagers and
20-somethings turned Ocean Drive more into American Graffiti than the
America's Riviera touted by tourism officials. But it was still a joy
to explore this Art Deco neighborhood, particularly in the mornings.

Strolling along Ocean Drive and its intersecting streets on a Saturday
morning — past a jogger here, a Rollerblader there and the small
breakfast crowds under umbrellas at outdoor tables — I first stopped
for a shot of Cuban coffee and some guava pastry at the counter window
of Family Food Market No. 2 on Collins Avenue and 11th Street. There
is always a group of customers, usually Spanish-speaking, drinking or
munching away on the sidewalk there.

Wide awake, I spent the next hour window shopping along Collins and
Ocean Avenues. This is more a place of chain stores like Nine West and
Guess than international designer boutiques. For those, well-heeled
shoppers head for the Bal Harbour Shops some 90 blocks, or six miles,
north, where designs by Versace, Valentino and Prada as well as pricey
abstract art are displayed amid ponds and tropical flora.

Any walk around South Beach usually comes to a stop in front of the
1930 Mediterranean Revival-style mansion Casa Casuarina, on Ocean
Drive near 11th Street. It was on its steps that the fashion designer
Gianni Versace was fatally shot in 1997. The new owner, Peter Loftin,
a North Carolina telecommunications executive, plans to turn it into
an exclusive club similar to Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach.

A few blocks away, the Mediterranean vein continues in the 1920's
one-block village known as Española Way, which on weekends holds an
arts and crafts market with a wide array of goods, from Peruvian
leather to custom-made candles encrusted with sea shells. This block,
between Washington and Drexel Avenues next to 15th Street, is framed
by low buildings with red tile roofs, and this summer, a plaza with
medjool date palms and a two-tier fountain imported from Spain is
scheduled for completion at Española and Drexel to add to the Spanish
architectural feel.

For a more authentic village, I drove 20 minutes along the MacArthur
Causeway, which links Miami Beach and Miami, to Little Havana, a
neighborhood that over the last 15 years or so has diversified beyond
Cuban to include recent arrivals from other parts of Latin America.

In the two years since I last visited Little Havana, it has also
enjoyed an artistic renaissance. Along the streets with names honoring
Cuban patriots, artists' studios and performance spaces and hip clubs
and restaurants have injected new life into an area better known for
the traditional hangouts of older Cuban exiles.

There is P.S. 742, a performance space in a nondescript concrete
building at Sixth Street and 12th Avenue that one recent Saturday
night featured a band that fused Cuban standards like "Guantanamera"
with pop and rock and that drew a mostly Latin, bohemian-looking crowd
of all ages. Next door on 12th Avenue, 6G Art Space is known for its
Friday night rumba jam sessions, which draw such well-known
percussionists as Daniel Ponce.

Another much talked-about development in Little Havana is the Thursday
night party known as Fuacata at Hoy Como Ayer, a small Southwest
Eighth Street club where the Canadian D.J. Andrew Yeomanson mixes
Afro-Cuban rhythms with hip-hop, reggae and other sounds accompanied
by an improvising trio of saxophone, trombone and timbales and packs
the house with a young crowd of Miamians.

Calle Ocho is known for Cuban home-cooking restaurants like Versailles
and La Carreta. But there is now an inventive culinary addition called
Teté, a bright and cozy restaurant at 1444 Southwest Eighth Street
that is beautifully decorated with paintings and ceramic pieces by
local artists. On a recent visit, the menu was decidedly non-Cuban — I
ate squid stuffed with crab Louis with a side of black ink linguini —
while a two-man band played mellow Latin standards on keyboard and
sax.

Art, by Cubans and other Latin Americans, is plentiful at both museums
and private galleries. The city of Coral Gables, adjacent to Little
Havana, is known for its concentration of galleries along Ponce de
Leon Boulevard with vast collections of work from Latin American
masters and new artists. Some of the best-known galleries include
Elite Fine Art and Cernuda Arte. The area fills up with browsers on
the first Friday of every month from 7 to 10 o'clock for a gallery
night.

Little Havana has Cultural Fridays on the last Friday of the month
along Calle Ocho between Southwest 14th and 17th Avenues. For about
three hours starting at 6 p.m., businesses remain open for art
exhibitions, antiques sales and cigar making while local folkloric
groups play from a portable stage.

Participants include the Latin American Art Museum, which exhibits
emerging artists and houses several independent galleries selling work
for $50 to $160,000. Despite its name and emphasis on art from Latin
America, the museum welcomes artists from all over the world.

Much of the charm of Little Havana, however, is found in such
institutions as the many tabacaleras, or cigar factories, where old
Cuban experts hand-roll tobacco grown with Cuban seed in places like
Central America and the Dominican Republic. At one, Tabacalera Las
Villas, at 1528 Southwest Eighth Street, the tables where the cigars
are made were empty on an early Saturday afternoon — the rollers are
old and only work in the mornings, the owner, Pedro Bello, 73,
explained. But other tables displayed Mr. Bello's two brands in open
boxes: Havana Sunrise ($6 to $8 each) and Pedro Bello ($12 to $15
each.)

The Cubans are not the only ones to have transplanted a bit of their
country in Miami soil. The voodoo spirits and bright colors of Haiti
are in evidence at Jakmel Art Gallery and Cultural Center at 2301
Biscayne Boulevard, between Little Haiti and downtown Miami, not far
from the American Airlines Arena.

The gallery is in a two-story house adorned with a mural of the ocean
framed by verdant mountains. It is owned by Jude Papaloko, 37, a
painter, sculptor and mixed-media artist who opens his exhibitions
with both a party and a voodoo ceremony in the gallery's backyard.

In a recent show, "Behind the Mask," his steel sculptures and acrylics
on canvas mostly depicted voodoo gods and goddesses represented in
forms the artist said came to him in dreams. (The pieces sell from
$500 to $55,000.)

Mr. Papaloko offered to drive with me about 30 blocks north to
Botanica Halouba at Northeast 54th Street and First Avenue, a large
store in Little Haiti where shoppers can buy clothes, candles and
voodoo books and dolls to the beat of drumming background music.
There, visitors can find beautifully beaded Haitian voodoo flags for
$150 to $160 and have a consultation or card reading with Papa Paul, a
voodoo priest who has turned the back of his store into a temple.

But Miami is about its beaches more than anything else, and a perfect
end to my short visit awaited just minutes away back in Miami Beach.
At the south end of Ocean Drive, a public beach club, Nikki Beach, has
a European atmosphere, with 12 bars, a restaurant, dance floors, a
mostly French service staff and access to the public beach.

From my vantage point at an outdoor table under a white canopy hanging
from palm trees, I could see sun-bathers lying in a large circle of
chairs or by tepee huts, often with a drink in hand. Off in a corner,
a massage therapist was working the back of a well-muscled man.

On weekends, the club is open from 11 a.m. to 5 a.m., and the
clientele is half local and half tourists, from New Yorkers to Saudi
Arabians, according to the owner, Jack Penrod.

By late afternoon on Sundays, the attire evolves from swimsuits to
cool casual wear for a weekly party that draws up to 6,000 revelers.
The place has so much Riviera flavor, in fact, that Mr. Penrod is
planning to open a branch in St.-Tropez.

Visitor Information

Music and Art

P.S. 742, a performance space at 1165 Southwest Sixth Street, presents
dance, music, theater and performance art on most Fridays and
Saturdays. Information: (305) 324-0585.

6G Art Space, 533 Southwest 12th Avenue (entrance on Sixth Street),
(786) 543-6222, has Friday night rumba. Doors open 9:30; $5 cover.

Gallery night opens more than a dozen Coral Gable galleries on Ponce
de Leon Boulevard and nearby from 7 to 10 p.m. on the first Friday of
the month. Information: (305) 444-4493.

Cultural Fridays in Little Havana are the last Friday of the month
from 6 to 9 p.m. on Southwest Eighth Street (Calle Ocho) between
Southwest 14th and Southwest 17th Avenues. Information: (305)
644-9555.

Latin American Art Museum, 2206 Southwest Eighth Street, (305)
644-1127, www.latinartmuseum.org, is closed Sunday and Monday. Free.

Jakmel Art Gallery and Cultural Center, 2301 Biscayne Boulevard, (305)
573-1631, is open daily 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Music and poetry readings
start at 8 Saturday nights, $5.

Where to Shop

Tabacalera Las Villas, 1528 Southwest Eighth Street, (866) 858-2822,
is open daily.

Little Havana to Go, 1442 Southwest Eighth Street, (305) 857-9720, is
closed Sunday.

Botanica Halouba, Northeast 54th Street and First Avenue, (305)
751-7485, is open daily.

Elite Fine Art, 3140 Ponce de Leon Boulevard, Coral Gables; (305)
448-3800 is open Monday to Friday.

Cernuda Arte, 3155 Ponce de Leon Boulevard, Coral Gables; (305)
461-1050 is open Tuesday to Saturday.

Night Life

Teté, 1444 Southwest Eighth Street, (305) 858-8801, serves a fusion of
Italian and Caribbean cuisines. Dinner Wednesday through Saturday;
lunch Monday through Friday. Dinner for two with wine, about $80.

Hoy Como Ayer, 2212 Southwest Eighth Street, (305) 541-2631, holds its
Fuacata party on Thursday. Doors open at 9 p.m., music starts at
10:30. Cover, $5.

Nikki Beach, 1 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach; (305) 538-1231;
www.nikkibeach.com, is open 11 A.M. to 5 A.M., except Tuesday through
Thursday, when it closes at 5 p.m. The restaurant features a raw bar,
sushi and entrees like satay chicken and baked snapper on a bed of
shaved fennel and wakame. Dinner for two with wine, about $150.
Massages cost $40 a half-hour, $75 an hour.

MIREYA NAVARRO reports on Latin culture for The Times.



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