There’s no better time to be a Miami-an than when the rest of the country is freezing. These are the moments when social media in Miami comes alive with hilarious weather-themed memes, tweets, Instagrams, and pins rubbing in that we live in paradise. This week, while the Northeast is coated in 20 to 30 inches of snow, the reaction has been no different. And, while we hope the nor’easter will continue being gentle to our east coast friends, we can’t help but also revel in our incredible subtropical climate by sharing a winter outfit post that is 100-percent Miami. Because, who else can refer to a skort and t-shirt as their winter whites? Continue reading “#ThankYouMiami for Fashion – 100-Percent Miami” →

This Article is a repost from ArtPulse. http://artpulsemagazine.com/art-vs-real-estate-gentrification-and-urban-artistic-scenes

Do you agree with Miami being a place where there is hope in disrupting the cycle of gentrification? Let us know your thoughts.

Art vs. Real Estate. Gentrification and Urban Artistic Scenes

By James Lough

To avoid hearing about gentrification in U.S. cities over the last five years, you would have to live in a bomb shelter. In February, film director Spike Lee’s swear-word-studded rant against gentrification in Brooklyn went viral. Lee is only one in a series of well-known artists who have weighed in on the topic. Former Talking Head David Byrne recently wrote of Manhattan, “There is no room for fresh creative types. Middle-class people can barely afford to live anymore, so forget about emerging artists, musicians, actors, dancers, writers, journalists and small business people.” Patti Smith advised young artists: “Don’t move to New York.”

While gentrification displaces the poor and working classes, it is also a threat to young artists, more so than Joseph McCarthy, Jesse Helms or Tipper Gore ever were. It upsets a nearly 200-year-old tradition of artists and writers moving into cheap garrets in places like Paris’ Montmartre district, boarding houses in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, or apartments in San Francisco’s Mission and North Beach neighborhoods. Big, vibrant, tolerant cities offered cheap rent, freedom from staid bourgeois values, and the stimulating company of other artists.

Such urban bohemian enclaves have launched legions of revolutionary art movements: Impressionism and the armies of “isms” in early-20^th-century Paris; Abstract Expressionism and the Beat movement in 1940s New York and San Francisco; and in the ‘60s through the ‘80s, Warhol’s Factory workers, punk rockers and the spirited Neo-Expressionist visual arts scene—just to name a few.

But it’s all over. For emerging artists without trust funds, these major cities with vibrant artistic pedigrees may as well post “No Trespassing” signs. We’ll explore gentrification’s effects on artists in five U.S. cities once known for being artist-friendly: Miami on the East Coast, and on the West, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland. We’ll look first at the cities where it’s nearly impossible for young artists of modest means to afford to rent apartments or studio space, and therefore are excluded from benefitting from the cultural stimulation, cross-pollination with other creative people and mentorship of mature artists—all factors essential for making an artistic scene. Then we’ll explore some cities where there’s still hope.

Manhattan’s gentrification hit full steam during the real-estate bubble in 2008. According to a CBS News study, a one-bedroom apartment runs, on average, $2,950 (1). The story of Manhattan artists flocking to Brooklyn for affordable living and workspaces is now passé. According to The New York Times, Williamsburg and Bushwick—two of Brooklyn’s hippest neighborhoods—are now too expensive for all except the well-heeled. An average bedroom in a Bushwick apartment runs $1,900 a month. As for trendy Williamsburg, its bartenders and baristas can’t afford it anymore. They commute from Queens, now Williamsburg’s bedroom community. Even some real-estate developers, too cash-strapped to buy Brooklyn property, are looking at Queens (2).

Spike Mafford, Framing Progress, 1988, 35”x36” (Portland).

SAN FRANCISCO

San Francisco’s story is similar to Manhattan’s but with a high-tech flair. Employees of Google and Twitter are buying up the Mission District, a long-time home to a large Hispanic community and countercultural artists. Highly paid tech workers from Silicon Valley, 70 miles south, discovered San Francisco’s vibrant Mission was more attractive than San Jose. The black-windowed, private “Google buses” that ferry them between Silicon Valley and the Mission actually outnumber city buses in the Mission. The tech workers’ influx has spiked housing prices, crowding out artists and working-class families and replacing them with chic boutiques and hip, pricey restaurants.

San Francisco’s average one-bedroom apartment rents for $2,950 (3). The average rent per room in the Mission, according to SFGate, is $2,125 a month. In Haight-Ashbury, once the epicenter of the Summer of Love, the median home price is $1.14 million (4).

In a city known historically for its progressive outlook—think North Beach Beat poets and the ‘60s counterculture—conflict over gentrification and Google buses has been vicious. Demonstrations have erupted over the eviction of working-class families and increased police presence near posh new businesses. Protestors have blockaded Google buses, which use the city’s bus stops at taxpayer expense. According toSalon, it’s been hard to organize protests by the labor movement because so few laborers actually live in San Francisco anymore. After eviction, they move to the East Bay and must commute back into the city and their jobs (5).

Writer and cultural archivist D.S. Black moved to San Francisco in the early ‘80s, lucking into a rent-controlled two-bedroom apartment in the Mission. He paid around $625 a month. “I modestly named my place Mission Control,” he says. In the mid-‘90s, his landlady, chafing under rent control, tried to intimidate him into moving out, once claiming his many shelves of books were a fire hazard.

Around this time Silicon Valley tech workers were driving up Mission real-estate prices. “Anyone who follows the news of the street,” says Black, “knows that San Francisco is now beholden to the hyperthis and the cyberthat. The life I had in the Mission of genteel but low-rent bohemia is now a true ‘Mission Impossible.’” Black finally succumbed to the coercion and economic pressures. His 2010 rent, even under rent control, had reached $1,400, so he moved across the bay to Berkeley. He now pays $1,500 for an apartment around one-third the size of his Capp Street place, plus $500 to store the books his new place couldn’t hold.

SEATTLE

Along with New York and San Francisco, Seattle’s gentrification seems to be a fait accompli. The city that launched a tidal wave of rock music by the likes of The Ventures, Jimi Hendrix, Heart and the massive grunge scene with bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, is too expensive for young musicians. According to the CBS study, an average one-bedroom apartment in Seattle runs $1,525 a month. Only 17 percent of its houses are priced lower than the median average (6).

According to gallery owner and artist Spike Mafford, Seattle’s gentrification, like San Francisco’s, came with the tech boom. And it’s not likely to slow down. Microsoft and Amazon continue to grow and plan to eventually add around 145,000 jobs. “The influx of the tech community and the dollars that go along with it,” he says, “will continue to transform the city for the next 10 years.” His gallery, Spike Mafford Photography, is now located in Magnuson Park, a converted U.S. Naval base—its fifth location. Every time his landlord raised his rent in his previous gallery spaces, he moved on, from Pioneer Square, to Ballard, to Belltown and then to Capitol Hill. At each new location, he did all the renovation required to utilize the space.

Gentrification affects more than artists, though, and Seattle’s gentrification has hit African Americans the hardest. According to the U.S. Census, in 1990, the black population of Seattle’s Central District was three times higher than the white population, but in only 10 years, whites outnumbered blacks, who were pushed to surrounding cities like Kent and Renton. Even so, in 2006, Seattle’s only African American mayor, Norm Rice, conceded that the gentrification was rooted in economics, not race (7).

Long-time Seattle resident Eli Hastings, an author and therapist, witnessed the process first-hand. Hastings, a white male, grew up and attended school in the Central District, then Seattle’s predominantly African American community. “At the time, things were really hairy. You had Crips and Bloods and crack cocaine. The neighborhood was not safe for anyone.”

Around 2000, gentrification encroached. Central District real-estate prices rose, drawing wealthier residents. Hastings is ambivalent about the changes, concerned that African Americans who don’t own property are powerless against big real-estate developers and affluent whites. Nevertheless, he concedes, some of the changes were positive. “When I was in high school, there was this deserted, dirty, dangerous vacant lot we cut through to get to a really down-at-the-heels supermarket,” he says. “The lot now is a Starbucks. And now there’s a nice supermarket there. So it’s tough to say that it’s entirely negative.”

Hastings’ ambivalence reflects a larger debate about negative and positive effects of gentrification. Pro-gentrification advocates cite improved living quality, cleaner streets and lower crime rates that “improved” neighborhoods provide their residents. But which residents? The neighborhood’s less-affluent residents can’t enjoy a neighborhood’s new amenities if they can’t afford the neighborhood. At the most basic level, the gentrification debate hinges on whether you see housing as a commodity, subject like all commodities to larger economic peaks and valleys, or whether you see affordable housing as a fundamental human right.

Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood, south of the Central District, has undergone a more typically “artist-inspired” gentrification. Georgetown was a more industrial neighborhood featuring factories and warehouses, since converted into lofts. “You’ve got your bars and lounges,” says Hastings. “You’ve got your import-beer shop. Xanadu Comics moved in. It’s very hipster now.” And yet it remains more affordable than most of Seattle, with the average home selling for $203,000.

WHAT’S BEEN LOST: WHY ARTISTS NEED BIG CITIES

Manhattan, San Francisco and Seattle are largely lost to young artists without means. As gentrification pushes young artists out of these fertile cultural ecosystems, it deprives them of the qualities only big cities can provide: creative collisions, encouragement and support of like minds, and mentorship. Studies show that people are more creative when densely clustered together in urban areas. Routinely encountering people of different ethnicities, social classes and worldviews exposes them to new ways of perceiving. The bigger the city, the more connections, the more creative they become. As a city grows, its occupants grow more productive (8), as measured by the number of trademarks and patent citations originating in the cities (9). An individual’s productivity is directly proportional to his or her city’s population.

So size matters, but it’s not everything. A city’s character also matters. The right city encourages free exchange of ideas, which relies on a city’s intellectual atmosphere, its open-mindedness and tolerance of difference. Often, institutions within the cities help provide this tolerance, institutions that appreciate, nurture and showcase artists and their work. Examples of such institutions are galleries, cafes with literary readings, performance venues like little theaters, concert venues like CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City, and even living spaces like New York’s Chelsea Hotel.

WHERE THERE’S HOPE: MIAMI, LOS ANGELES, PORTLAND

If New York, San Francisco and Seattle are out of bounds for most fledgling artists, there is hope in other cities. Two of them, Miami and Portland, are less populated, and the third, Los Angeles, is huge, covering a sprawling array of neighborhoods, some of which remain affordable.

Wynwood Walls. Miami’s Wynwood Art District. © Martha Cooper.

MIAMI

Since the launch of Art Basel Miami Beach in 2002, the city has experienced a renaissance of sorts. In response to Art Basel, dozens of smaller, satellite art fairs have mushroomed. And the 2013 reopening of Perez Art Museum Miami (formerly the Miami Art Museum) served as a capstone, the $131 million project securing Miami’s status as an arts city.

Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, also known as “Little San Juan” or “The Barrio,” has in the last 15 years developed a lively arts and culture scene. The Wynwood Art District houses dozens of galleries and studios. In 2012, Forbes magazine put Wynwood in the U.S.’s 20 top “Best Hipster Neighborhoods.” While the average one-bedroom apartment in metropolitan Miami rents for $2,648 a month (10), in Wynwood the rents start as low as $1,100 (11).

Brook Dorsch, who has run Miami art galleries since 1991, bought a building in Wynwood in 2000 to house Dorsch Gallery. Around the same time, Martin Margulies opened the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse. Wynwood was still an industrial area with a few houses dotted between warehouses and old clothes factories. But artists followed Dorsch and Margulies, creating a scene of “probably 30 galleries in the area,” says Dorsch. “It began very organically.”

It wasn’t until 2004 that New York real-estate developer Tony Goldman noticed Wynwood’s artistic potential. He bought some two dozen properties for around $35 million, according to The New York Times (12). Goldman converted an old warehouse into the Goldman Warehouse, an exhibit space run by MOCA. He co-created ArtSeen, the New World School of the Arts public studio and performance space. With Jeffrey Deitch, he created Wynwood Walls, an outdoor mural display. He opened a restaurant, Joey’s, in order to increase street life (13).

Those skeptical of gentrification feel Wynwood’s growth has come at too high a cost. WLRN Radio’s Nathaniel Sandler sums up this view: “The neighborhood is changing in a way that people don’t really want it to, and almost becoming a cartoon version of itself.” Higher prices are forcing artists to move out, to be replaced by corporate banks and a Ducati dealership. Sandler, however, does not see this as a problem. Artists, he says, didn’t make Wynwood as much as the working-class Puerto Ricans, who arrived long before the artists. New businesses boost the economy, making it better for everyone. It’s all part of what Sandler says is “the greater narrative of the city’s constant and diverse growth (14).”

Dorsch concedes that the rapid construction of high-end apartments and condominiums drove many artists to move into poor and blue-collar neighborhoods like Little Haiti, home to predominantly black and Latino residents. Crime rates are high there, so it has been slower to gentrify. Little Haiti’s median home price is $266,617 (15). Nevertheless, since Little Haiti borders Wynwood, and real estate is affordable, it seems a prime candidate for young artists who are resilient to challenging living conditions.

LOS ANGELES

Ironically, L.A.’s traffic-clogged sprawl turns out to have its perks. Gentrification in Los Angeles’ expansive metro area has been mellower than in San Francisco or Manhattan, where there’s no room to grow but up. Los Angeles’ average one-bedroom apartment rents for $1,740, just over half that of San Francisco’s (16). Forbes magazine named Silver Lake, in central L.A., the nation’s “Best Hipster Neighborhood.” Its artistic community—not precisely the same as its hipster community but overlapping it—has had moderate success gaining a modest foothold.

But an unlikely L.A. suburb has enjoyed a renaissance since 2005. Culver City, formerly an unhip, burned-out industrial warehouse zone, now sports wine bars, chic restaurants and over 20 well-attended art galleries.

“Culver City is full of shops and hipsters,” says James Daichendt, a professor and dean of performing and visual arts at Azusa Pacific University, who covers the L.A. art scene. “It has become quite a place to go out to eat, or even live now, which was unheard of before.”

Harley/Coagula Archives, Cody Critechelow Installation at Peres Projects, Los Angeles

Central sections of Culver City are nearly as expensive as West Hollywood or Venice, the median price of a three-bedroom home averaging around $750,000. The median rent runs between $1,100 and $1,400 per bedroom, only slightly more affordable than Brooklyn (17). But Daichendt says it depends on where you are. “It is still is affordable if you’re not in a good part of Culver City. There are still some industrial parts where there’s a lot of poverty, off the beaten track.”

Daichendt remains optimistic about L.A.’s creative scene. “What’s so different about L.A., compared to New York, is that it’s so spread out. There is no center to it. So the art community has developed in that way as well.” Culver City’s galleries show diverse work matching its diverse locale. “It’s incredibly exciting in terms of range. You have lowbrow, Juxtapoz-looking places like Thinkspace and Cory Helford. And then you have Blum & Poe, which has blue-chip artists like Murakami.” Daichendt acknowledges that Culver City may eventually price out young artists but counters that artists will simply find other, cheaper neighborhoods in the city where neighborhoods are legion.

PORTLAND

Portland’s liberal city planners have wrung their hands over gentrification’s negative effects on the poor. An average one-bedroom apartment can run between $776 and $996 per month, depending on the part of town (18). But prices are rising.

According to Anna Griffin at Oregonlive.com, the planners use computer modeling to locate formerly low-income neighborhoods (St. Johns, Eliot and King) in the hip, mid-sized city that are attracting high-income gentrifiers. Their goal is not to stop gentrification but to limit its negative results, “to preserve economic and cultural diversity” in neighborhoods so “everyone enjoys the same quality of life regardless of zip code (19).”

This may sound like a pipe dream out of Portlandia, but specific policies—already tested in other cities—can prevent gentrification from running roughshod over poor and emerging artists. Tax subsidies can encourage poor homeowners to stay put. Cities can offer developers financial spurs to pepper new, expensive condo complexes with more affordable housing units. They can also hire working-class locals to build them.

But for Mike Phillips, musician turned tech entrepreneur, it’s too little too late. Having lived in Portland since 2004, he has recently relocated to less inspiring Vancouver, Wash., a Portland suburb just across the Columbia River. “I don’t consider myself an artist anymore. I got sick of having financial stress all the time.” Much of the stress was rooted in paying rent. “In 2008, I got a one-bedroom apartment, and the rent was $450. When I moved out in 2012, four years later, my landlord had jacked the rent to $700 a month. That probably doesn’t seem like that much money to people with normal jobs,” he says, but for an artist with a limited income, it was enough to propel him out of both Portland and the arts.

While Vancouver isn’t as stimulating as Portland, or as overrun by “well-to-do hipsters who can sit around in cafes all day,” as Phillips puts it, it is far cheaper. “In Vancouver, I could have a much nicer house for a fraction of the cost in Portland.” And Vancouver may itself be resurging. “For years, it’s been kind of this dumpy place where you walked around and you’d feel like you’re going to get stabbed,” he says. “But now they have nicer cafes and bars and restaurants.”

While living in Portland proved difficult for Phillips to sustain on his income, it’s still borderline affordable compared to the other cities featured here. Young musicians I spoke to there did, however, wonder how long it would last before they themselves would be forced to confront Phillips’ choice: stay in Portland and stay poor, move somewhere cheaper and continue to make art, or find a new career.

SOLUTIONS

There is a prevailing attitude that claims gentrification is inevitable. Even Seattle artist and gallery owner Spike Mafford, after switching location five times to escape high rent, accepts the truism. “Gentrification is a natural part of expansion and growth,” he says. “You really can’t fight it.” But fighting gentrification, while not easy, is possible. A number of cities have done it. Rent-control laws, for example, protect poor and working-class people as well as emerging artists. Some lucky tenants in Manhattan still live in apartments with rents harkening back to the 1980s. But powerful real-estate interests find rent control anathema. Landlords do everything in their power to evict protected tenants, often making life miserable enough for them to leave on their own. Some cities have experimented with mixed-class communities, where zoning laws allow some gentrification alongside low-income housing, though these have proved less successful.

According to The New York Times, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Boston are freezing property taxes, so when house prices rise with gentrification, higher taxes don’t make it difficult for working-class people to live in their own homes. But this approach only helps property owners—those who rent have no such protection (20).

The old-fashioned system in which wealthy patrons sponsored emerging artists has survived in interesting permutations. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, the Bard family at the Chelsea Hotel, Hilly Crystal at CBGBs, and Mickey Ruskin at Max’s Kansas City provided the infrastructure where vibrant art, music and literary scenes were born. Let’s hope there will continue to be people in positions of power to take interest in artists and support their careers. And let’s hope young artists are resourceful enough to find their own ways.

NOTES

1. 1. “Top 10 priciest U.S. cities to rent an apartment,” CBSnews.com, July 15, 2013.
2. 2. “Costly Rents Push Brooklynites to Queens,” by Michelle Higgins. The New York Times, August 18, 2013.
3. 3. “Top 10 Priciest…” CBSnews.com, July 15, 2013.
4. 4. “S.F. rents up more than 3 times higher than national average,” by Anna Marie Erwert, January 30, 2014.
5. 5. “San Francisco’s rightward turn: Why it may no longer be America’s iconic liberal city,” by George McIntire, Salon.com, February 16, 2014.
6. 6. Gentrification and Financial Health by Daniel Hartley, (Federal Reserve 11-6-2013).
7. 7. Henry W. McGee, Jr. “Gentrification, Integration or Displacement?: The Seattle Story,” BlackPast.org.
8. 8. Luis Bettencourt et al., “Growth, Innovation, Scaling and the Pace of Life in Cities.” PNAS, vol. 104, No. 17, 2007.
9. 9. Adam Jaffe, M. Trajtenberg, and Rebecca Henderson, “Geographic Localization of Knowledge Spillovers as Evidenced by Patent Citations,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 108 (1993).
10. 10. <http://www.realtor.com/local/Miami_FL/rent-prices>
11. 11. <http://www.apartmentguide.com/neighborhoods/Florida/Miami/Wynwood-Art-District/>
12. 12. Terry Pristin,“A SoHo Visionary Makes an Artsy Bet in Miami,” The New York Times, March 30, 2010.
13. 13. Terry Pristin, Ibid.
14. 14. “Wynwood is Dead: Long Live Wynwood” <http://wlrn.org/post/wynwood-dead-long-live-wynwood>
15. 15. <http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Little-Haiti-Miami-FL.html>
16. 16. “Top 10 Priciest…” CBSnews.com, July 15, 2013.
17. 17. <http://www.city-data.com>
18. 18. <http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=United+States&city=Portland%2C+OR>

19.http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/06/portland_study_targets_neighbo.html

20. 20. Timothy Williams, “Cities Mobilize to Help Those Threatened by Gentrification,” The New York Times, March 3 2014.

James Lough teaches nonfiction writing at the Savannah College of Art and Design in the writing department, which he formerly directed.His book This Ain’t No Holiday Inn: Down and Out at the Chelsea Hotel 1980-1995 was published by Schaffner Press in 2013. He is also the author of Spheres of Awareness (University Press of America, 2009) and Sites of Insight (University Press of Colorado, 2003), as well as over 70 articles, essays and short stories.

This article originated on Miami New Times:

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/crossfade/2015/01/dilla-day_weekend_miami_schedule_2015.php

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dilla forever.

It’s been nearly nine years since legendary Detroit hip-hop producer J Dilla (born James Dewitt Yancey) died, just three days after his 32nd birthday, from a rare blood disorder.

But there’s no doubt that Jay Dee’s legacy lives. And every year, on the anniversary of his birth, his mother, Maureen “Ma Dukes” Yancey, and the rest of the J-loving world, from the Motor City to NYC to London town, have celebrated Dilla Day.

Now, though, this honorary hip-hop holiday has expanded to an entire weekend. And it’s officially moved to Miami. Two weeks ago, Ma Dukes and crew announced the 23-act lineup. This week, they reveal the party plan.

Just check the cut for J Dilla Weekend 2015’s Miami schedule so far.

J Dilla Weekend 2015’s Miami Schedule

Madlib. Thursday, February 5. Bardot, 3456 N. Miami Ave., Miami. The show starts at 10 p.m. and tickets cost $37.63 via squadup.com. Ages 21 and up. Call 305-576-7750 or visit bardotmiami.com.

Talib Kweli and Black Milk. Friday, February 6. The Stage, 170 NE 38th St., Miami. The show starts at 10 p.m. and tickets cost $26.87 via squadup.com. Ages 18 and up. Call 305-576-9577 or visit thestagemiami.com.

Joey Bada$$ and Mobb Deep at Soulection BBQ. With Starro, Camp Lo, Esta, Chuck Strangers, Nuri, Telescope Thieves, Sire, No Exit, Manuvers, Kent Jones, ILLA, Punch, Sean Bang, and YNot. Saturday, February 7. LMNT, 59 NW 36th St., Miami. The show starts at 2 p.m. and ends at 10. Tickets cost $16.13 via squadup.com. Ages 18 and up. Call 305-572-9550 or visit lmntartsmiami.com.

Slum Village and Pete Rock. Saturday, February 7. The Stage, 170 NE 38th St., Miami. The show starts at 10 p.m. and tickets cost $26.87 via squadup.com. Ages 18 and up. Call 305-576-9577 or visit thestagemiami.com.

Dead Prez and Make EM NV Beat Battle. Sunday, February 8. The Stage, 170 NE 38th St., Miami. The show starts at 10 p.m. and tickets cost $21.50 via squadup.com. Ages 18 and up. Call 305-576-9577 or visit thestagemiami.com.

J Dilla Day Weekend 2015. Hosted by Ma Dukes. Presented by III Points, Nature Sounds, Addicted Affairs, and DNA. Thursday to Sunday, February 5 to 8. Various locations, Miami. Weekend passes cost $80.62 and single-show tickets cost $16.13 to $37.63 viasquadup.com. Visit JDillaWeekend.com.

Follow Crossfade on Facebook and Twitter @Crossfade_SFL.

Friday, 1.23.15

The French Horn Collective at LILT Lounge 1/23/15

The French Horn Collective at LILT Lounge
Friday, 01/23/2015 – 10:00 pm – 01:00 am
LILT Lounge
270 Biscayne Way Blvd.,
Miami, Florida 33131
Webpage Link
Cost: Free

The French Horn Collective is a diverse band, ranging from three to eight talented musicians, producing a smooth mixture of progressive Gypsy, Parisian, Swing and World Music tunes. LILT Lounge brings the first high-design lounge to downtown Miami with nightly live music curated by Kristian Caro and creative cocktails by Dean Feddaoui. Lounge opens at 6 p.m. with social bites by acclaimed executive chef Wolfgang Birk including charcuterie & cheese, oysters & caviar, lobster cocktail and tuna tartare gazpacho.

Saturday, 1.24.15

Miami Dade College Free Affordable Care Act Information Workshops

Miami Dade College Free Affordable Care Act Information Workshops
Saturday, Jan. 10, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
North Campus
11380 NW 27 Ave.
Computer Courtyard, Building 2 (first floor)

Saturday, Jan. 24, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Kendall Campus
11011 SW 104 St.
Computer Courtyard, Building 2 (first floor)

Sunday, 1.25.15

The Lincoln Assassination and the End of the Civil War 1/25/15

The Lincoln Assassination and the End of the Civil War
Sunday, 01/25/2015 – 01/25/2015 01:00 pm – 04:30 pm
Main Library Auditorium
101 West Flagler Street,
Miami, Florida 33130
Webpage Link
Cost: Free

Join HistoryMiami and the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation for an all-star 150th anniversary symposium on Abraham Lincoln’s death and the return of peace to the divided American Union. Enjoy historical insights from nationally recognized scholars on the meaning—and limits—of sectional reconciliation in 1865, plus a special guest appearance by actor Stephen Lang.**
The symposium will feature a keynote address by historian William C. Davis (author of the new book Crucible of Command) on Grant and Lee and the end of the Civil War.

**Special guest performance by award-winning actor Stephen Lang (Gods and Generals, Avatar) portraying Gettysburg Medal of Honor winner James Jackson Purman.
Reception will follow at HistoryMiami.

The Lincoln Symposium is sponsored by the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation and the History Channel, with the support of William and Jean Soman.

 

Monday, 1.26.15

Part of the Flock – Industry Night

Industry Night

Date: Monday, January, 26 2015
Time: 10:00 PM

1/2 off for all of our friends in the industry
While the Haitian Hillbilly spins tunes all night
21+ || No cover

Tuesday, 1.27.15

Fashion & Art Mixer 1/27/15

Fashion & Art Mixer
Sunday, 01/27/2015 – 07:00 pm –

Touche Rooftop Lounge
15 NE 11th St.,
Miami, Florida 33132
Eventbrite Link
Cost: $20 Advance Tickets | $25 at Door

Care for Crohn’s Foundation and A Dream Group Presents: Cocktails, Conversation and Art For A Cause!

 Wednesday, 1.28.15

 Creating A Scholar Silent Art Auction 1/28/15

Creating A Scholar Silent Art Auction
Wednesday, 01/28/2015 – 06:30 pm – 09:00 pm
Miami Center for Architecture & Design
100 NE 1st Ave,
Miami, Florida 33132
Eventbrite Link
Cost: $15

The Women in Architecture (WiA) Committee of the Miami Chapter American Institute of Architects, proudly presents CREATING A SCHOLAR Silent Art Auction Show. Taking place on January 28th, 2015 at the Miami Center for Architecture & Design (MCAD), the event will raise funds to benefit a female creative industries student at New World School of the Arts and Design & Architecture Senior High. The evening will include drinks, music, lite fare and art curated by the WiA Art Auction Committee. Art pieces on display and available for purchase, have been donated by women in the creative industries—i.e. architects, artists, graphic designers, industrial designers—in supportof MCAD’s ‘Creating a Scholar’ program. MCAD is a 501c3 charitable organization and serves as a hub in our community for all things design.

$15 General Admission
$10 AIA Members

 

Thursday, 1.29.15

2015 Florida Venture Capital Conference 1/29/15

2015 Florida Venture Capital Conference
Thursday, 01/29/2015 – 01/30/2015 08:00 am – 02:00 pm
The Diplomat Resort & Spa
3555 S Ocean Drive,,
Hollywood, Florida 33019
Webpage Link
Cost: Before Friday, January 9, 2014: $599 per person; After Friday, January 9, 2014: $649 per person

The Florida Venture Forum, a statewide support organization for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, is inviting company executives with mid-to-later-stage, Florida-based companies to apply to present their company pitches before investors and venture capitalists at the 2015 Florida Venture Capital Conference. The deadline for entries is Tuesday, Dec. 30. In addition, the conference will feature workshops, panel discussions, networking opportunities, and access to industry thought-leaders with many of Florida’s top companies. More details are available in the conference schedule.

This article was taken from the blog – Political Cortadito

Miami Beach Mayor Levine takes over finance committee

Miami Beach Mayor Levine takes over finance committee

Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine has restructured the city’s finance committee, booting Commissioner Deede Weithorn, the longtime chair, and appointing himself and two cronies just as they get ready to tackle next year’s budget.

The move — ten months before Weithorn is termed out — has everyone wondering just what he’s up to.

Ladra will tell you in two words: No good.

Weithorn, a professional auditor and renowned financial expert whose main role on the commission is to watch the city’s wallet, has served on the finance committee — either as vice chair or chair — for all of both terms she’s been in office. She was even the chair of the citizens budget advisory board before she was elected. Her expertise is money matters unmatched on the commission — and arguably beyond, as other cities, agencies and labor organizations often turn to her for advice.

The new Levine-appointed chair is Commissioner Jonah “Potty Mouth” Wolfson, III, who reportedly hasn’t been to any budget workshops even once and many suspect is just there to let Levine help more of his buddies and control any city spending on the convention center project. Funny enough, Wolfson — who has missed about 75% of the meetings for the land use committee, where he is a member — has been the poster boy for the campaign against the convention center. He has a reputation for only going to meetings when he wants to approve something or kill something.

This move comes a little more than a year after Levine — a control freak on a power trip who later forced the planning director to resign — changed the committee rules so that he would be a fourth voting member on all of them. So why appoint himself to it? What’s the point?

The move also comes 10 months before elections in which both Weithorn and Wolfson are termed-out. Why not wait it out?

The move also comes not just six months or so before the budget workshops, but in the midst of waivers for lucrative flooding mitigation contracts and the city’s centennial celebration — budgeted to cost between $250,000 and $500,000 for a tennis court on the beach, a concert at Lummus Park and a mass equal-opportunity wedding officiated by the mayor himself. Ladra sort of expects that figure to go up, especially since the festivities are being produced by another Levine buddy,Bruce Orosz.

What else is happening in the next 10 months that could be important (read: expensive)? Could this foreshadow more waivers of the competitive bidding process?

Las malas lenguas say this is all about the money. Because, think about it: Is this switch in the best interest of the city? Or is it, rather, in the best interest of Levine’s buddies. The city has already given the mayor’s pals the tennis contract and the lobbying contract and the centennial job.

The general consensus is that Weithorn was taken out for a reason, and it’s not to give her time to campaign for state representative in District 113 (more on that later). One option is to weaken her husband’s potential run for one of the open seats (more on that later). But more likely it is because Commissioner Weithorn won’t just rubber stamp everything that comes before her and might ask the wrong (read: right) questions. In fact, sources say she’s already been sniffing around about the mayor’s bloated expenses with new staffers and so many trips.

In other words, Weithorn — unlike Wolfson and Commissioner Joy Malakoff,  a banker with some financial experience who was also appointed to the committee Thusday — is not in Levine’s pocket.

Caught moments before she was to teach an auditing class Friday morning, Weithorn would only say that she found the switch interesting, but that since all committee items still go before the commission, she was not going to just fade away.

“I think he [the mayor] missed an opportunity for me to train someone to lead the committee into the future,” she told Ladra. I forgot to ask Weithorn if she feels betrayed, since she was told she’d keep that committee chair if she fired her aide after the election (and she did) because he worked against Levine.

Former Mayor Matti Bower said the move is something to raise concerns. “It is strange,” Bower said.

She, too, once thought about removing Weithorn from the chairmanship to give someone else a chance, but then changed her mind. “Being a CPA and involved in economics, I think Deede had a good handle on that committee. She asked good questions,” Bower said.

Hopefully, we can still count on her asking the good questions at the commission meetings.

– See more at: http://www.politicalcortadito.com/2015/01/16/miami-beach-mayor-levine-takes-over-finance-committee/#sthash.8wBpt28D.dpuf

Today we want to highlight that a group within the city that is making an impact on the preservation of the art of architecture of our city. Art and the history or the design of our city is something to celebrate. This past weekend marked Art Deco Weekend and we want to give recognition to one of the organizations that made this event possible.

New Times names Palo! Miami’s Best Latin Band of 2014! 

Best Latin Band Miami 2014 – Palo

http://gopalo.com

Monday, January 19

Ben Howard at the Fillmore 

This British singer-songwriter is touring behind his new album, I Forget Where We Were. His complex, guitar- and emotion-drenched songs aren’t exactly signature Miami Beach material, but his live show is definitely worth a look. In the past, Howard has opened for alternative and pop luminaries like Coldplay and Mumford & Sons — he’s the headliner now, and he’s a must-watch.

 $29.50 and up

Tuesday, January 20

The B.I.G. Summit Technology Conference 1/20/15

The B.I.G. Summit – Technology Conference

Wednesday, January 21

The Power of Relationships in Business
Miami Beach Networking Event

7:45-9:30am

Keller Williams Conference Room
Suite 202 – 1680 Meridian Ave.
Miami Beach, FL

Open to the Public
Free Admission

Thursday, January 22

Rooftop Sessions 1/22/15