Miami: A Young but Turbulent History
“The Big One”
Miami entered the 1990s battled-scarred, hardened and wizened. But thanks to the popular 1980s TV show Miami Vice, there was a steady increase in tourism. Foreigners wanted to see the colorful city they saw on the television screen. After all, Miami Vice made the once-famous Art Deco District look like a trendy neighborhood of sexy urbanites. The truth, however, was that it had become a slum; a neighborhood of elderly Jewish transplants, drug addicts and homeless people. It wasn’t a safe place at night.
So civic leaders and developers restored the district to how it looked in its heyday in the 1930s. And almost overnight, South Beach became the hippest party district in the world with nightclubs that pulsated until dawn. It became the backdrop for fashion magazines throughout the world. And it became the destination for jetsetters around the world.
So now things were looking up for Miami. Crime was down and tourism was up. Most of the criminals who came on the Mariel boatlift were either in prison or had killed each other off. The majority of the immigrants, whether they were from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua or Central and South America, had settled in a steady routine of honest living.
So Mother Nature decided to stir things up a bit with a category five hurricane in August 1992. Hurricane Andrew packed sustained winds of 165 mph, striking Miami with a ferocity that had not been experienced since the 1926 hurricane. Andrew roared through Miami-Dade County for four hours, tearing off rooftops, blasting windows and plucking trees from the ground.
When it was over, 15 people were dead, more than 25,000 homes demolished and another 100,000 damaged. Another 29 people died in the wake of the storm that, up until Hurricane Katrina in 2005, was the nation’s costliest natural disaster, having caused more than $25 billion in damage. But unlike the 1926 hurricane, Andrew struck south of the city, concentrating most of the damage to South Miami-Dade County and saving the newly renovated Art Deco District from major damage. So that winter, as Miami tried to rebound from Hurricane Andrew, tourism picked up stronger than ever. And that set the stage for Miami’s next crisis.
The 1980s had turned Miami residents into the best-armed civilians in the country. That became evident after Hurricane Andrew, when hundreds of Miamians were openly walking around with guns on their belts to protect their property from looters. Knowing the violence could strike anywhere, at any moment, Miami residents did not hesitate to defend themselves against attackers. So the criminals turned to the tourists, which became easy targets in their rental cars.
It started in January, 1993 when a 33-year-old Canadian tourist was shot and killed as he drove his rental car in Miami Beach. Four days later, a Venezuelan diplomat was robbed and murdered outside a private home as he pulled up in his rental car to attend a dinner party.
And less than two months later, a 59-year-old German tourist was killed as he tried to rescue his wife from a purse snatcher. The following month, another German tourist was murdered, this one a 39-year-old mother whose rental car was bumped from behind. When she stepped out to survey the damage, two men robbed and beat her, then ran her over.
As Miami tried to recover the international black eye that was causing tourism to plummet, the FBI began investigating Miami City Hall for corruption. It turned out that Miami’s city officials - while telling the world that Miami was no more unlawful than any other major city in the United States - were pocketing thousands of dollars in bribes and bilking millions from taxpayers.
It all went down in 1996 as Miami celebrated its centennial anniversary. The FBI swept down on Miami City Hall, arresting City Manager Cesar Odio, City Commissioner Miller Dawkins and Lobbyist Jorge Luis de Cardenas in a bribes-for-contracts scandal. All three ended up in prison as well as Miami Finance Director turned informant Manohar Surana. The investigation also led to the conviction and imprisonment of Miami-Dade County Commissioner James Burke.
Mayor Stephen Clark, who had presided over Miami through a good part of two decades, had died in office six months before the arrests. It was alleged that he was also benefiting from shady dealing.
Court documents show that Odio had also set up a special account with more than $1 million each year in taxpayer’s money that was available to him and other commissioners when ever they felt the need to take their friends and family out to expensive dinners, sporting events or vacations. This money was also used to make donations to political organizations.
The result: Miami was $70 million in the hole – a city on the brink of bankruptcy.
When word of the financial crisis reached Wall Street, Miami’s bond rating was reduced to junk status. Then a movement to abolish Miami emerged. Their goal was to dissolve the Magic City into the county and pretend it never existed. The issue was put on a ballot in 1997: Should the city of Miami be wiped off the map? The voters said no - all 24 percent of registered voters who showed up to vote.