Miami Miscellaneous

[Tom]

some original 1980s pics of Ocean Drive, Waldorf Towers and the Winterhaven

time long gone and one can still feel the VICE vibe....

[Paul Veres]

If you're not familiar with Pagani - an Italian hyper car brand with Argentinian roots - that's OK. I do hope you can afford an automobile which doesn't come under $1 million, while some model variations creep up to $20M. Similarly priced, they are something less flashy than the well known French Bugatti, and I'd say less performance focused than the not as well known hyper car brand Koenigsegg from Sweden.

Pagani only has 3 models - Zonda, Huayra, and just recently launched Utopia (check out this beautiful reveal video). 

Argentinians appear to often have connections to Italy. Speaking of, Graziano's, a small chain of restaurants and grocery stores in Miami-Dade county, caters a combo of Italian and Argentinian dishes and products. My favorite one is in Coral Gables, where any day of the week almost every lunch table will have a bottle of red wine - always great to see people who can enjoy life like that 

So it is very apt that Pagani chose the Mediterranean-inspired Coral Gables as the home for the company's American headquarter office and showroom. There was a grand reveal earlier in December, some photos below, with Horacio Pagani cutting ribbons together with CG mayor. Another suitable place would be LA, but Pagani chose Miami area, which definitely competes with southern California on the ubiquity of luxury and super cars.

Of note, they located in the Bird Road area (and not for example Miracle Mile), where there's been much development across several blocks down to the Shops of Merrick Park. 

[pahonu]

1 hour ago, Paul Veres said:

If you're not familiar with Pagani - an Italian hyper car brand with Argentinian roots - that's OK. I do hope you can afford an automobile which doesn't come under $1 million, while some model variations creep up to $20M. Similarly priced, they are something less flashy than the well known French Bugatti, and I'd say less performance focused than the not as well known hyper car brand Koenigsegg from Sweden.

Pagani only has 3 models - Zonda, Huayra, and just recently launched Utopia (check out this beautiful reveal video). 

Argentinians appear to often have connections to Italy. Speaking of, Graziano's, a small chain of restaurants and grocery stores in Miami-Dade county, caters a combo of Italian and Argentinian dishes and products. My favorite one is in Coral Gables, where any day of the week almost every lunch table will have a bottle of red wine - always great to see people who can enjoy life like that 

So it is very apt that Pagani chose the Mediterranean-inspired Coral Gables as the home for the company's American headquarter office and showroom. There was a grand reveal earlier in December, some photos below, with Horacio Pagani cutting ribbons together with CG mayor. Another suitable place would be LA, but Pagani chose Miami area, which definitely competes with southern California on the ubiquity of luxury and super cars.

Of note, they located in the Bird Road area (and not for example Miracle Mile), where there's been much development across several blocks down to the Shops of Merrick Park. 

Yes, the Italian diaspora from the 1880’s to 1920’s was massive, something like 15 million people, largely because of poverty.  The three largest groups arrived in Brazil, the US, and Argentina, in that order of size.  Lionel Messi, is a great example from Argentina. I also understand that there are towns in Brazil where well over half the population have Italian backgrounds and, of course, Little Italy in NYC became the largest here in the US.  The area of San Pedro by the port of LA/LB near me even has a sizable Italian-American population.  The high school offers Italian as a foreign language course, which I’ve never seen anywhere else in SoCal.

I also agree that SoCal has a giant luxury/super car market.  They’re everywhere, especially in coastal communities and in the various “hill” neighborhoods, both being very expensive.  There was a guy in our marina complex off PCH with a Lamborghini Gallardo, if I recall correctly.  I clearly recall it being a bright green and no one was going to miss it!   It was parked about 8-10 spots from my now 35 year old VW campervan, which has its own charm, I think. LOL!

I think the Miami area is a better fit in this case because of its stronger connection to South America.  SoCal has seen a lot of immigration from Central America in the last 30-40 years and, of course, was historically part of Mexico, but South American immigration has ticked up a bit.  Nothing like the growth in South Florida though.

Funny you mentioned the Pagani Utopia.  My wife picked out a Lego model of that car as a gift for one of our nephews back in New Jersey.  She showed me before mailing it and I had never heard of it.  I would never fit in the thing, or any like it, being almost 6-8.

Edited December 23, 2023 by pahonu

[Paul Veres]

26 minutes ago, pahonu said:

Yes, the Italian diaspora from the 1880’s to 1920’s was massive, something like 15 million people, largely because of poverty.  The three largest groups arrived in Brazil, the US, and Argentina, in that order of size.  Lionel Messi, is a great example from Argentina. I also understand that there are towns in Brazil where well over half the population have Italian backgrounds and, of course, Little Italy in NYC became the largest here in the US.  The area of San Pedro by the port of LA/LB near me even has a sizable Italian-American population.  The high school offers Italian as a foreign language course, which I’ve never seen anywhere else in SoCal.

I also agree that SoCal has a giant luxury/super car market.  They’re everywhere, especially in coastal communities and in the various “hill” neighborhoods, both being very expensive.  There was a guy in our marina complex off PCH with a Lamborghini Gallardo, if I recall correctly.  I clearly recall it being a bright green and no one was going to miss it!   It was parked about 8-10 spots from my now 35 year old VW campervan, which has its own charm, I think. LOL!

I think the Miami area is a better fit in this case because of its stronger connection to South America.  SoCal has seen a lot of immigration from Central America in the last 30-40 years and, of course, was historically part of Mexico, but South American immigration has ticked up a bit.  Nothing like the growth in South Florida though.

Funny you mentioned the Pagani Utopia.  My wife picked out a Lego model of that car as a gift for one of our nephews back in New Jersey.  She showed me before mailing it and I had never heard of it.  I would never fit in the thing, or any like it, being almost 6-8.

Hold on, you are 6 feet 8 inches tall?? Those VW campervans must be spacious! 

[pahonu]

4 hours ago, Paul Veres said:

Hold on, you are 6 feet 8 inches tall?? Those VW campervans must be spacious! 

Yes, I’m just under 6-8.  I played college basketball in the late 80’s early 90’s on a scholarship… until an Achilles tendon rupture.   My van isn’t an old split window from the 50’s and 60’s.  They were quite small.  It’s an ‘88 Westfalia campervan, and is plenty roomy to both drive and camp in with the top popped up. It has two beds, a sink, stove, and fridge, and plenty of storage.  In fact, my family of four camped in it for years.  My kids are now in their 20’s and doing their thing, so it’s downright roomy for just my wife and I.  It’s still my daily drive.

 

Edited December 23, 2023 by pahonu

[Paul Veres]

42 minutes ago, pahonu said:

Yes, I’m just under 6-8.  I played college basketball in the late 80’s early 90’s on a scholarship… until an Achilles tendon rupture.   My van isn’t an old split window from the 50’s and 60’s.  They were quite small.  It’s an ‘88 Westfalia campervan, and is plenty roomy to both drive and camp in with the top popped up. It has two beds, a sink, stove, and fridge, and plenty of storage.  In fact, my family of four camped in it for years.  My kids are now in their 20’s and doing their thing, so it’s downright roomy for just my wife and I.  It’s still my daily drive.

 

Amazing how long a well built and maintained car can last.

[pahonu]

On 12/23/2023 at 2:52 PM, Paul Veres said:

Amazing how long a well built and maintained car can last.

Sadly, most people don’t recognize what you just wrote is true.  Sure, I’ve had the transmission rebuilt, and first the top end 16 years ago, and last spring the whole engine, but it still is a reliable vehicle.  In almost 90 camping trips over the last 16-17 years, it has let me down just once.  Only twice I have been let down on the road in my commute in the same period of time, and one was from a shop’s mistake in overtightening a wheel bearing.  Sure, I’ve had to take it to the shop to deal with problems I’ve noticed many times, really more than a few times over the years, but if more owners were reasonably vigilant about their vehicles, roadside breakdowns would be far less common.

I would also add that, while my older vehicle doesn’t get the same gas mileage as modern vehicles, the resources used to create, likely two or three more new vehicles to replace my single vehicle of 35 years, would be far, far higher than any mileage savings.  Also, it has a modern catalytic converter, making it cleaner than when it was new, and original paint!!! LOL  Okay… the fiberglass top was repainted.

I don’t know about the viability of more modern vehicles being able to do the same because they are so reliant on electronic technology, which itself is so rapidly outdated.  My Westy has an early version of electronic fuel injection and the ECU has been removed and rebuilt.  However, it is very basic and doing so is possible, while today’s vehicles have as many as a dozen computers controlling various systems and would be a nightmare to repair 35 years from now, I think.  My era of vehicle may be among the last of its kind to be reliably maintained and rebuilt for many decades, I think.

[Paul Veres]

3 hours ago, pahonu said:

Sadly, most people don’t recognize what you just wrote is true.  Sure, I’ve had the transmission rebuilt, and first the top end 16 years ago, and last spring the whole engine, but it still is a reliable vehicle.  In almost 90 camping trips over the last 16-17 years, it has let me down just once.  Only twice I have been let down on the road in my commute in the same period of time, and one was from a shop’s mistake in overtightening a wheel bearing.  Sure, I’ve had to take it to the shop to deal with problems I’ve noticed many times, really more than a few times over the years, but if more owners were reasonably vigilant about their vehicles, roadside breakdowns would be far less common.

I would also add that, while my older vehicle doesn’t get the same gas mileage as modern vehicles, the resources used to create, likely two or three more new vehicles to replace my single vehicle of 35 years, would be far, far higher than any mileage savings.  Also, it has a modern catalytic converter, making it cleaner than when it was new, and original paint!!! LOL  Okay… the fiberglass top was repainted.

I don’t know about the viability of more modern vehicles being able to do the same because they are so reliant on electronic technology, which itself is so rapidly outdated.  My Westy has an early version of electronic fuel injection and the ECU has been removed and rebuilt.  However, it is very basic and doing so is possible, while today’s vehicles have as many as a dozen computers controlling various systems and would be a nightmare to repair 35 years from now, I think.  My era of vehicle may be among the last of its kind to be reliably maintained and rebuilt for many decades, I think.

Sounds like you would like the new Toyota Land Cruiser 70. They basically just made a new 40-year old car, with everything analog etc., with only small quite important updates like modern headlights, AC, basic small screen etc. Unfortunately it seem to be launching only in select markets like Saudi Arabia and Australia where driving conditions might demand actual reliability. 
https://www.autoweek.com/news/a44723876/toyota-land-cruiser-70-classic-suv-updated/

[Paul Veres]

Was at the Deering estate today, and talked to some older gentleman who was bird watching. He had a super powerful monocular on a tripod and binoculars, hunting for a loon. We chatted about bunch of stuff for some 20 minutes and when I mentioned Miami Vice, he casually revealed that some 50 years ago he was running coke boats from Bimini  What an encounter 

I didn't want to take any revealing pictures of him, there he is behind a palm tree, along with a couple of general shots from today.

The water is nicely low. Compare to the flood I saw mid December:

That wasn't even from king tides, which were over by then, it was just many days of heavy rain.

By the way, they had a Christmas / Alice In Wonderland setup inside. Characters were scattered across the whole building, but here's just the ballroom.

Happy New Year!

[miamijimf]

Nice pics and interesting encounter.  Don't think you will find many former drug runners who have taken up bird watching.  Last time I was there you could see the remnants of a crashed drug plane back in the trees.

[airtommy]

On 12/15/2023 at 8:21 PM, Paul Veres said:

Guys, I'll risk and assume you haven't seen this yet because it was posted just a couple of weeks ago. Without going into much description - this is phenomenal, check it out, worth the time.

 

This is fantastic!  Please start a new thread in General for this video.  Some members don't venture into this corner of the forum.

Around 1:28 they show this clip from the TV show "Hollywood Beat":

We see Side Show when Crockett drives at night in "Love At First Sight":

[Paul Veres]

14 hours ago, airtommy said:

This is fantastic!  Please start a new thread in General for this video.  Some members don't venture into this corner of the forum.

Around 1:28 they show this clip from the TV show "Hollywood Beat":

We see Side Show when Crockett drives at night in "Love At First Sight":

There is actually a dedicated thread for this video, not sure if in General, which @James started on the day it was released! So let's give proper credit and treat that one as the origin. So to your point, it appears more people noticed my post in Misc first before James' earlier thread was discovered, but it probably depends on folks' settings. We discussed the issue briefly here when another member posted the video too.
 

 

[Paul Veres]

On 12/14/2023 at 7:57 PM, Paul Veres said:

Guys, I hope it's OK to share here, given it is technically very related to Miami  that I got a real estate license (and operate under broker Luxe Properties). So if anybody needs any real estate service in Greater Miami area, feel free to let me know. I don't have a lot of formal experience, but I can always recommend a more seasoned realtor from our broker too or partner up with them. I do have a lot of informal experience though - I've been working on this over several months and finally completed my comprehensive map of over a hundred Miami-Dade neighborhoods and automated pulling data from public sources to populate it with real estate stats! During this work price-neighborhood dynamics became a second nature to me. Over time I'll pull in southern Broward too, which I personally also consider legit Greater Miami. 

 

I just built a Top/Bottom 10 2023 real estate report based on my neighborhood map, here's one of the outputs below, and you can check out the whole thing on X (former Twitter): 

 

[Paul Veres]

Not sure where to ask about this, but is @C Glide's website dead? The home page - www.miamivicelocations.org - seems to be alright, but it looks like the way he structured it is that for seasons 2-5 he set up a separate domain for each season, that is:

www.miamivicelocations2.org

www.miamivicelocations3.org

www.miamivicelocations4.org

www.miamivicelocations5.org

They all look like he didn't renew the domains and lost them, or possibly didn't renew the hosting (and just lost the sites, but still owns the "empty" domains):

Let's have few more of us double-check to confirm it's not only me getting this. 

A bit of a disaster if this is the case.

 

[Dadrian]

1 hour ago, Paul Veres said:

Not sure where to ask about this, but is @C Glide's website dead? The home page - www.miamivicelocations.org - seems to be alright, but it looks like the way he structured it is that for seasons 2-5 he set up a separate domain for each season, that is:

www.miamivicelocations2.org

www.miamivicelocations3.org

www.miamivicelocations4.org

www.miamivicelocations5.org

They all look like he didn't renew the domains and lost them, or possibly didn't renew the hosting (and just lost the sites, but still owns the "empty" domains):

Let's have few more of us double-check to confirm it's not only me getting this. 

A bit of a disaster if this is the case.

 

Worked for me just now 

http://www.miamivicelocations.org/page3.html

[Paul Veres]

1 hour ago, Dadrian said:

Worked for me just now 

http://www.miamivicelocations.org/page3.html

Nope, you're still on Season 1. Yours is a page ("3") of miamivicelocations.org, it's not miamivicelocations3.org.

Put it another way, try to get to any page of Seasons 2-5.

[Dadrian]

11 minutes ago, Paul Veres said:

Nope, you're still on Season 1. Yours is a page ("3") of miamivicelocations.org, it's not miamivicelocations3.org.

Put it another way, try to get to any page of Seasons 2-5.

2: http://www.miamivicelocations2.org/page3.html

3: http://www.miamivicelocations3.org/page3.html

4: http://www.miamivicelocations4.org/page2.html

5: http://www.miamivicelocations5.org/page3.html

 

Am I still misunderstanding your post?

[Paul Veres]

Just now, Dadrian said:

2: http://www.miamivicelocations2.org/page3.html

3: http://www.miamivicelocations3.org/page3.html

4: http://www.miamivicelocations4.org/page2.html

5: http://www.miamivicelocations5.org/page3.html

 

Am I still misunderstanding your post?

These look right, but here is how they open for me:

I use Chrome. If they open for you then it's all good, just not sure what the problem is on my end. 

Thanks for checking.

[Dadrian]

1 hour ago, Paul Veres said:

These look right, but here is how they open for me:

I use Chrome. If they open for you then it's all good, just not sure what the problem is on my end. 

Thanks for checking.

Maybe something with cookies or something? I’m not good with troubleshooting such things. Maybe @James or is anybody else here?

[airtommy]

They all work for me in Firefox.

[James]

On 1/11/2024 at 1:37 PM, Paul Veres said:

These look right, but here is how they open for me:

I use Chrome. If they open for you then it's all good, just not sure what the problem is on my end. 

Thanks for checking.

I am using Chrome too and it all works for me. Try it again.

Except for the homepage of 3.org actually.

[TylerDurden389]

If I get my job transfer back to Doral, I'm likely gonna buy a place out west, and no more than 20 miles away. If the overtime is still there, I intend to work 12/6 for however long until I can put a sizeable down payment on something decent (not looking to live in a mansion, but certainly don't wanna buy a shoebox studio either lol). Weston would be my favorite to move to (albeit the southeastern most part of it right of the 75) but anywhere between would be fine.

[jpaul1]

Hello alligators friends, somebody knows if there's somewhere where i could grab the Mc Carthy house (28 harbor key) plans. Thank you

[Paul Veres]

6 hours ago, jpaul1 said:

Hello alligators friends, somebody knows if there's somewhere where i could grab the Mc Carthy house (28 harbor key) plans. Thank you

Checked MLS and county appraiser office and didn't see it - sorry couldn't help!

[pahonu]

8 hours ago, jpaul1 said:

Hello alligators friends, somebody knows if there's somewhere where i could grab the Mc Carthy house (28 harbor key) plans. Thank you

No floor plans but over 100 photos.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/28-Harbor-Point-Key-Biscayne-FL-33149/44035430_zpid/