The Design Bar, the former Design Box, had a grand opening party on Friday night. Friends came out to celebrate the store at 3094 Fuller Street. It was just a year ago, that the Design Box opened and Herbie Paret was owner, now it's changed hands. I miss Herbie, but it's nice to see that the store still has its eclectic style and all the one-of-a-kind Indian and funky Far East items are still available. Here are Daniel Silverman, who runs the store now, with Renata Bastos and Joseph Wright.
Here's Daniel with his family, the Silvermans -- Dad Michael, in back; Mom Karen; brother Jonathan with Erica Hyde. I had a nice time with Michael and Karen discussing the old Grove, from back in the day.
Striking a pose are Leslie Ames, Roxana Garcia-Walder and Fernanda Lanza. The girls sneaked next door to the Goldie Boutique to check the fashions out. There's a back door that connects the two stores. Leslie is owner of both.
Both locations on Fuller -- The Design Bar and Goldie are great places to get holiday gifts and their neighbor, Silverado, the Southwestern store, that features belts and buckles and lots of Native American jewlery, is another great location for gifts.
Here are a few photos of the boat fire damage. The top photo was sent in by Tim Grand and the bottom three by Bill Wilkening. Channel 6 has
this.
Many of you were awakened this morning by the sound of fire trucks and sirens. A large yacht at the Yacht Harbour Marina caught fire and the fire spread. People near the water started hearing explosions about 6:20 am. Four large boats were destroyed in the end.
The sad part is that due to the lack of City services, cutbacks and all, the closest fire boat came from Haulover and that took over an hour to get down to the Grove! In the meantime, it seemed as if every fire truck from every other fire department in the area showed up, but they were contained to the front of The Fresh Market, one hook and ladder truck made it to the dock area.
The wind pushed the fire more toward the south and luckily the flames did not extend to the actual dock or any other boats. It could have been a major mess. As one friend put it in headline terms: "Boats on fire in the Grove; Multi-million dollar losses.
I got this photo from Michelle Niemeyer, who had it on her Facebook page. If others come in of the actual flames and boats on fire, I'll post them.
Dwell in the beauty of SantaCon. That's when the bar crawl comes around yearly where everyone dresses as Santa, Ms. Santa, elves and the lot to celebrate the holidays and have fun.
There's no cost to join in, there's no charity involved or any money raised for any special causes, it's just a bunch of people out having fun dressed up for the holidays.
They arrived on bicycles, cars, by foot and skateboard. Did they actually leave their houses like this?
Barracuda on Fuller Street was the first stop, pitchers were served and Beer Pong was played.
Many of the bars on the route don't even know that's it's happening until the Santas, et al show up. It's sort of a bar crawl flash mob.
From Barracuda, the Santa's all marched down to CocoWalk, via Main Highway, to Fat Tuesday, which was the next stop on the crawl list.
Here they're playing Beer Pong.
It's a fun event and about seven locations were on the list and as they made their way from bar to bar, some Santa's got sloppy along the way, but it was all in good fun. Ho, ho, ho.
There are two things going on at Fuller Street tonight: The SantaCon bar crawl, folks dressed up as Santa and Mrs. Claus will meet at 8 pm at Barracuda Bar and Grill and decide the locations of the crawl from there and across the street the Goldie Boutique is celebrating the grand opening of the Design Bar (3094 Fuller Street), which is the Design Box, reincarnated, which Goldie purchased -- that starts at 7 pm.Stop by and celebrate both events. See you there!
From the New York, Times: "Mark Goldweber, who was a leading classical dancer with the Joffrey Ballet in the 1970s and ’80s and who won wide acclaim as the Blue Skater in Frederick Ashton’s ballet “Patineurs,” died on Dec. 9 in Salt Lake City. He was 53."
It's Grove news because Mark was born in Coconut Grove and his parents till live here.
The rest of the story is here.
The All-Grove Crime Watch had their 10th annual Crime Watch Awards on Wednesday night. The ceremony at the Sonesta Hotel was in partnership with the Miami Police Department and the Grove NET office.Commander Richard Gentry welcomed guests who enjoyed a nice buffet during the ceremony. Robert Loupo, head of Crime Watch was the emcee along with John Fitzgerald. Hon. Judge Steven Liefman was special guest speaker.
Above, from left, Neighborhood Resource Officers (NROs) Matthew Vasquez, Susie (Izzy) Izaguirre, Leonardo Carrillo.
John Fitzgerald, Andres Lemos, Robert Loupo.
From left: Commander Richard Gentry, Andres Lemos, Off. Matthew Vasquez, Monty Trainer with the gift basket he received.
With their awards, the BID's David Collins, Village Council board member and activist Renita Samuels-Dixon and Manny Gonzalez from the BID.
The Commandar also received a surprise award from Crime Watch for all that he does in the Grove. From left, Assistant Police Chief Rodolpho Llanes, Commander Richard Gentry and Crime Watch chair Robert Loupo.Awards were as follows:
Coconut Grove NET: Haydee Wheeler, Von Carol Kinchens, Tonya Brown
City of Miami Parks: Fermin Alvarez
Miami Parking Authority: Humberto Escandon
Award to Community Leaders went to: Robert Loupo, John Fitzgerald
From the BID: Manny Gonzalez received an award for all his hard work
And the following Miami Police received awards:
Lt. Jeffrey Locke
Sgt. Juan Velazco
Officer Raul Delgado
Officer Ryan Smith
Officer Sonia Jean-Tinor
Officer Edward Abboud
Officer William Velazquez
Officer Leonardo Carrillo
Officer Susie Izaquirre
Officer Christopher Vital
Special awards went to Renita Samuels Dixon, Monty Trainer and David Collins.
Also in attendance were Assistant State Attorney Melia Arnett, Comm. Marc Sarnoff, Police Chief Manuel Orosa, Assistant Chief Roy Brown.Many of the guests attended the Chamber holiday party before the Crime Watch ceremony and then made their way over to the Sonesta. It was a nice night, with so many locals attending both events.
