Miami Archives - Tracing the rich history of Miami, Miami Beach and the Florida Keys

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Miami police chief gets tough on speeders in 1912

Miami's police chief proposed a 12 mile an hour speed limit on city streets.

"No more speeding on the highways in the city of Miami," said the chief.

According to a story in the Aug. 10, 1912 issue of the Miami Daily Metropolis, the police chief told his officers to arrest any violator "whether white or black, rich or poor.

"Further," the paper reported, "it will make no difference whether the person afflicted with the speed mania rides a second hand bicycle or whether he propels a 40-horsepower $5,000 touring car..."

Miami Daily Metropolis, Aug. 10, 1912.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Halcyon Hotel - 1912

Halcyon Hotel at 12th Street and Avenue B
(Now East Flagler and 2nd Avenue.)
Click here to enlarge.

Detail from above photo looking west on 12th
Street. (Now Flagler Street.)
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Detail of center right of main photo.
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Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Neil Rogers in Tropic Magazine, April 28, 1985

Tropic magazine, April 28, 1985

By Marc Fisher

The King of South Florida Talk sits in an ugly orange easy chair under three spotlights, leaning forward, his lips nearly touching the silver WINZ microphone. He is surrounded by scraps of newspaper. He stares at the clock, glances over to the telephone console.

No lights blinking.

His nails are bitten to the quick. His head twitches back and forth between the clock and the phones, the clock and the phones. He is, for the 23rd time this evening, repeating the station phone numbers. He scowls. Finally, a caller. He punches up the call.

"Line 2 in Dade County. Hello?"

Silence. A hang-up.

Neil Rogers, voice of the night, Nasty Neil, Uncle Neil, the funniest, most intelligent, most hated, most loved man on South Florida talk radio, is alone on the air.

Just south of the county line, at the end of a winding road, behind a chain-link fence, the radio station is plopped in the middle of suburban brush, a space-age pod packed with electronic gear and pulsing lights. There have been times when the switchboard flashed and sparkled; when the clamoring voices of callers petitioned for Neil's ear and a piece of his mind. But not tonight.

Tonight, a warm spring evening, Neil Rogers is in the talk studio, separated from his producer and technician by thick, dark glass, alone with his mike and his phone. His mellifluous sportscaster's voice fills the room, pumped back to him through speakers in the ceiling.

For all he knows, he is talking only to himself.

There's a certain breed of radio talk-show hosts who make a career out of making people angry. Neil Rogers made them angrier than most, and that made him more popular than most. No matter that he was a fat balding liberal Jewish atheist homosexual; his rantings drew the highest ratings ever on South Florida radio. Folks despised him and everything he stood for. Folks loved him and sent him cookies and long personal letters and went to the restaurants he advertised, hoping to meet the man who got their blood boiling and filled their evenings with laughs.

He was wild. Irresponsible. Outrageous. And delicious fun to listen to, unless, of course, he was calling you a "Neanderthal" or a "complete idiot" or "the worst thing to happen since the Spanish Inquisition." Even then, if you spoke to him on the air, you might figure, hey, Neil Rogers is calling me an idiot in front of just thousands and thousands of people. Pretty neat. And if you managed to tick him off just right, he'd say, "You're gone," and you'd be holding a dead phone.

Click here to read complete story.