Must-see in Miami: Black Police Precinct & Courthouse Museum

Posted on 23 May, 2013 by Julie Schwietert Collazo

Text: Julie Schwietert Collazo
Photos: Francisco Collazo
**
Having been to Miami many times, we were looking for something different to see and do. And being short on time to plan what that something different might be, our research was limited to asking some local friends what was new in the city and checking a list of museums’ current exhibits.

Friends provided solid intel about food; Miami’s “Museum Month” guide provided a lead on a museum we’d never heard of: the Black Police Precinct and Courthouse Museum.

Black Police Precinct and Courthouse Museum.

Black Police Precinct and Courthouse Museum.

We plugged our destination into foursquare and hit “Get Directions.” The fact that foursquare decided the end point of our trip was on the side of I-95 and that we eventually required a police escort to find the museum only underscored how marginalized the precinct and its community were historically… and, in many ways, remain.

Staff and volunteers, however, are trying to change that.

When we finally pulled into the parking lot and entered the museum, we were greeted by Davy, a retired Miami police officer who now spends his days giving guided tours of the refurbished precinct and courthouse. He was thrilled to learn we’d found out about the museum through Miami Museums; “We just recently signed on with them,” he said, “so we’re glad to know people are finding us that way.” Davy said visitors to the museum are people who really want to learn about Miami’s black history; far from Miami’s museum district and difficult to access, the people who end up at the museum often have interesting stories about how and why they wound up there.

Though he joined the police force three years after the black police precinct closed, he knows many of the people who worked here.

Though he joined the police force three years after the black police precinct closed, he knows many of the people who worked here.

Davy was so enthusiastic about sharing the history of the Black Police Precinct and Courthouse Museum with us that he forgot to collect our admission fee (We sent it afterwards, along with an extra donation). Instead, he launched right into the incredible story of the nation’s only “known structure… designed, devoted to, and operated as a separate station house and municipal court for Blacks.”

That story complicates the binary narrative of pro- and anti-segregationists before and during the civil rights era, not the least reason being because the precinct’s establishment was the result of successful lobbying by black leaders. Indignant with white police officers’ treatment of their community, black leaders in Miami’s “Coloredtown” neighborhood (now called Overtown) insisted that black officers could–and should–police the community more effectively. In 1950, white leaders finally capitulated and made provisions for a special black police precinct, which also housed its own small jail and courthouse.

Officers in Coloredtown worked their beats on foot and, later, by bike; they weren’t allowed to drive patrol cars and didn’t have access to most of the tools and resources white officers were able to use. Yet they did drive down crime in the neighborhood, and the precinct and courthouse were the means for many of its employees to have meaningful professional careers at a time when few viable opportunities were available.

The precinct, jail, and courthouse were in existence for 13 years before the community-based policing project was terminated and the building was shuttered. Officers from the black police precinct were reassigned and integrated into an existing precinct in 1963. The historic precinct and courthouse sat closed until a restoration project was spearheaded. The site reopened as a museum in 2009.

Today, there aren’t many visitors to Overtown. Besides being tough to find (especially for the directionally challenged, who are likely to be frustrated by the warren of one-way streets), Overtown continues to have a reputation as a rough community. And how could it not? Sitting under the interstate and next to a power plant, it has all the characteristics of a community that has been isolated in the midst of plenty. Or, as Jane Jacobs described so eloquently in her 1961 book (still so relevant today), The Death and Life of Great American Cities, this neighborhood is just one of America’s “marvels of dullness and regimentation, sealed against any buoyancy and vitality of city life…. Expressways… eviscerate great cities…. [These are a]mputated areas [that] develop galloping gangrene.”

Fortunately, Davy and his colleagues, many of whom have direct ties to the precinct (though Davy joined the police force three years after the black police precinct and courthouse closed, he knows and is friends with many of the people who did work there), are continuing the work that mitigates the forces cutting the community off from its neighbors. In addition to functioning as a museum that holds the ephemera of Miami’s black policing history, the site also serves as a community center where certain groups, such as Scouts, can meet. The museum is also playing some cameo roles in TV shows and films, including “Burn Notice”; reasonable rental fees help pay the bills.

If you’d like to visit, be sure to call ahead (305-329-2513) and ask for good directions. The museum is open 10 AM-4 PM, Monday-Saturday, and admission is $3.00 per person.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald on Tourists

Posted on 20 May, 2013 by Julie Schwietert Collazo

Text: Julie Schwietert Collazo
Photo: Flickr user Cote
**
I dislike the “tourist vs. traveler” debate, which feels tired and whiny to me, perhaps because I’ve been traveling and writing about travel for such a long time.

Besides, I think it’s important that people travel. Period. Even if they’re wearing a fanny pack. Even if they retreat to the familiarity of McDonald’s for a Big Mac.

But I rather love this passage from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s essay, “How to Live on Practically Nothing a Year,” which is included in the book, My Lost City: Personal Essays, 1920-1940:

“‘Hasn’t it been a good summer!’ said the young man, lazily. ‘We’ve become absolutely French.’

‘And the French are such an aesthetic people,’ said the young lady, listening for a moment to the banana music. ‘They know how to live. Think of all the nice things they have to eat!’

‘Delicious things! Heavenly things!’ exclaimed the young man, spreading some American deviled ham on some biscuits marked Springfield, Illinois. ‘But then they’ve studied the food question for two thousand years.’

An old advertisement for American deviled ham.

An old advertisement for American deviled ham.

‘And things are so cheap here!’ cried the young lady enthusiastically. ‘Think of perfume! Perfume that would cost fifteen dollars in New York, you can get here for five.’

The young man struck a Swedish match and lit an American cigarette.

‘The trouble with most Americans in France,’ he remarked…, ‘is that they won’t lead a real French life. They hang around the big hotels and exchange opinions fresh from the States.’

‘I know,’ she agreed. ‘That’s exactly what it said in The New York Times this morning.’

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#FriFotos: Steps

Posted on 17 May, 2013 by Julie Schwietert Collazo

Text: Julie Schwietert Collazo
Photo: Francisco Collazo
**
This week’s #FriFotos theme is “Steps,” and at first, I thought of buildings and structures reached by impressive or treacherous steps.

And then, I started thinking of a whole other kind of step.

A couple practices their salsa steps at the International Salsa Congress in Puerto Rico in 2009.

A couple practices their salsa steps at the International Salsa Congress in Puerto Rico in 2009.

Francisco took this photo in 2009 while we were working on Fodor’s Puerto Rico. One of my features for the guidebook was about salsa, and we had to explain and illustrate the actual steps, or pasos, of this dance. In order to do so, we spent a good bit of time at the International Salsa Congress in San Juan, shooting photos of dancers.

I don’t dance at all, but I do love watching couples whose steps are in sync with each other. How about you- do you dance? What are your favorite steps?

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How–and Why–to Be Less Afraid of Cooking

Posted on 14 May, 2013 by Julie Schwietert Collazo

Text & Photos:
Julie Schwietert Collazo
**
Over the past couple of years, I’ve added food as a frequent topic in my writing repertoire.

It was inevitable, really; Francisco is a chef and a significant amount of our time (and money) are spent on buying, cooking, and eating really good ingredients.

But part of my winding path toward food writing is, as much about one’s writing career turns out to be, a combination of timing and circumstance. I’ve happened to land interviews with some of the world’s best chefs. I’ve fallen, time and again, down the research rabbit hole after eating an interesting or incredible meal and that research has taken me right into my next story.

And, finally, the fact that I’m writing more and more about food has something to do with my being in the kitchen more often. As part of a concentrated effort to slow life down a little bit and do things more deliberately, I’ve been cooking more frequently. And cooking has a way, if you’re paying attention, of awakening your curiosity. Where did this ingredient originate and how did it get into my hands? How does a mix of water, flour, and yeast turn into bread? What’s happening, exactly, during the fermentation of the pineapple vinegar I’ve got maturing in the kitchen?

It’s an exciting time to write about food… and to cook it. Suddenly, everyone seems interested in food: where it comes from, what it took to grow/produce/raise it, how it can be used. Cooking, for many people (at least in the “developed” world), is no longer a chore, but a hobby, something to be delighted in rather than something to be dreaded.

*
And yet, I recently began to realize that for all the interest in food–despite the growing number of food magazines, the increasing variety of artisanal ingredients, and the ever-expanding cookbook section (and number of customers in it) at bookstores– there are lots of people who are afraid of actually cooking. They love reading about food and they love eating it. They love talking and tweeting about it. They may even love buying those expensive ingredients and storing them in cupboards and cabinets and refrigerator crispers.

But they’re terrified they’re going to stand over the stove and flub it all up.

I learned this during #foodiechats, a weekly live chat among self-professed foodies that takes place each week on twitter. I’d joined the chat because The Latin Kitchen, where I’m a regular contributor, was hosting the conversation and the topic, Latin food, was totally in my wheelhouse.

One of the questions asked of participants during the chat was, “What Latin recipe have you wanted to try but haven’t?” From predictably complex dishes like mole to far simpler ones, like churros and chilaquiles, one participant after another used the phrase “I’d love to make ___, but I’m afraid to try.”

The beginnings of pineapple vinegar.

The beginnings of pineapple vinegar.

The idea that anyone would be afraid (a strong word) to try a recipe was a little baffling to me, but then I realized that I’m no so far removed from that mental space myself. There are recipes I fastidiously avoid (pretty much anything in Diana Kennedy’s Nothing Fancy, for instance, in which everything seems complex and fancy… though I adore the book) and those that I mark as “want to try” but put off making because I’m worried I don’t have mastered the technique or timing it requires. I’d rather volunteer to cook vegetables for our meals rather than meat (I’m always anxious about undercooking the latter). So afraid to cook? Yes, I actually do understand that.

Lately, though, I’ve started pushing myself. And I’ve found–though it shouldn’t be a surprise– that risk is nearly always rewarded… even if an experiment ends in failure. Take that pineapple vinegar. Right now, it’s fermenting in a transparent crock, and each day I do a visual check-in on its ripening funk. I have NO idea whether it’s progressing as it should (I won’t know that until I taste test it in a couple weeks), but to watch it maturing is as exciting to me as it was to watch sponge animals pop out of capsules immersed in water when I was a kid. “I made that!” I want to shout to my neighbor through the kitchen window. In two weeks, once I skim off that foamy funk, I’ll be thrilled and completely satisfied if it turns out I’ve created something we can actually use.

Check back in a couple weeks and I’ll let you know how the vinegar turned out.

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Watery New York: Starlight Park and Bronx River Greenway

Posted on 13 May, 2013 by Julie Schwietert Collazo

Text: Julie Schwietert Collazo
Photos: Francisco Collazo
**
It seems as if everyone who writes about New York has just (re)discovered that we’re a city surrounded by water.

Amidst skyscrapers, it can be easy to forget New York is a city surrounded by water.

Amidst skyscrapers, it can be easy to forget New York is a city surrounded by water.

There’s an excellent feature in this month’s Conde Nast Traveler about New York City’s waterways, and it’s not the only article I’ve read on the subject in recent weeks (there was another one I stumbled upon from Men’s Journal a few days later).

It is easy, when you’re in Midtown and neither river is within view, to forget that you’re only blocks from at least three waterways (the East River, Hudson River, and Atlantic Ocean). Your only clue may be seagulls cawing overhead, which themselves have caused many a double-take: Seagulls? New York City? What?

But walk east or west for just a few minutes and New York City’s riparian roots will immediately be visible. And, as Justin Davidson points out in that Traveler article, every season there are more opportunities for New Yorkers and visitors alike to get on the water themselves.

Francisco and I have spent some quality time on New York City’s waterways– kayaking the Hudson River and riding the water taxi and ferry on the East River. We’ve even tramped around Newtown Creek (though we haven’t dared dip a toe in those waters). Davidson’s article inspired us to go a bit farther afield, though, and a couple weekends ago we traveled up to The Bronx to explore Starlight Park, part of the Bronx River Greenway.

Bridge to Starlight Park, part of the Bronx River Greenway.

Bridge to Starlight Park, part of the Bronx River Greenway.

The Bronx River Greenway is one of several “Look how we turned this polluted river into something incredible” stories transforming not just the quality of the city’s waterways, but also the access to and utility of those bodies of water. Today, the former “open sewer,” polluted by the factories set up alongside it during New York’s industrial boom, has been cleaned up (though there’s still plenty of garbage to be seen along its banks) and people are actually using the river.

That’s due, in large part, to the efforts of the Bronx River Alliance, which has taken the banks of the river and surrounding land and turned them into recreational areas. Not nearly as accessible as, say, Hudson River Park (in fact, we drove around and around Starlight Park, one of the access points for the Greenway, for nearly an hour before we found our way in), it is clearly an important resource for neighborhood residents. The day we visited, the multi-use park was full of people. Its playground was packed with kids, a soccer field was spilling over with players, and families walked their dogs, picnicked, and cycled the bike path that winds along the river.

Boat launch at Starlight Park, part of the Bronx River Greenway.

Boat launch at Starlight Park, part of the Bronx River Greenway.

For those of us who don’t live in the neighborhood, we have to really want to get to Starlight Park and the other access points of the Greenway, but for river rats, especially, the payoff is worth it. The river is, as Davidson describes it in his Traveler article, peaceful and uncrowded, and you’ll have a hard time remembering that you’re in New York City.

Community groups are working hard to increase visits to the river. This weekend, the first-ever flotilla and 5k canoe challenge launched from Starlight Park. Apart from this event, which organizers hope will become a yearly activity, you can also participate in monthly guided paddling trips.

If you’re looking for a new way to experience New York City beyond the roar of traffic and subway trains, check out the New York City Water Trail Map, which lists put-in points for all five boroughs, gives tips and warnings about conditions, and alerts you to the kinds of wildlife you’re likely to see on your paddle.

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