During a recent trip to Miami, I found myself taking a stroll down memory lane. I used to live in Miami from the mid 80s to early 90s, which was more or less when Miami was emerging from its “Smugglers Blues” haze and experiencing a major renaissance (the latter which was in part, related to the economic boost enjoyed as a side effect of the drug subculture there – but I digress.) Today, I have mixed feelings about Miami – mostly all positive – but some less than.
The story I’m about to share highlights the “less than” aspect, for various reasons. Am I glad to have had the opportunity to live in a boom town like Miami - especially during its metamorphosis stage into the hyperbole that marks it today? You bet I am. But these days, I’m much happier being a visitor there.
And so the story begins...
Toward the late 80s, I decided to move into an apartment called Plaza Venetia in downtown Miami. Plaza Venetia is located next to the Port of Miami on Biscayne Bay, across the street from the Miami Herald. Back then, only ballsy people (or homeless) lived in this part of downtown…but it was up and coming and quirky and eccentric, and these characteristics appealed to me. That, and the fact that it was just across the bridge from the South Beach Marina, a place where I could often be found on a Saturday morning, having just rolled out of bed and barely skidding onto the docks in time to catch the last scuba boat leaving for the open waters and a two tank dive.
On lazy Sunday afternoons, it was fun to hang out on my apartment balcony and watch the cruise ships leave for their Caribbean island destinations…I lived on the 10th floor and at night, I loved to open up the sliding glass doors (which took the place of the entire east wall, and provided the floor to ceiling view across the bay toward South Beach) and hear the shrimp boats trolling for their catch at 2:00am. Since I spent a good 50% of my time traveling for my job, this was a relaxing, peaceful sort of paradise to which I was lucky to return every other week.
It was exciting to be in the midst of all the action and to feel a city’s re-birth taking place – but nearby my building there was a busy under/overpass to get onto the main highway. Every morning I would pass the area to get onto the highway to drive 45 minutes to West Miami where my office was located; the same under/overpass I had to take when I returned from the Miami International Airport on my way back from a business trip. One day – literally while I was on one such trip - I returned home and saw a strange sight: some cardboard boxes - BIG boxes, under the pass. I studied this for a minute or so and realized that people seemed to be living in these boxes - or at least using them as some kind of temporary shelter. It was a bizarre sight but I figured this was some new group of better organized homeless people and just like they arrived, they'd be gone.
But each trip when I returned, there were more of these "shadow people" living under the overpass....it was, in a word: surreal. I would even say that at one point, it was actually morphing into a little “village”. I’d lived in Caracas once as a kid (where this phenomenon is standard) - but I NEVER imagined witnessing such a thing in a “1st world”, metropolitan city - certainly not within a mile of my apartment – the one whose name sounded so fancy you’d think it belonged on Park Avenue in New York City or something. Soon I was seeing things like discarded furniture - old couches, chairs; and soon thereafter, the cardboard boxes had turned into corrugated tin structures - real makeshift shelters or little “barrio” type homes...
People were living there, no doubt about it. The funny (or frustrating) thing is that I never had a lot of time to contemplate this strange sort of “underworld” situation that was forming, because the entrance and exit for the highway were just yards away and I was always either coming or going, and like most people who live in a big city, I was of course, always in a rush to get somewhere.
Naturally I kept my car doors locked when passing this "shadow village", though nobody ever charged at my car or tried to cause trouble or even beg for money...nothing like that. The inhabitants of this “shadow village” usually stayed inside the confines of a chain link fence (which seemed purposeless) and basically kept to themselves. I couldn't figure out what it was they did all day or even how they ate, though I eventually saw where they went to the bathroom…because one day I noticed some portable urinal stalls - they'd either stolen them from somewhere or maybe the city officials agreed to put a temporary bandage on this weird hemorrhage – I’m not sure. But again, just to reiterate that it was the kind of spectacle that you'd associate with a third world country, not a city undergoing a major revival.
One day, I decided to call one of the shopkeepers downtown and ask if he knew what was going on with this "shadow village". I literally just looked in the phone book, knowing the streets and addresses since it was more or less my neighborhood, and selected a shop. The owner answered, and I introduced myself as someone who lived nearby and noticed this phenomenon and was curious to know what was the story. He told me that the people were all homeless, majority from the Caribbean, some were undoubtedly illegal (this, back when the notion of “illegal aliens” wasn't all that big a deal. Definitely pre 9/11) and that the whole thing was "bad for business!" He said the city was looking into "doing something about the problem" and he hoped it would be gone soon.
A few weeks after that, I was coming home one night around 9:00pm. Just as I was getting off the exit and passing the "shadow village", my car broke down – right there, in front of these guys. Of course, night time is when they were usually sitting on their "couches" outside, having a smoke or whatever it was they did (there never seemed to be any police around). I tried not to panic. I knew the longer I just sat there, the more attention I would draw from the captive audience, and just as I was trying to figure out my move, a middle-aged black man came up to the window on my side and knocked on it. I assumed he was one of the West Indian “majority” as described by that shop proprietor I’d called a few weeks back; he looked to be somewhere in his mid 40s. I took a gamble and rolled my window down half way. The man had a soft voice, a gentle voice - and he was very quick to ask if he could help. I knew it could be a scam or a way to possibly make trouble for me, but I also knew I didn't have much of a choice. I didn't get a bad vibe from him, so I opened the door and showed him how the car had just "died" on the spot. He tinkered around for a minute before advising that he couldn't fix it - but he recognized what the problem was. He offered to push my car down the rest of the street and around the corner to a nearby gas station (which was closed, but I knew there was a pay phone there where I could make a call for a ride, since even I knew that to walk the rest of the way to my apartment might end up with a rape or mugging and I didn't want to mess with my good luck up to that point).
I got out and helped push the car too and we easily made it to the gas station, where the guy then waited for me to make my call. When I finished with the phone, I turned to thank him and fished around in my purse for something to repay his kindness. He waved my hand away and resolutely stated that he would continue to wait with me since it would be "dangerous" for a girl like me to be all alone in the middle of downtown at night. So we waited and while we waited, I asked him how it was that he was living under the bridge...why? How did he get there? Did he have a wife – a family? What happened to cause him to end up living in this “shadow village” under the overpass in downtown Miami?
He told me his story, and it was so straightforward that it was chilling: he’d simply lost his job....that is, he’d lost his job, hit a patch of bad luck where he wasn't getting hired, couldn’t pay the bills and ultimately, lost his house in foreclosure. He and his family had nowhere to go, but heard that Miami was a place to find work. He was still looking for work when I met him (the terrible catch-22 being that nobody will hire you if you don't have a domicile or residence).
I must have asked a million questions during those twenty minutes we sat on the curb in front of that darkened gas station in the middle of downtown Miami....I learned that my rescuer was just your “average joe”; that is, he wasn’t an illegal alien from the islands - he was a regular guy from South Carolina – and he had two little boys and a wife. They were all with him, living under that bridge overpass. We continued to talk until my ride arrived (an ex-boyfriend who had to drive all the way from Southwest Miami, a good 25 minutes from where I lived - and he was freaking out when he saw me sitting on the curb in that very questionable area, next to this guy - just a real unusual sight to behold - unless you're talking about maybe a pimp and his prostitute. This was after all, downtown Miami).
Right before getting into my ride’s car, I checked my purse again and pulled out what I had, which was $40. I had to insist that my rescuer please accept it as a token of my gratitude. My ex, seeing how well the man had watched over me, also insisted on giving the man whatever was in his wallet. It was an awkward moment but one of those times when you just could not take “no” for an answer. It was terrible, knowing all the man had left was his pride - but we also knew he needed the money. (Well, in this type of situation what he needed was more than money, obviously – he needed contacts and a job. Things that I couldn’t provide him at that time.) In the end he accepted the money with quiet dignity, acknowledging that it would be helpful, and my ex and I wished him a positive turn of fortune as we left, feeling both happy - but mostly sad - at the humanity.
After this incident, I usually made it a point to look for my transitory "friend" whenever I was getting on or off the exit, but I never did see him again (it was hard anyways to recognize faces in such a sea of people....there really were a lot of people living there - a true "village" of people who for all tragic purposes, really didn't exist...) Then a few weeks later, I returned from one of my trips and would you believe - the "shadow village" was gone. All gone - no evidence it ever even existed.
A few years later, I moved away from Miami and ironically, found myself on a business trip there one day. I was staying at the InterContinental Hotel and when I walked through the lobby, I recognized one of the doormen as a former doorman working at my apartment building back when I lived there. He recognized me too. We greeted each other like two old friends and caught up on local gossip before I finally asked him if he ever remembered that “shadow village”. He paused for a moment and squinted, trying to think back to those times….no, he didn’t remember any “shadow village”. Where was this place? I explained to him in great detail about those few months when a whole village of people seemed to take up residence under the overpass, but he couldn’t seem to recall that.
Ultimately, I never knew anything more about this “shadow village”; never heard anyone talk about it; never even read about it in the papers or saw any coverage on the news. It almost seemed as though I'd imagined it all.
But - I’d had that encounter with my "friend" from South Carolina that one night when my car broke down...and I remembered about it again on this recent visit to Miami, and I insisted to drive by that area. I couldn't recognize it.
Indeed, it feels like it didn't exist at all.
The story I’m about to share highlights the “less than” aspect, for various reasons. Am I glad to have had the opportunity to live in a boom town like Miami - especially during its metamorphosis stage into the hyperbole that marks it today? You bet I am. But these days, I’m much happier being a visitor there.
And so the story begins...
Toward the late 80s, I decided to move into an apartment called Plaza Venetia in downtown Miami. Plaza Venetia is located next to the Port of Miami on Biscayne Bay, across the street from the Miami Herald. Back then, only ballsy people (or homeless) lived in this part of downtown…but it was up and coming and quirky and eccentric, and these characteristics appealed to me. That, and the fact that it was just across the bridge from the South Beach Marina, a place where I could often be found on a Saturday morning, having just rolled out of bed and barely skidding onto the docks in time to catch the last scuba boat leaving for the open waters and a two tank dive.
On lazy Sunday afternoons, it was fun to hang out on my apartment balcony and watch the cruise ships leave for their Caribbean island destinations…I lived on the 10th floor and at night, I loved to open up the sliding glass doors (which took the place of the entire east wall, and provided the floor to ceiling view across the bay toward South Beach) and hear the shrimp boats trolling for their catch at 2:00am. Since I spent a good 50% of my time traveling for my job, this was a relaxing, peaceful sort of paradise to which I was lucky to return every other week.
It was exciting to be in the midst of all the action and to feel a city’s re-birth taking place – but nearby my building there was a busy under/overpass to get onto the main highway. Every morning I would pass the area to get onto the highway to drive 45 minutes to West Miami where my office was located; the same under/overpass I had to take when I returned from the Miami International Airport on my way back from a business trip. One day – literally while I was on one such trip - I returned home and saw a strange sight: some cardboard boxes - BIG boxes, under the pass. I studied this for a minute or so and realized that people seemed to be living in these boxes - or at least using them as some kind of temporary shelter. It was a bizarre sight but I figured this was some new group of better organized homeless people and just like they arrived, they'd be gone.
But each trip when I returned, there were more of these "shadow people" living under the overpass....it was, in a word: surreal. I would even say that at one point, it was actually morphing into a little “village”. I’d lived in Caracas once as a kid (where this phenomenon is standard) - but I NEVER imagined witnessing such a thing in a “1st world”, metropolitan city - certainly not within a mile of my apartment – the one whose name sounded so fancy you’d think it belonged on Park Avenue in New York City or something. Soon I was seeing things like discarded furniture - old couches, chairs; and soon thereafter, the cardboard boxes had turned into corrugated tin structures - real makeshift shelters or little “barrio” type homes...
People were living there, no doubt about it. The funny (or frustrating) thing is that I never had a lot of time to contemplate this strange sort of “underworld” situation that was forming, because the entrance and exit for the highway were just yards away and I was always either coming or going, and like most people who live in a big city, I was of course, always in a rush to get somewhere.
Naturally I kept my car doors locked when passing this "shadow village", though nobody ever charged at my car or tried to cause trouble or even beg for money...nothing like that. The inhabitants of this “shadow village” usually stayed inside the confines of a chain link fence (which seemed purposeless) and basically kept to themselves. I couldn't figure out what it was they did all day or even how they ate, though I eventually saw where they went to the bathroom…because one day I noticed some portable urinal stalls - they'd either stolen them from somewhere or maybe the city officials agreed to put a temporary bandage on this weird hemorrhage – I’m not sure. But again, just to reiterate that it was the kind of spectacle that you'd associate with a third world country, not a city undergoing a major revival.
One day, I decided to call one of the shopkeepers downtown and ask if he knew what was going on with this "shadow village". I literally just looked in the phone book, knowing the streets and addresses since it was more or less my neighborhood, and selected a shop. The owner answered, and I introduced myself as someone who lived nearby and noticed this phenomenon and was curious to know what was the story. He told me that the people were all homeless, majority from the Caribbean, some were undoubtedly illegal (this, back when the notion of “illegal aliens” wasn't all that big a deal. Definitely pre 9/11) and that the whole thing was "bad for business!" He said the city was looking into "doing something about the problem" and he hoped it would be gone soon.
A few weeks after that, I was coming home one night around 9:00pm. Just as I was getting off the exit and passing the "shadow village", my car broke down – right there, in front of these guys. Of course, night time is when they were usually sitting on their "couches" outside, having a smoke or whatever it was they did (there never seemed to be any police around). I tried not to panic. I knew the longer I just sat there, the more attention I would draw from the captive audience, and just as I was trying to figure out my move, a middle-aged black man came up to the window on my side and knocked on it. I assumed he was one of the West Indian “majority” as described by that shop proprietor I’d called a few weeks back; he looked to be somewhere in his mid 40s. I took a gamble and rolled my window down half way. The man had a soft voice, a gentle voice - and he was very quick to ask if he could help. I knew it could be a scam or a way to possibly make trouble for me, but I also knew I didn't have much of a choice. I didn't get a bad vibe from him, so I opened the door and showed him how the car had just "died" on the spot. He tinkered around for a minute before advising that he couldn't fix it - but he recognized what the problem was. He offered to push my car down the rest of the street and around the corner to a nearby gas station (which was closed, but I knew there was a pay phone there where I could make a call for a ride, since even I knew that to walk the rest of the way to my apartment might end up with a rape or mugging and I didn't want to mess with my good luck up to that point).
I got out and helped push the car too and we easily made it to the gas station, where the guy then waited for me to make my call. When I finished with the phone, I turned to thank him and fished around in my purse for something to repay his kindness. He waved my hand away and resolutely stated that he would continue to wait with me since it would be "dangerous" for a girl like me to be all alone in the middle of downtown at night. So we waited and while we waited, I asked him how it was that he was living under the bridge...why? How did he get there? Did he have a wife – a family? What happened to cause him to end up living in this “shadow village” under the overpass in downtown Miami?
He told me his story, and it was so straightforward that it was chilling: he’d simply lost his job....that is, he’d lost his job, hit a patch of bad luck where he wasn't getting hired, couldn’t pay the bills and ultimately, lost his house in foreclosure. He and his family had nowhere to go, but heard that Miami was a place to find work. He was still looking for work when I met him (the terrible catch-22 being that nobody will hire you if you don't have a domicile or residence).
I must have asked a million questions during those twenty minutes we sat on the curb in front of that darkened gas station in the middle of downtown Miami....I learned that my rescuer was just your “average joe”; that is, he wasn’t an illegal alien from the islands - he was a regular guy from South Carolina – and he had two little boys and a wife. They were all with him, living under that bridge overpass. We continued to talk until my ride arrived (an ex-boyfriend who had to drive all the way from Southwest Miami, a good 25 minutes from where I lived - and he was freaking out when he saw me sitting on the curb in that very questionable area, next to this guy - just a real unusual sight to behold - unless you're talking about maybe a pimp and his prostitute. This was after all, downtown Miami).
Right before getting into my ride’s car, I checked my purse again and pulled out what I had, which was $40. I had to insist that my rescuer please accept it as a token of my gratitude. My ex, seeing how well the man had watched over me, also insisted on giving the man whatever was in his wallet. It was an awkward moment but one of those times when you just could not take “no” for an answer. It was terrible, knowing all the man had left was his pride - but we also knew he needed the money. (Well, in this type of situation what he needed was more than money, obviously – he needed contacts and a job. Things that I couldn’t provide him at that time.) In the end he accepted the money with quiet dignity, acknowledging that it would be helpful, and my ex and I wished him a positive turn of fortune as we left, feeling both happy - but mostly sad - at the humanity.
After this incident, I usually made it a point to look for my transitory "friend" whenever I was getting on or off the exit, but I never did see him again (it was hard anyways to recognize faces in such a sea of people....there really were a lot of people living there - a true "village" of people who for all tragic purposes, really didn't exist...) Then a few weeks later, I returned from one of my trips and would you believe - the "shadow village" was gone. All gone - no evidence it ever even existed.
A few years later, I moved away from Miami and ironically, found myself on a business trip there one day. I was staying at the InterContinental Hotel and when I walked through the lobby, I recognized one of the doormen as a former doorman working at my apartment building back when I lived there. He recognized me too. We greeted each other like two old friends and caught up on local gossip before I finally asked him if he ever remembered that “shadow village”. He paused for a moment and squinted, trying to think back to those times….no, he didn’t remember any “shadow village”. Where was this place? I explained to him in great detail about those few months when a whole village of people seemed to take up residence under the overpass, but he couldn’t seem to recall that.
Ultimately, I never knew anything more about this “shadow village”; never heard anyone talk about it; never even read about it in the papers or saw any coverage on the news. It almost seemed as though I'd imagined it all.
But - I’d had that encounter with my "friend" from South Carolina that one night when my car broke down...and I remembered about it again on this recent visit to Miami, and I insisted to drive by that area. I couldn't recognize it.
Indeed, it feels like it didn't exist at all.
