It’s hard to ignore sexy older women — “bad moms,” if you will — especially now that the Mila Kunis-starring sequel is in theaters. Whereas younger women are naively preoccupied with perfecting their Instagram followers-to-following ratio, Miami MILFs exude a self-acceptance that, in a town that hypersexualizes women, can be attained only through hard-earned experience.
In this flooding inferno we call home, we believe in dating apps the way we believe that Mayor Philip Levine’s pumps will keep the sea from swallowing Miami Beach at high tide. Though the Magic City regularly ranks as one of the worst places for singles in the nation, we keep swiping.
It’s 2 a.m. on a recent Monday morning, and the Corner is lit. Literally. Every second Sunday, this tiny, hip watering hole hosts its monthly queer party. Tonight an overeager drag queen preparing for her three-minute act with a smoke machine accidentally tripped the fire alarm. In a whirlwind of…
Gary Catronio stands in the middle of his daughter Marisa’s small bedroom inside a tidy Coral Springs home. A portly New Yorker with a head of white hair and a trimmed white beard, he is careful not to bump or knock anything over. He points to a pile of women’s…
When Lauren Foster was outed as transgender in tabloid magazines in the 1980s, the Vogue model thought her career was over. Rather than slink into the shadows, though, the striking South African blonde mustered the courage to own her gender identity at a time when the Zeitgeist wasn’t nearly as…
When Gov. Rick Scott signed the Infectious Disease Elimination Act into law this past March, Dr. Hansel Tookes nearly fell off his rolling chair. Tookes had encountered such stiff resistance over the past four years while fighting for Florida’s first needle exchange program that he’d nearly given up. But now…
As John Wilson cooked dinner for his family in March 2010, an eerie silence filled their cozy Plantation home. Usually around 6 p.m. on a school day, the place was bustling. Four kids were asking about dinner or playing videogames. John, a mild-mannered musician with salt-and-pepper hair and rimless glasses,…
In the dim light of South Florida’s most famous gay hangout, two dozen men curl around the center bar to down two-for-one drinks on a Monday evening. Some are balding with graying hair. More rugged gents sport baseball caps. A few clean-shaven yuppies in suits scroll through social media feeds…
As Kendall’s population has spiked in recent decades to more than 75,000, the suburb’s sprawling fields and swamp lands have disappeared to make way for more single family homes and strip malls. Already facing overcrowding and traffic, residents there are now fighting to keep two of West Kendall’s last green…
Kendall seems like every other suburb in America: a bunch of chain restaurants, shopping plazas, and gated residential communities. Recently though, Kendall is being noticed for its local bands and gastropubs. Just last year a county commissioner even tried to rebrand the area of West Kendall as “West End.” Seriously. Kendallians…
One day early last year, Luiz Rodrigues gazed out at the dunes near the Fourth Street Beach. The sandy hills are cordoned off with rope and wooden fencing, a sanctuary for many amid the bustle of South Beach. Inside, sea oats swayed in the wind. Fuchsia bayhop flowers blossomed. But…
Jay Scott, sporting a brown ponytail and a shirt that exposes his tattoos, walks through Habatat Galleries in West Palm Beach, past Dale Chihuly’s fluorescent, coral-like cylinders and William Morris’ display of ancient tools. The 39-year-old weaves among pieces created by some of the world’s most renowned glass artists and…
A blue thicket of braided, industrial nylon rope winds through the four-story atrium gallery at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA Miami) in the Design District. A foot wide at one end, the rope narrows and wraps around the museum’s white support beams and columns like a giant cobra. By…
In the 1960s, Tiffany Madera’s parents fled Cuba during the revolution. Like many other refugees, they landed in Miami and started a family. Madera and her bother were born in Miami and grew up in Coconut Grove. But when she was a young child, her family returned to Cuba to…
It was 1 a.m. Saturday, January 16, when a pair of uniformed men shook Jaiema Pierre awake. The petite 18-year-old nursing major had fallen asleep in a friend’s dorm room at the Indian River Towers on Florida Atlantic University’s Boca Raton campus. “What year is it?” one of them asked…
Adventures abound with South Florida’s most intrepid private investigator.
A half-mile off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, 35 feet below the ocean’s surface, two battery-powered golden-yellow submarines the size of Volkswagen Beetles puttered around Barracuda Reef. In one submarine’s cabin — a transparent sphere that looks like a giant fishbowl — sat Rachel Silverstein, a dark-haired PhD who holds…
Herb Smith, a lanky 23-year-old, drove a slick crimson Audi through the streets of Fort Lauderdale while a friend rode shotgun. At 4 p.m. last October 7, they caught a red light. A Broward County Sheriff’s patrol car stopped beside them at the intersection. When the officer glanced over, he…
This past December 3, a somber 21-year-old with long blond hair stood on the limestone outdoor stage at the center of the University of Miami’s Coral Gables campus. When her name was called, she approached the microphone and detailed a violent rape she said had occurred three years ago at…
By 10 a.m. Wednesday, November 11, the health professionals in white coats and green scrubs have already filed into Jackson Health System’s $2 billion medical complex north of downtown Miami. But across NW 17th Street, scores of homeless individuals half-asleep on the sidewalk pull tarps and cardboard over their eyes…
In the Atlantic Ocean, 17 miles southeast of Miami and 100 feet under the surface of the water, Lazaro Cabrera reaches the sunken remains of a steel freighter and swims inside. The lean 41-year-old, in an army-green camouflage wetsuit, scans for movement. Thirty seconds pass, and then he sees it:…
Angelica Sweeting grew up playing with a black Barbie doll. It had straight black hair, a button nose, and a thin-lipped pout. Sure, its skin was darker than the iconic blond Barbie’s complexion, but it still didn’t look like Sweeting. “It was like they just spray-painted Barbie different colors,” she…
