Customer Reviews

Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth, and Power--A Dispatch from the Beach

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

From the first page to the last, the author, Gerald Posner delivers an exciting expose of the seedy underside of the Politics, Powers and Prerogatives of the players that control Miami and Miami Beach. The author exposes the esoteric secrets that transformed this community into a modern day Babylon. Nothing is held back, from the filthy political back door deals to the chilling coke controlled economy that built these cities and are still building them.

Miami Babylon begins with the beguiling first chapter entitled "Gasoline on a Fire." Posner entices the reader with the historical narrative, revealing the horrendous ordeal of the "Mariel Boatlift" and the everlasting effect it had on the predominately elderly, predominately Jewish, totally defenseless population it destroyed. The reader is enticed by the first hand experiences and riveting revelations as they ride along with Miami Beach Homicide Detective Charlie Seraydar on the midnight shift as he routinely risks his life in trying to save South Beach. Charlie hauntingly reveals, "The first year of Mariel was like a war zone" with the crime rate rising over 600 percent and the elderly being murdered at the highest rate in the history of the city."

Miami Babylon is compulsively readable and wonderfully written.

Alex Daoud
Three-Time Mayor of Miami Beach
Author of "Sins of South Beach"

Posner's book is in essence a dissertation based on a careful review of the Miami Herald's archives. The strength of this book is its parallel between the speculative boom and bust of the 1920s and the 2000s. Jorge Perez commenting on Carl Fisher? Delicious.

Its weakness is the unbalanced chronology. Halfway through the book, you've gone through Miami Beach's 20th century history. The other half focuses - way too closely, on the Beach's recent history. The lack of balance can discourage a reader, and gives the impression that Posner had the benefit of online search engines to research the Beach's recent past.

There is gossip, several interesting behind-the-scenes vignettes, and a mighty struggle to pull together the thematic parallels between Fisher and Perez. On the latter, Posner succeeds, but just barely so.

While everyone is entitled to their opinions I couldn't help but noticing that early reviewers seemed to include a number of people related to the book. For example I assume the poster "Alex Daoud" is the Alex Daoud who was Mayor of Miami Beach.

That being said I think this is a well written and comprehensive overview of Miami Beach and my (independent) appraisal would be four stars. The author, Gerald Posner has written numerous books and the writing, chronological organization of the material and footnoting are all quite professional.

The book begins with early development of the Miami era, the land boom during the 1920s, the decline through the 1930s and 1940s, the growth of Miami Beach after World War Two, the influx of elderly retirees, the devastating impact of the Mariel Boatlift from Cuba,the physical decline of the city, its rediscovery by early gentrification pioneers, the evolution of South Beach culture, "Miami Vice" and the cocaine cowboys, the South Beach nightlife, the zoning battles between the older residents and developers, the condo boom etc.

The author, who apparently started interviews for the book in 2005, was somewhat beaten to the punch by another established author, Steven Gaines, who published Fools Paradise less than a year before this book. Both cover the same topic and time line; consequently there is a lot of overlap. Fools Paradise tends to go into more detail on the nightlife aspect of South Beach (i.e. modeling, the clubs, the promoters). I don't know if Gerald Posner re-focused Miami Babylon after publication of the earlier book. However Miami Babylon has a greater emphasis on the real estate redevelopment and zoning aspects. I note that one reviewer gave only one star on the basis that it covered "boring" real estate deals of no interest to that reader. I think that is unfair relative to the total scope of the book but it is undeniable that real estate aspects have a heavy weighting.

I can recommend both books to readers interested in the subject of Miami Beach/South Beach. If choosing only one to read I would be guided by your interest in nightlife versus re-development.

"Miami Babylon" subtitled "Crime, Wealth, And Power--A Dispatch From The Beach" is at once oddly intriguing yet ultimately unfulfilling. Perhaps my expectations were inappropriate as I enjoyed the book and the attendant history yet I sought more of a defining theme to interlace all the various eras, heroes, villains, and developments. Nonfiction and real life documentaries are, by nature, usually less exciting material than fiction--yet parts of "Miami Babylon" are gripping, especially for those readers who lived through a great part of the history and development of South Beach. Ultimately, perhaps the disappointment for this reader emanates from Posner's choice of focus and perspective--a great deal of attention to the real estate purchases, zoning battles, and political corruption with much less focus on the arts, cultural, and sociological long term effects as well as for its "thin" or superficial characterizations at times.

The book is largely a chronological narrative of the growth and development of Miami Beach from unwanted swampland to Art Deco center to drug/crime capitol to the glitz of a celebrity Disneylandish playground. Considerable detail is presented of the shenanigans, the visionaries, the predators, and the significant players in South Beach's development, especially over the last 40 years. Read of the poltical infighting and back-stabbing that has been a staple of its development; the cocaine and drug wars; the misery brought with the Marielito Boatlift of 1981 that ultimately changed the face of Miami forever; and experience the battles between expansionist developers vs. historical preservationists, Jewish retirees vs. Cuban refugees, and art/culture vs. glitzy nightclubs and towering apartment buildings.

Ultimately, "Miami Babylon" is a well researched resource on the history and development of Miami Beach with special focus on the speculative land development, economic bubble growth, and inevitable crash of both the 1920's and the 2000's. The South Beach of today is a far cry from its humble beginings but it is also a far cry from the Miami Vice/cigarette boat craze of the 1970's. If a reader is searching for the history, the drive, and the soul of a big time American city, "Miami Babylon" should be a must read.

There's no question in MY mind that this is the best non-fiction book ever written about South Beach (or even Miami Beach). (The best novel to capture the inimitable vagaries of South Beach is without argument David Leddick's "My Worst Date" issued in 1996 when the South Beach that will be remembered was already over.)

I'd had too much to drink (imagine that!) at Debbie Ohanian's Starfish one night and told "New Times" columnist Tom Austin that he should write a book. THIS is the book he should have written. But where Tom Austin could wax eloquent about this sleazy little town's s peccadilloes, Gerald Posner has waxed brilliant, bringing a disciplined hard eye to the monumental task of organizing a tough, tough story.

That said, it's also impossible to tell the story of South Beach since the mid-1980s with any semblance of accuracy when relying on so many self-serving interviews with the people who actually were there making it happen.

And it wasn't really so much that these people made South Beach "happen." It would be rather more correct to say that "South Beach happened to them" because the winds of Fate (for good or ill) had blown them here - here, where they flung themselves headlong over the precipice of common sense and propriety into that hazy foam party pit of South Beach where plentiful drugs and easy sex distorted all sense of reality. Not only could these people not make South Beach "happen," but for the most part they couldn't stand on their own two feet. Or even get up in the morning.

Later, in hindsight, they were deemed visionaries. Ah! Well, there's something to be said for being in the right place at the right time. That's for those of us who lived through it. For those of us who didn't - the remembered ones like George Tamsitt and Craig Coleman and even more so the unremembered ones like James Cunningham (he drove that ill-fated limo to Tamsitt's club Eclipse every night) - it was a different story.

The "sins of South Beach," to quote the title of Mayor Alex Daoud's book, were mostly minor ones, the sins of the self-indulgent. Even in Dante's "Inferno," these sins are punished only in the first five circles of Hell. The lower ones, eight and nine, are reserved for the most vicious of all crimes, malicious crimes.

I would say all of the "errors" in Gerald Posner's book are there because of self-serving information fed to him during an interview, information that in most cases could not be corroborated because someone was dead or unavailable. I believe him when he claims to have much more salacious material that he left OUT of the book. Because I know the kind of material that he did leave out.

Still, for the liveliest read you'll ever come across to take you down the roller coaster that was (and still is) South Beach, Gerald Posner couldn't be a better guide. Andrew Delaplaine, [...]

As a decade-long resident of SoBe, and having spent the bulk of that time living at the (famous / infamous Flamingo Apts -- you wouldn't believe what goes on on a daily basis), I've witnessed and heard some wild things that you just can't make up. This was the place where my father lived while attending U of Miami back in the 40s and still tells remarkable stories. Yet decades after dad's sophomoric escapades and decades before mine, my grandmother winter vacationed here and it wasn't quite the go-go scene we experienced. Posner does an awesome job of casting the history of Miami Beach, later called South Beach (or SoBe), and filling in all the gaps. The book uses real names and personas, many of them extremely famous, and sets the record straight regarding who did what to whom, when, how and why. I don't know if you'll find another 2 square mile strip of land with such a manic past. A place that went from a vacation and entertainment paradise to the poorest, most crime-infested city in America, and more recently, the American Riviera. SoBe's rise, fall and rebirth have been heavily influenced by corrupt celebrities, politicians, mobster, media and ruthless millionaires and billionaires. This is my favorite Posner book to date! Enjoy!!!

A historical and detailed account of the Miami beach transition from swap land to Celebrity partyground. How the perfect combination of corrupt politicians,illegal drug money,gangsters,bankers,legitimate businessmen and artsy ground warriors unintentionally fused their interests to create the greatest american treasure in the sun.

"The first part of the book is enlightening; It provides a good history of how Miami and Miami Beach became such a global city, attracting each year for instance the most influential world of Arts, but also so diverse headquarters of Internationnal trade.
I personaly do not like the 'spectacular' subtitle, inducing a triple negative concept. Still, I think this is a must read for anyone interesting in the becoming of Miami."

Great effort from a great writer, who has turned his considerable gifts on his flawed but magical hometown. Anybody who's ever lived in Miami Beach, or has ever thought of living there, should enjoy this history of one of the most interesting cities in the World.

Growing up in Miami, living through the dramatic changes, frequenting the hot establishments, I found this book to be an affirmation of what I witnessed occuring. I even discussed the book with a friend who taught school on the Beach. He concurred saying that when he'd ask his students what their Father's did for a living, no child knew their profession, only that money flowed in and they lived well.