Google Earth

[robivi3]

Anyone played with Google Earth yet.

Here is my Townhouse in Sunrise, Florida. We used to be the "boondocks" until the #@%$^& exprssway came through in 95' and and that awful arena.

The teeeeny weeny red blotch is my Chevy Corsica

I see all over with this, you can check on nearby "stuff" when you purchase land.

The bottom picture shows me in relataion to the everglades. To the north is DCA park (big and green). As you can see over the last ten years horses and cows are vanishing here.

Look down to the left at the word "waterway". That blotch of land is being developed into a Venetian style Community called "Artesia". A 1256 sq. ft. unit sold pre-construction for 250,000.00 and now that they are going up they have shot past 400,000.00. The maintenance fee for those units is over $700.00 per month according to the brochures. My neighbor (two down) just sold her unit here for 220,000.00. I paid 86,000.00 for this in 2001!!!!!!!! We used to live 4 blocks south of here (it's on the map) since 93', post Andrew. This area is shooting up because you are close to the Outlet Mall, Sams, Albertsons, four or five Publix Stores and alot of restaurants and a host of other stores. The schools are considered good out west here. Single family homes (old two bedroom Florida CBS are topping 350,000 here now). It's getting ridiculous. Next door the home sold sight unseen OVER THE PHONE while they were at dinner with the real estate agent!

I'd love to sell and get a single family but who can afford to move now!!! Venzuelans are scooping property like no tomorrow along with monied locals and out of staters relocating.

Sawgrass Mills Mall is just south of that stinking Office Depot Panthers Arena that brought all those people from Dade up here.

As you can see we have alot of good drainage here so flooding is minimal, about once every five years the water will come up.

There are alot of parks in Sunrise, the City is big on trees and parks. You can cut down water suckers but cut an oak, oh my gosh, and they come down hard. NO PERMITS issued for cutting down an oak, pray that storm gets it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All in all Sunrise is pretty nice and they give away Sodas and Popcorn whenever they have an event, and there is always a farmers market or parade or City Garage Sale or something. That will change as the demographics change, so like i say, when i retire I'm gone for good. Lots of good memmories of the old days though. It has been a good place to raise kids.

Search for Google Earth to DL the program.

[robivi3]

My son and I just got back from lake Okeechobee

We were on the boat ramp circled in red and ate at the yellow building with the little circle

This is like being a kid in a candy store, neet new toy!

[robivi3]

Sorry, I can't resist. It's really cool.

The bottom picture is the neighborhood we lived in on Maimai Beach from 1971-1980 after moving from Tennessee.

The big house at the top was owned by a sheik in the 80's and sold to Bruce and Demi Moore and they owned it in the 90's.

The next house down on the water was Andy Gibbs from the late 70's til he died. He lived there with barbara Streisand for awhile.

The next house after that was the Mayors house in the 40's. It was FDR's son Elliot. It was the ugliest house on the street until a former Coca Cola guy bought it and tore down the American Eagle on front and remodeled it.

The house on the "poor side", no water was my parents house. I told you guys, I've had an odd life.

They have the street mixed up, no 29th street, it 28th that leads to the islands. The bottom right house at 27 street on our side was built by the man who built Hialeah Race Track (the horse track) back in the twenties. It used to have horse weather vanes, lawn jockeys and occupied three lots on the street. The big house next door was owned by a super-rich man and wife who were old in 1970. I remember the gardener said that they owned a home in every state. Next door to us were Sam and Pauline Hussien, an elderly Jewish couple, he from Jordan and she from Poland, fighters in the original wars in Isreal. They helped us work on that house alot and he used to pay me to help cut lawns on his properties in Liberty City. Behind our house was Austin Burke, a bit of local color who owned a large Mens Warehouse (I think he founded it since it was Austin Burkes Mens WArehouse then) and was famous for the two Shamrock Green Rolls Royces he kept.

The 4 lane road is Alton Road and the golf course is the public course "Par 4". The Beach Cops were real tough if you didn't own property there. Rocky Pomerantz was our Chief and i remember the 72' Democrat and Republican Conventions were held on the Beach and i remember my Mom taking us down to the Lincoln Road Parking garage so we could go on top and see Rocky's Brown Shirts lined up on the lawn, awesome!

There used to be vacant lots on the bayside and we used to shoot our wrist rockets at sightseeing boats and thought tourists looked funny. My dad invited two new "friends" on the street for dinner, both ex-German soldiers. My mother had an absolute cow because she didn't like the men and she had invited Sam and Pauline over. My Dad realized what he'd done and it was the wierdest get together in history, thankfully it was cut short by my Mom. The Hussiens were great people and had done alot of living. They have been deceased for over twenty years.

[robivi3]

This was Don Rickles mothers house on Flamingo Drive

The parking lot is a Walgreens. The beautiful Moulin Rouge was torn down to build it.

[robivi3]

Afew more points on Miami Beach. Pay no attention to the Google labels. I jnow the histories on these places.

Once the shining statr of Miami Beach. The Crown and Cadillac. Al Jolson and host of others sang here and entertained.

39-40 street & Collins

[robivi3]

It was City Hall years ago, you would know it as the "Miami Vice Police Dept".

[robivi3]

This is now the FASHIONABLE 1st street area. Home to dregs and fun when i was young. VERY Pricy, $1,000,000.00 for a studio is normal. My friend lived in the area marked Apartments, they were on food stamps. The dog track was where the fancy bldg is now. The US Army CoE base was just behind the beach area before the jetty. What a difference two decades makes!!!!!!!!!

[Minnymouth]

Hey Robivi3 - "VERY INTERESTING" - didn't know I was brushing elbows with someone who rubbed elbows with the rich and famous. How interesting and lucky that was for you!!

Even after all "that" - your down to earth and realistic about life - YOU TURNED OUT GOOD............thank you parents!!

Back in the 60's & 70" - Miami was the place of the stars and their rich hideaways. Now it has given way to a lot in immigrants and such....

The stars still have their "hideaways" - but Miami is gradually getting a "bad rap" reputation from all the immigration going on.... SHAME.....

Yes we all have led "interesting" lives!!!

Minny

[robivi3]

I've had three stepmothers. My real mother (the Tennessean) died of cancer in 1969. She was a supervisor for Bell Systems. My first stepmother died in a car accident in 1976. She was an Editor for the "Sun Reporter" a Miami Beach entertainment newspaper whose favorable review was considered good at the time. She also ran her own public relations business when we lived on the Beach and so we went on lots of trips and mixed with alot of famous people. In those days you prepared your own ads for the papers and that is where copy/paste came from.

We had a copy/paste room in the house and my Bicycle went all over the Beach getting stuff from this and that person and with envelopes and payments. I knew Totie and Pepie Fields (they lived on 40th and Collins at the Vendome which in that one Picture above is called the Fairfield Inn now. On Saturdays I would knock on the door and have to break the old Ladies away from Mah-Jong to get them to look at copy. Then I would be fed given sweets to take home and sent on my way.

My parents once went on a cruise with Ricardo Montalban and his wife and i was given their room for the weekend at the Flamingo near about 60th and Collins. Even ate dinner with "The Amazing Kreskin". Met Baryshnakov when he wasn't known and shook hands with the Pianist Vladimer Horowitz. All of these people were really nice. Montalban and Kreskin were just plain, fine people and not arrogant in any way. Mr. Horowitz I only met for a moment and he asked me "do you play?" to which i replied "no sir, I listen".

Now that all being said she was not fond of my Tennessee roots and i missed afew years with my family. She had been Society Editor for the old Nashville Banner up until 1969. So when my Dad and her wed I got to meet Buford Ellington (the TN GOV.), the Mayor and Ol' Spiro T. My Dad was an Engineer for Bell Systems but had also become fairly well off buying land and such and building rental homes around Gatlinburg so he had a 300 SEL, 280 SL and a Porsche Targa and he bought her an Eldorado so that sealed the deal. They met at some fundraiser. She was a transplanted Chicagoan whose father helped construct Oak Ridge during the WW2. She was spoiled, high and mighty but also aquainted with hard knox from the construction business so she could wine and dine with best but she could also kick sand in your face. She road alot of rough roads in foreign Countries while she was coming up in the newspaper business.

All of that being said here i am plain as day, back to being a Tennessee boy. Don't have much as far as what my parents had. And I am fine with that. My dad lives in Bal Harbour (sorry, she's in Bal Harbour, he's in a retirement home, a nice one) with his controlling younger wife from Europe and she has him in old age under firm control, it's a long story of guardianships and such and judges but he says he loves her and the judge says it is all ok so that is that.

In the interim of 76'-80 he married my Colombian Stepmother, kicked her aside after 4 years and she is for all puroses my mother for the last thirty years. Grandmother to my children. Lives here in Sunrise. Did well after the divorce with NO HELP or ALIMONY and she is the finest woman to walk the earth after my wife. We see her about once a week and she just bought a new Condo and is having it remodeled.