Subtropical Life >>

• Personal Best: For the Love of Lizard
  Joe LaRue, Competitive Eater
  Joe LaRue has achieved renown by ingesting large quantities of food -- pancakes, corn on the cob, hamburgers, hot dogs -- better and faster than almost anyone else. He is South Florida's foremost competitive eater. To watch the six-foot-eight LaRue down Nathan's Famous at the annual... More >>
• Best TV Station
  WPBT
  This is no contest. In terms of local programming, WPBT kills the competition. For local politics, you've got Issues with Helen Ferré. Sure, Ferré's show is low-key, but you usually learn something when you watch the area's politicians, educators, and journalists yap about... More >>
• Best TV News Reporter
  Derek Hayward WSVN-TV (Channel 7)
  Derek Hayward has a way with words. A general-assignment reporter with WSVN-TV (Channel 7) since 1991, the English-born Hayward has an uncanny ability to drop phrases that only he could get away with. Our favorite: When police were looking for a murder suspect recently, Hayward told his audience... More >>
• Best Local Girl Gone Bad
  Cynthia Berman-Miller
  This Best Of marks a New Times fall from grace for Cynthia Berman-Miller. Three years ago, in our 2003 Best Of issue, Berman-Miller, then director of the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, received a "Personal Best" nod. She talked to New Times about her love of reality TV. But after that... More >>
• Best Hurricane
  Katrina
  She began humbly as Tropical Depression 12, dawdled for a bit over the Bahamas, and eased over to South Florida in the last week of August. Around the time she breached our shore, she graduated from a tropical storm to a full-blown hurricane, although with sustained winds no faster than your... More >>
• Best Local Legend (1 Comment)
  Serial Killer Gerard Schaefer
  Known as the "killer cop" and a "sex beast," Gerard Schaefer, a good Broward boy, passed through almost every local institution during the 1960s and 1970s while secretly indulging his extracurricular passion: abducting and killing young women. During his time as a student at BCC and FAU, a... More >>
• Best Place to Watch the Sun Set
  Tropical Sailing Catamaran Cruises
  From, let's say, the turnpike, South Florida doesn't look all that picturesque -- it's just shopping plazas, billboards, and traffic. And more traffic. But from the deck of a sailboat, you'll understand why people call this place paradise. Now, the tough thing about going sailing is that there's... More >>
• Best Reason to Live in South Florida
  The Critters
  If you live by the water or you live near a swamp (and who down here doesn't?), you know exactly what we're talking about. There aren't many places in the contiguous 48 states where parrots and iguanas breed with impunity -- come to think of it, most of the country isn't known for an abundance... More >>
• Best Festival
  Jamaican Jerk Festival
  Just as the giant Chili Cookoff inspires food with the impact of a reactor-core meltdown, the Jerk Festival usually ignites taste buds in a big way. Scotch bonnet peppers, the fiery ingredient in jerk sauce, appears to greater and lesser degrees in the authentic Jamaican cuisine offered by... More >>
• Best Political Protest
  CAFTA Protest
  The sign of a successful protest isn't the number of people marching; it's how seriously the rest of the world takes those who do. By that measure, the demonstrations during the June 2005 meeting of the Organization of American States General Assembly in Fort Lauderdale were a triumph. Hundreds... More >>
• Best Power Couple
  Charlotte and John Rodstrom
  We already knew about John Rodstrom's muscle-flexing ways. A former investment banker, the county commissioner raised ethical concerns a couple of years ago when Citibank paid him more than 400 large to help broker a bond issue for Miami International Airport while he opposed expansion of its... More >>
• Best Locally Generated Internet Site
  www.balancesheetonline.com
  Operated by the not-for-profit Hollywood Trust, this site seeks to better balance the public's role in decisions made by city officials. The philosophy underlying the site is that Hollywood's city government doesn't give average citizens much say-so about how their taxes are spent. Public... More >>
• Best Local Blog
  Stuck on the Palmetto
  South Florida is a little behind the curve in blogging -- Miami scribblers are gaining some steam, but Broward and Palm Beach cyber diarists have a long way to go to catch up to thriving blog communities in other parts of the country. As more locals join in on the conversation, however, they... More >>
• Best Building
  The Kennan Building
  Save for Miami Beach's famed crayon-box outcropping of Deco hotels, out-of-town visitors rarely find much to write home about regarding South Florida architecture. In fact, it's probably easier to locate architectural atrocities and "what were they thinking?" landmarks. But the mid-'50s Kennan... More >>
• Best Charity
  Abandoned Pet Rescue
  Once upon a time, there was a lovely kingdom that flowed with coconut milk and sugar-cane juice. It was a warm, sunny place, and its citizens reveled in happiness and shared their joy and homes with every manner of beast: dogs, cats, ferrets, hamsters, birds, bunnies. But the subjects of the... More >>
• Best Display of Wealth
  Blue Martini Valet Parking
  Pity the poor rich men who cruise the singles clubs. They sink a hundred G into Porsches, Maseratis, Lamborghinis and Mercedes and then have to leave them in valet backlot purgatory. They enter the club as plucked peacocks, dehorned rams. After all, a snappy Italian suit and a ruby pinky ring... More >>
• Best Car Wash
  Prestige Car Wash and Salon
  Here's what you do. You need your oil changed, you go to Jiffy Lube at 44th Street and University Drive. When you're done there, they give you a $7 discount at Prestige, which is right up the road. So if you want to get a standard wash, you get it for $3.99 -- and you get top-of-the-line service... More >>
• Best Near-Death Experience
  Hurricane Wilma Generator Survivors
  After Wilma clobbered us and the electricity went dead, some folks' reasoning, logic, and judgment went right out all those open windows. How else do you explain the guy found in his Hollywood apartment on November 5, unconscious and barely alive, next to a portable gas-filled generator? Or, on... More >>
• Best Political Coup
  The Chris Kovanes Scandal
  A totally average bureaucrat with a penchant for flashy clothing is brought under a town administrator's wing. He becomes "The Protégé." The town administrator resigns to take a sweet job in the Florida Keys. The town council needs to hire a replacement. The logical choice: The... More >>
• Best Politician in Broward
  Steve Gonot, Deerfield Beach Commissioner
  Most Broward politicians are pawns for a network of well-heeled lobbyists, business tycoons, and land barons. They waste millions of our dollars and think they're hot shit while they're at it. Not Gonot. When big-deal developer Pete Boinis tried to build a huge restaurant on the public pier,... More >>
• Best Politician in Palm Beach (1 Comment)
  Palm Beach County Commissioner Addie L. Greene
  Palm Beach County Commissioner Addie L. Greene is quite possibly the first politician in South Florida history to spin an ethics complaint against her into good news. Earlier this year, Greene, a former school teacher, became the swing vote on the most contentious issue in Palm Beach County:... More >>
• Best City in Which to Live
  Weston
  If you think Weston is an unusual winner for this category, you obviously have a short memory. Flash back to October 24, 2005. In just six hours, Hurricane Wilma ripped across Florida, leaving a trail of damaged roofs, flooded cars, and broken windows and cutting power to roughly 6 million... More >>
• Best Urban Neighborhood
  As so much of Broward and Palm Beach counties becomes strip-malled, sanitized, faceless, and boring, this part of town is weird. The strips of stores here are old and crumbling, signs are in English, Spanish, and sometimes Creole, and the area pulses with a chaotic feel that's more downtown... More >>
• Best Suburban Neighborhood
  Jacaranda in Plantation
  Sure, Plantation's Jacaranda neighborhood doesn't have the Old Florida charm of neighborhoods close to downtown Fort Lauderdale, such as Victoria Park. And it lacks the tree canopy you'll find -- or, ahem, used to find -- in Sailboat Bend, also in America's Venice. But Jacaranda has a way of... More >>
• Best Public Transportation
  Water Taxi
  Yes, it's recently been unmasked as a bloated private company that drains big bucks from the public coffers. Yes, it's really just a fleet of glorified tugboats catering to the fat wallets of beached tourists. Yes, one ride up the Intracoastal will set you back ten whole kahunas. But let's admit... More >>
• Best Miami Herald Writer
  Fred Grimm
  The star of your Herald's local section is undoubtedly 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner Leonard Pitts, who writes forcefully about politics, culture, and race and happens to do so from Maryland. The less, uh, heralded columnist, Fred Grimm, you're more likely to notice loitering at Le Tub on the... More >>
• Best Sun-Sentinel Writer
  John Holland
  The job of a news reporter is a Sisyphean cycle of ignorance turning to expertise, and it requires versatility of any prolific scribe. Here, then, in short, are some of the topics that Holland has covered in the past few months: a woman who pimped a 16-year-old girl; a kitchen-knife fatal... More >>
• Best Palm Beach Post Writer
  Larry Keller
  You rarely have good writing in newspapers without good reporting -- and Larry Keller provides the right blend of both skills in his stories for the Palm Beach Post. Take his extensive coverage of the sensational James Sullivan murder-for-hire trial in West Palm Beach, which begins: "Lita... More >>
• Best AM Radio Personality
  Pat Montague, WAVS-AM (1170)
  For sheer silly fun on the airwaves, Miss Pat cannot be beat. In these dim radio days, when a live human being and a malleable playlist is rarer than a white rhino, someone like Miss Pat is a savior. Tune in to 1170 AM during a weekday drive home after work and let her laughter leak some levity... More >>
• Best FM Radio Personality
  Joseph Cooper, WLRN-91.3
  You're right, Joseph Cooper, he of the somnolent monotone voice, is a strange choice for best FM radio personality. He's no Howard Stern, assuredly. Cooper is a unique force in local talk radio, though. His weekday show, which comes on at 1 p.m., is, um, local. And these days, if it's not about... More >>
• Best FM Radio Station (2 Comments)
  WLRN-91.3
  Let's face it: South Florida has one of the worst radio markets in America. If you want something other than cookie-cutter pop, rock, hip-hop, and country, you need to go satellite. But the publicly financed WLRN remains an oasis from the commercial combine, where you get a whole lot more than... More >>
• Best TV News Anchor
  Belkys Nerey, WSVN (Channel 7) Anchor
  Cuban-born newscaster Belkys Nerey performs on Channel 7 at 5, 6 and 10 p.m., and we use perform here for good reason. If local TV news has slid into a hybrid form of journalism and entertainment, at least we can watch someone like Nerey have more fun on-air than others. She laughs her ass off... More >>
• Best Sportscaster
  Tommy Hutton, FSN Florida Marlins Analyst
  Like Johnny Cash, Tommy Hutton has been everywhere. After several years in the minor leagues, where he played in places like Albuquerque and Spokane, his 17-year-career in Major League Baseball took him to Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Montreal. But for the past ten years, the former... More >>
• Best Weathercaster
  Don Noe, WPLG (Channel 10)
  Don Noe is the doyen of South Florida meteorology. And nowhere is weather forecasting more important than in the Sunshine State, where mysterious underground magnets seem to pull hurricanes toward our peninsula every year for a grueling, six-month showdown with Mother Nature. The chief... More >>
• Best New Novelist
  Heidi Boehringer
  While chasing after that elusive first novel, Deerfield Beach author Heidi Boehringer supported herself with every kind of job, from bartending to loan processing. Following graduation from the creative-writing program at the University of Florida -- Gainesville, she went on to write Chasing... More >>
• Best Gadfly
  Asa Boynton
  Asa Boynton deserves a spot in the South Florida Community Activist Hall of Fame. In his day job, the tall 59-year-old dresses in a purple gorilla suit and delivers singing telegrams throughout South Florida. Otherwise, he's a one-man gadfly, civic activist, and crime fighter in Hollywood's... More >>
• Best Lawyer
  Khurrum Wahid
  Khurrum Wahid has the most unpopular important job in the country. An attorney with offices in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and New York, Wahid represents Muslims in federal court against terrorism charges. Wahid was a federal public defender in Miami when terrorists flew commercial airplanes into... More >>
• Best Flack
  Stephen Gaskill
  If there were more people like Stephen Gaskill, maybe the Democratic Party wouldn't be in such an ugly mess. That's because Gaskill is a smooth media man and political operative who knows the game and how to play it well. A spokesman for Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich during the Clinton... More >>
• Best Place to Walk Along the River
  Smoker Park, south side of the New River atop the U.S. 1 Tunnel
  Perhaps nowhere in the entire state exists a better spot to bear witness to the forces of change than this small strip of land in downtown Fort Lauderdale. A hundred years ago, someone standing at this spot would have seen a single structure -- the clapboard, cracker-box Stranahan House, where... More >>
• Best Value on Las Olas
  Christian Science Reading Room
  Better have a thick wad of bills or a sturdy stack of plastic if you want to spend much time on Fort Lauderdale's version of Rodeo Drive. Shopping and eating along this upscale quarter-mile, it's easy to burn through cash by the hundreds. Amid this, the Christian Science Reading Room is an oasis... More >>
• Best Public Restroom
  The Atlantic Hotel
  Remember those driving vacations you took with your family as a kid? Motoring just outside Nothingville, USA, you'd spot a giant roadside sign touting "Miracle Hills" or the "Wonder Spot." You'd bully and sob your old man into making the detour, and he'd shell out the five bucks apiece for a... More >>
• Best Landmark
  The Crystal Palace
  There was much grumbling and gnashing of teeth when the Broward County School Board laid out $29 million in the 1990s to build its new headquarters, soon derisively dubbed "The Crystal Palace." For many, the shiny, dark-blue 14-story juggernaut jutting up beside the county courthouse was an... More >>
• Best Hotel
  Hibiscus House
  The best area hotel is not a hotel at all -- it's a B&B, one of the few stalwarts of its kind to survive surrounded by sprouting condos and opulent resorts. Hibiscus House offers luxury on a small scale, trading the quiet ambiance of a palm-lined street in West Palm's Old Northwood neighborhood... More >>
• Best Candidate for Urban Renewal
  Sears Town at Federal Highway and Sunrise Boulevard
  Argue all you want about whether Sears is "Where America Shops," but the vast parking lot at this long-in-the-tooth strip mall sits mostly empty. Not that Sears and a half-dozen other little businesses at this locale don't get business; it's just that there are so many cars bordering the... More >>
• Best Weekend Getaway
  Bimini Island
  Less than a half-hour flight east lies Bimini, the closest foreign island to mainland America. This seven-mile-long sliver of the Bahamas offers a peaceful respite from the hectic pace of South Florida 50 miles away. You can split your weekend between hanging at the beach and biking and... More >>
• Best Place for a First Date (1 Comment)
  Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
  Hi, um, would you like to go out with me tonight? I don't know, what do you wanna do? I was thinking that, if you like steak and really good wine, we could go to the Council Oak restaurant at the Hard Rock. Oh, something more casual? Sure, well, there's the Jazziz bistro that's also part of the... More >>
• Best Meet-Up Group
  Broward County Atheists Weekly Meetup Group
  Better-organized than the pagans, more regularly scheduled than the belly dancers, and more committed than wine enthusiasts, poets, or people with ADHD, Broward County atheists have a meetup group to be reckoned with. With 104 members and a weekly meeting that hopscotches around various pubs and... More >>
• Best New Trend
  Plastic Credit for Plastic Surgery
  South Florida has worked hard earning its reputation for making noses shapelier, chests bigger, and chins tauter. Culture, schmulture -- give us the lipo, Botox, and scalpel any day of the week. But it's hard to keep up with the Joneses when you're a working-class stiff just trying to save... More >>
• Best Place to Escape Bill Gates
  Florida Linux User Exchange
  Tired of shelling out hundreds of dollars every year to Microsoft for a buggy Windows operating system ($299) and Office suite ($399) that crash at inopportune times? Let the men and women at Florida Linux User Exchange (FLUX) show you an alternative: Linux, a free (free!), open-source PC... More >>
• Best Quote
  Mara Giulianti
  The past year was filled with so many memorable utterances perfectly reflecting the place and time in which we live that choosing a winner is pretty tough. First, there was Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper, who earlier this year threw a hissy fit during a City Commission meeting about those... More >>
• Best Place to Get Stuck
  The Swing Bridge Over the North Fork of the New River
  Every Florida driver has been held up by boat traffic. It's frustrating, sticking to your sweaty seat as some millionaire in a yacht stops traffic for miles. That's why the swing bridge in Sailboat Bend -- one of only 14 in the United States -- turns the gridlock into a refreshing pause. To... More >>
• Best Road to Avoid
  Hallandale Beach Boulevard
  It's Broward traffic's version of the perfect effing storm: An I-95 exit that runs straight to the county's biggest condo canyon on A1A, along the way passing a Wal-Mart, Gulfstream Race Track, a Publix plaza, two Winn-Dixies, and more Walgreenses than you can shake an empty prescription bottle... More >>
• Best Local Boy Made Good
  Mike Mularkey
  Fort Lauderdale native Mike Mularkey could be exactly what the long-struggling Miami Dolphins need: a guy who knows how to score touchdowns and has absolutely zero reverence for convention. The 'Fins' new offensive coordinator, Mularkey is a University of Florida graduate who played a short... More >>
• Best Local Girl Made Good
  Amy "Lita" Dumas
  For those who watch professional wrestling -- even those who won't admit it -- Fort Lauderdale native Amy Dumas is a badass. Better-known by her ring name "Lita," the 31-year-old Dumas is a high-flying, take-it-to-the-mat warrior for World Wrestling Entertainment's RAW. Intrigued by the story... More >>