Playing shamelessly to their power base, this resolution now is sponsored by two stupid Commissioners instead of one and is on the County Commission Agenda for September 4th. Both dim Bruno Barreiro and the ever cocky Joe Martinez are moving forward File No. 072049 which they are calling "Develop Bay of Pigs Museum & Library at Parcel B of FEC Property." This resolution directs the County Manager to prepare a conceptual study analyzing development of the Bay of Pigs Museum and Library for what we all fondly call Parcel B. The Recreation and Cultural Affairs Committee has already forwarded it 7/16 with a favorable recommendation. It was moved by Edmonson, seconded by Moss and Sorenson, Rolle and Souto voted to move it along.The legislative text goes on to say:
"The County Manager shall include as part of the conceptual study a section which addresses the following: the feasibility of underground parking, the provision of public open space, the development of a baywalk and options to mitigate any material impact to operation of the Arena arising from development of Parcel B. The County Manager shall present the conceptual study to this Board within ninety (90) days from the effective date of this resolution."
Maybe we can incorporate a statue or building celebrating Castro's death as well at the site. It could be like the Mystic Seaport Gallery where you have a different exhibit building/area for each thing. Or, an even better idea, why couldn't this museum/library be incorporated into the Freedom Tower's ample exhibit space? It would make more sense there.
Park Activist Steve Hagen has threatened to stand in front of the bulldozer. You had better get ready Steve, this train is on the track and it is gaining steam! Steve and others are not against the museum and library. They are against the location. People are angry enough because of the two museums slated for Bicentennial Park, this one is just one too many. Think about another location Commissioners, Parcel B is not the right one.
16 comments:
Is someone casting a bad santeria spell on your blog? I know you're quite the rationalist so figure it out. Title is hypertexted to take you to the post. There is only one post showing on opening page, without right hand column. It appears when one opens the story, the only one that shows. It was okay before you put up the Bay of Pigs piece (map). Go figure.
S
Still a problem without the map. Only that post shows and the comment sections says it has a problem but you got it anyway...
S
okay, mow it's better.
S
Oh S, i had an extra tag in there without the other half. sorry for the mixuup
Well, since all the protests take place at torch of freedom, why not put a lefty monument there too. If these "cuban-american"elite want to put this museum in the park and not in Hialeah or Little Havana, where all of their folk worked so hard to make a living lets just pave the park full of monuments to everybody. And lets do some justice to getting Claude Pepper fountain to work again.
Ultra lunar occurrences
I set my alarm for 4:00am today to see the lunar eclipse. I kept checking outside every half hour or so. Not much at 4:00, 5:00, by 5:30 the top had disappeared. No fiery glow. Maybe I missed something. By 6:00 it was all gone. This is what comes from not being Japanese.
Once, in the course of construction a circle was found, its meaning obscure. But that the entire area by the waterfront, river and bay was once considered sacred, should be meaning enough to not create, obliterate but just appreciate the spot.
There is one tiny Tequesta representation on the Miami bridge, which itself is now dwarfed by all the buildings going up around it. There are a few “Tequesta” condos, which have appropriated the name, but not the sensibility, since it’s not about ownership.
More than a diorama at the S. Florida Historical Museum, rather than any museumification, of peoples or points in time, leave as many spots open to see the water, sunrise, feel the breeze, gain some psychic space. That would be real salute to “freedom.”
S
It really is a shame to watch the City of Miami and County commissioners do nothing or so little to save Bicentennial Park. One thing is for sure - these individuals are not interested in saving this greenspace and they don't care what you or I think or say.
Why not offer the Bay of Pigs a more suitable place? I was by to visit them two weeks ago and they told me no one has offered them anything better. I suggested considering the city of Hialeah and asking the mayor for help, or speaking with Councilman Bovo and John Brunetti about a section of land at Hialeah Park, or approaching the county commissioners about a portion of land at Amelia Earhart Park. There, a section on the northwest end of the park could be dedicated to an Aviation Museum honoring Glenn Curtiss and Amelia Earhart, and building the Bay of Pigs Veterans separately.
So it goes . . . two of the veterans I met on that Saturday afternoon were open and willing to seek alternatives to Bicentennial Park, but I don't think these are the decision makers, another veteran seemed not to have any opinion at all, but the one that seemed in charge was not open to my suggestions or ideas. I was even accused of being antagonizing and having somewhat of socialists or communists views! Wow - I suddenly felt ill to heart and understood why Fidel Castro has been in power for so long and why Miami-Dade politics is the way it is.
I think we must try harder to love this country a little more. What the heck does saving Bicentennial Park have to do with what happened on that ill-fated day in 1961? I believe the Bay of Pigs veterans deserve their Museum, a very fine one, with a park and trees, and more, but why do we have to sacrifice more of the bayfront in downtown Miami?
And yes, I still think that the city of Hialeah will be a perfect location for the Bay of Pigs and other museums! Don't discredit us - the most beautiful race track in the world sits there and look how much national attention it's getting!
Milly Herrera
Hialeah, FL
herrera101@aol.com
A Bay of Pigs museum is a noble idea. But it does not belong in Bicentennial Park. It should be immortalized as part of the exhibits in the Freedom Tower or built in Hialeah, where there is an even larger concentration of Cubans.
Parcel B was promised to the voters of Miami-Dade County to be a soccer field. It was always supposed to be green. How stupid to pave more of our very diminished waterfront land. How stupid to build two huge underfunded museums on Bicentennial Park.
Keep Parcel B green. Put a Cuban museum in Hialeah.
Bicentennial Park is City of Miami parkland with no connection to the proposed Cuban Musuem. Parcel B, east of the American Airlines Arena is county owned park land, and it was promised to be green space when the arena was built.
Parcel B should stay green.
(It would make a terrible site for a museum, it has no access to parking.)
The waterfront should stay green.
I have said it before and I'll say it again. It belongs in Hialeah Park.
Alex Fuentes
I think there was an agreement that prohibits building anything on Bicentennial Park after the American Airlines Arena was built. Can the blogger get more details on this?
Let's organize a massive protest in front of Bicentennial Park! Get all the TV Stations out there and you'll see they will listen to us. Can someone contact Steve Hagen about this?
The Bay of Pigs Museum in Hialeah is a very attractive idea. I've read about I hope they can save the race track. I heard hundreds of pink flamingoes are still there.
I want Green space. I grew up here, I would love to leave one bit of the bayfront area alone.
And this little piggie went wee, wee, wee, all the way home…Maybe this is South Carolina after all. According to the state’s Miss Teen USA contender we need more maps. It’s not only “not easy to be green,” but apparently locating the U.S is also problematic.
But the issue concerning the proposed Bay of Pigs museum is only not only “where?” but “why?”…
The World War II memorial at Bay Front Park honors Americans who served in an American war, one declared by Congress.
As a chapter in U.S history the Bay of Pigs invasion can be put in two categories, one, that of a betrayal or second, of extra legal rouge intelligence operations. Neither reflects well on the U.S., but there is value in acknowledging the truth.
In the first category it compares with encouraging the Hungarian uprising in 1956 through Voice of American and doing nothing as Soviet tanks rolled in. A similar occurrence in Iraq 1991, with the Shiite uprising at the end of the first Gulf war, evinced similar ignobility. The U.S. watched when Saddam Hussein killed those who thought they had our support, leaving some to feel we had some unfinished business there. Our reputation preceded us in our most recent invasion.
In the later category, the U.S./Miami being used as a subversive base for an under cover military action, either U.S. or foreign, this represented a serious breakdown in the workings of our government. The failure of “plausible deniability” of US intelligence activities led finally in the 1970s to investigations to all manner of abuses by both the CIA and FBI, and resulted in preventive laws including FOIA (Freedom of Information Act.) The similarly timed U.S. influenced assassination of the Ngo-Dinh brothers in Saigon led to an open ended (this time undeclared) “involvement” in Vietnam.
We don’t assist the development of democracy by subverting our own constitution. Sliding into half assed wars is not heroic.
In the 1980s the bizarre “arms for hostages” Iran-El Salvador-CIA go-it-alone-deal reveals Rosemary Woods contortions in circumventing Congressional oversight.
Most recently, a badly planned war, justified based on cooked intelligence, has confirmed that in the post World War II era we don’t do nation building, we don’t do liberation.
The Bay of Pigs “fiasco” is part of that tradition. Is this the focus of the planned museum? If not, keep it private. It’s a free country. Tell your story. Or, wait until a better day, when it will represent the “official” line back in Cuba. Put the Bay of Pigs museum on the Bay of Pigs, not Biscayne Bay, courtesy of the American tax payer. Here it a personal story. It should be in private space.
The names of heroic Cuban Americans, who have died in the service of their country, the United States, are carved in the wall of the Vietnam memorial in Washington, and featured on the roll call at the end of the Jim Leher news hour.
Finally, as another blogger pointed out, there is already a sacred space on the Bay honoring the Cuban migration, the Ermita De La Caridad, next to La Salle.
S
Parcel B should be a green park. Soccer would be fine.
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