The Good:
“All buildings downtown should be required to have awnings. The city needs to improve the condition and appearance of the streets and sidewalks, including landscaping where possible. Street lighting at night is horrendous. Businesses and people will not be attracted to downtown if it’s ugly and poorly lit at night. People don’t feel safe.”
-David“It’s a MESS. Dingy, dirty, smelly and rat infested. Let’s take pride in our city and get it cleaned up now not wait for the usual red tape and politics.”
-Katherine” I enjoyed the Macy’s CEO’s comments and I am glad the Herald gave her some ink. I like downtown. True, it is a bit of a dump, relatively speaking, but it is Miami, and Miami is a poor city. What never ceases to amaze me is that city fathers know exactly what it takes to refurbish the area but they haven’t the will to act. Condo towers, performing art centers, new waterfront museums, you can choke the area with expensive, exclusive and garish embellishments but without investment in infrastructure it will continue to be poor, underemployed and at times unsightly. I frequent downtown often and love workday and weekend mornings when it is abuzz with work-a-day or tourist/local activity. But when I jump on the metrorail to the metromover and ride from Government Center to Omnistation for the occasional Carnival Center event, my spirit sinks. So much soul, so much potential, and so much waste. Gentrifying and more cops will not address the matter. We need to work with the beauty already there.”
-305tillidie
The Bad:
“Last January I asked a police officer where the nearest public restroom was and he pointed to a Metro Bus and we both laughed for a minute or two and went on our different paths. After he turned a corner, I urinated on a New Times dispenser. I figured the officer was joking about the bus.”
-Daniel Rothstein” We need mor cats downtawn to eet all the ratz.”
-Javier J
The Absent Minded:
“Thats what you get when you build up and not out. It creates a perminet shadowscape for pestilence and riff-raff. Let me put this way so Paris Hilton can understand it: “Like, no duh.”"
-Anonymous“Why are there homeless people still around Miami-Dade when we are paying a half penny of sales tax?It was just another socialist scam that produces nothing.”
-JAV“Ever since Mayor Manny Diaz became mayor,we never hear negative criticism of his administration.He appears to be the darling of the Herald,etc.If Mayor Carollo were in office they would be wanting his head.This man has done nothing,but get richer.He is a dolittle that the media just loves.”
-JAV
Like no duh.
Actually, downtown Miami does need more cats. When it comes to the elimination of mice, rats, and rodent pestilence in general, there’s absolutely NOTHING more efficient than a cat. You can have a blind, deaf, arthritic, morbidly-obese 16 year old cat who’s spent his or her entire life in a condo on the 47th floor of a tower somewhere who’s never eaten anything that didn’t come from a bottle, can, or bag, yet… if some unlucky mouse happens to end up in the same condo unit as the cat and gets noticed, it’s as good as dead.
Cats rock.
I sat and ate a Samosa from Raja’s (delicious) downtown the other day. There is a vacant lot, I think behind the theater on flagler, that has rats literally crawling all over it. If you unfocus your eyes it looks like the whole ground is moving. During the day too.