Launched quietly at the opening of the infamous boutique hotel in July 1995, Agua was originally conceived as a women’s bath house by Rita Schrager, the wife of Delano proprietor Ian Schrager. With her friend Leila Fazel, the ex-New York City Ballet dancer and über-hospitality spouse sought a private refuge from the burgeoning madness that was model-aglitter, big-bucks South Beach.

Nearly seven years later, however, Agua has transformed itself into a full-service day spa for both men and women. Offering massages, facials, manicures, pedicures and wet treatments such as Dead Sea salt scrubs and algae wraps, the 2,500-square-foot facility features 11 treatment rooms – three massage rooms, two facial rooms, two aromatherapy rooms, two manicure stations and two wet rooms, one with Vichy shower, the other with Swiss shower.

But a key ingredient in Agua’s success is that it reaches far beyond the traditional massage or spa treatment. In the now sacred names of healing and wellness, it invokes the centuries-old principles of East Indian Ayurvedic medicine, which emphasizes prevention over cure. As a result, Agua is much more than a place to get a sports massage, although that popular service is readily available.

What sets Agua apart, says New York model-turned-spa-director Jenna Ward, is a bold, innovative combination of design, ambiance, the quality of its therapists and technicians, and the spectrum of services offered from its vast roster.

The stylishly monochromatic white-on-white interior, created by Philippe Starck, the celebrated visionary who crafted the Delano’s quirky and universally acclaimed public spaces, is conjured from “walls” of billowy white curtains softly illuminated by available light from windows on all four sides of the converted penthouse suite. White columns, floors, walls and ceilings complete the soothingly ethereal, other-worldly ambiance. There is also a 700-square-foot rooftop solarium painted Mediterranean blue and furnished with comfortable tanning chairs and futons. Most treatments are available outdoors or indoors.

But despite its breath-taking aesthetics, it is the A-list quality and experience of Agua’s 40 licensed massage therapists and 10 other technicians that keep its most well-heeled clients – models, celebrities, titans of industry – coming back. “What people like that really need is a place where they can relax,” says Ward, who transformed her own high-stress life through the study of Eastern philosophy with an Indian guru in the early 1990’s. “Our goal is to create an environment where they can experience something within themselves they don’t ordinarily get a chance to experience.”

Emotional release, Ward says, can be accomplished with a wide range of treatments and techniques, from a Reiki massage to an Eve Lom facial – Agua is the only spa in the U.S. that provides the highly-regarded Londoner’s holistic and revolutionary approach to skin care. “Her philosophy is that you can actually help your body function better by moving lymph around and cleaning out your system,” says Ward. “It also reduces the bags under your eyes and enables your system to operate better by draining all the toxins you accumulate from eating too many fatty foods and drinking too much.”

Agua’s list of massage options includes every major discipline, from Swedish and Shiatsu to cranio-sacral, Reiki, reflexology and neuromuscular.

The spa’s signature body treatment is a Milk & Honey, available for either an hour or a half-hour. A mixture of warm organic sesame oil – a traditional ingredient in Ayurvedic medicine – and organic honey is massaged into the body. It is then removed with a rinse of warm milk. The result is a deep hydration of the skin, meant to be left on overnight without showering.

A popular package is a Milk & Honey combined with a salt scrub or an algae wrap. “The two treatments complement one another because they both detoxify and re-mineralize your system,” says Ward.

Other popular treatments include another European facial by Biologique; a “manual lift” facial that uses massage to tighten and tone the muscles of the face; a collagen eye mask; a half-hour neck and scalp massage; acupuncture; guided meditation; tai chi; qi gong and a 90-minute yoga class, available at the David Barton Gym in the hotel. Massages are also available in tents by the Delano’s swimming pool.

For spa director Ward, watching the evolution of Agua’s services over the past six years has been a revelation. “What is most amazing and rewarding to me is to see people learn that it is possible to change their lives,” she says. Today, she says, stress reduction and self-realization are high priorities for high achievers – and the results can often be awe-inspiring. She offers the powerful example of corporate CEO’s who attended a Delano retreat for advertisers hosted by Heart Magazines and featuring writer Carolyn Myss, author of Anatomy of a Spirit. Ward saw corporate chiefs reduced to tears by the spontaneous release of emotions. “If you can open up their hearts for a millisecond, then the door is open for change,” Ward observes. “People at a certain level have done just about everything and when they bump into this kind of insight it’s because they’re ready for it. That’s an understanding that shifted my whole way of looking at the world.”

But before he could lay legitimate claim to the title of pre-eminent impresario in South Beach nightlife, Kelly would be severely tested, forced to face his own worst fears, and he would learn a lesson that he now says will sustain him for the rest of his life.

It all began with his decision last year to become a partner in and marketing director of the mammoth, 44,000-square-foot Level, housed in a famous 1937 Art Deco space at 1235 Washington Avenue where Prince once operated a club called Glam Slam. More than any other single establishment in the modern history of South Beach, Level redefined the nightlife landscape in just one season. In addition to bringing a brand-name fashion influence to the scene with designers such as Oscar de la Renta, Kelly closed deals with corporate clients such as AT&T and brought big-name live music to the Beach with the recently launched Pepsi Top 20 Concert Series, which is seen on TV in 38 countries around the world every other week. For good measure, Level was packed five nights a week with revelers from all over the globe. As a precaution, Kelly had blocked out an entire season’s worth of sponsored events, from fashion shows to corporate parties, just in case the paying public didn’t show. The net result was a bottom line that set a new standard for profitability.

But before the club opened its doors last November, many nay-sayers predicted that Kelly, who had run the international nightclub chain Pacha from Ibiza before coming to the U.S., would finally relinquish the Midas touch he had demonstrated at Bash, Shadow Lounge, Liquid and Bar Room — an unprecedented string of South Beach successes. “People said the place was too big, that it wouldn’t work,” says Kelly, who maintains an 8,000-name mailing list and sophisticated computer system that analyzes his business. “People said I would fail. Even the people who thought I had a chance told me I’d get one night a week out of it. So, I decided to come up with a strategy based on how I could come up with five nights of business. So I said let’s go gay one day, let’s go all about the music one day, let’s do reggae one night, hip-hop another night and fashion another night. So, I was capturing five different markets on five different nights.”

Furthermore, Kelly turned what others saw as his biggest disadvantage — the sheer size of the 1235 Washington space — into a lucrative opportunity to operate three clubs under one roof. The Boiler Room plays hip-hop and R&B. The Red Room plays house. The Main Room, which incorporates fashion and theatre, plays progressive house.

By targeting three distinct audiences with three different marketing plans, Kelly has been able to build record Saturday night business — more than $100,000 in season. “I never thought we could do the kind of business we’re doing,” he says. “It’s three times as good as I ever thought it could be.”

But ironically, the huge success of Level prompted a new challenge for Kelly. “A lot of people who had supported me at the smaller clubs like Bash and Shadow Lounge started calling me and saying, ‘Gerry, we love what you’re doing with Level, but we miss the concept you were so famous for creating — that intimacy.’ ”

Very quickly, Kelly responded to the overture from a core group of his most loyal customers. In May, he and his partners opened Vivid, an intimate, 6,500-square-foot, VIP-style club where Chaos used to be. And just like that, Kelly came full circle, back to his exclusive A-list of international guests who prefer to congregate in a smaller club. “There is a certain society of people who feel intimidated by the size of Level and look for something more intimate,” Kelly says. “The bottom line is that intimacy is always something that people with money want to have.”

Kelly says he is proud of the fact he has been able to identify and exploit two strong trends that now drive markedly different segments of the market. “Level was the first big club to open here in four years,” says Kelly, whose primary partner is Charlotte, NC-based Ark Group, a national concert promoter and club operator whose properties include World Mardi Gras in New Orleans. “I think we set a trend that the big club was back.” He notes that just a month later, Crobar opened. A month after that, Club Space opened downtown. Kelly says he is surprised by how strong Miami nightlife has been in the international marketplace. “I was surprised by the depth and maturity of the market,” Kelly says. “I knew it was going to be good here. I had no idea it was going to be so good.” And it is still getting better, he says. “Business at the Beach is undergoing a big increase right now. The English have never really come here and now there are so many English people coming here it’s unbelievable.” He credits the annual Winter Music Conference, which features dance music and DJ’s from all over the world, as a major catalyst for the increase in business from England, which he says is the world’s most sophisticated and important music market at the moment.

To further cement a relationship between South Beach and music, Kelly pioneered the Pepsi Top 20 Concert Series, which debuted with Carlos Ponce in June. Later this year, Madonna, Tina Turner and the Back Street Boys will be among the superstar entertainers who perform at Level every other Tuesday for a worldwide TV audience. “It has a marketing and PR value to Level of $148 million based on the costs of buying ad time,” says Kelly. “It airs in 38 countries in prime time. It’s going to be a major show and a major showcase for South Beach.”

In addition to further associating South Beach with good music, the Pepsi series will also re-associate the destination with major celebrities. Kelly says that’s important because fewer celebrities have visited South Beach in recent seasons, turned off by paparazzi and fame-obsessed tourists. “The Pepsi show brings major celebrities back to the Beach on a regular basis and that’s important,” Kelly says.

Now that he reigns supreme in the marketing hierarchy of clubland, Kelly has turned his attention to his personal passion, fashion design. For more than a decade while he lived on Ibiza, he designed for many of Europe’s most celebrated women. He now has two lines, Gerry Kelly Couture and a GK Couture pret-a-porter line created with his Venezuelan partner Tammy Apostol. His haute couture gowns, with striking medieval-baroque 18th Century influences, sell for $1,800-$4,000. About 90% of his work is custom-order, he says, for organizations such as the Palm Beach Medical Auxiliary Society and South Florida philanthropists such as Frosene Sonderling.

Kelly’s ready-to-wear line is sold at South Beach Couture on Washington Avenue just down the block from Level. His normal collection averages about 45 pieces and he creates three collections each year.

This year, he is throwing his hat into the ring of international couture design with his participation in August at the Coterie Show at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. It is his debut in the arena of U.S. haute couture. “I think this is going to be my big break,” he says, smiling. Still, he quickly points out, he has no desire to be the next Gianni Versace. “If you asked me if I really wanted to become another Versace tomorrow, I’d say no, I don’t. I know I could, if I was to give up all of this and go into it, because I was almost at that stage in my life before. But now it’s just a passion inside me. The world of fashion is a little too superficial for me. I’m not saying the club business isn’t, but at least I’m in one city at one time and I can pick and choose my friends. It’s tough being a famous fashion designer and traveling all over the world, doing a collection here and a collection there. And the competition is ruthlessly brutal.”

But then again, so is the competition on South Beach. Kelly was well aware of that when he accepted the challenge of Level. “It took me months and months of consideration to make the decision to come in and take the space, because obviously I would have no place to go to be able to maintain my reputation if I failed here. And although I always make my own decisions, I consulted with friends before I decided to come in and do it. The reason I did it was I knew 1235 Washington Avenue was the crown jewel of night clubs and I knew it could be done right.”

What dreams are left for Gerry Kelly? He says he’d like to open a grand Level-style nightclub in New York. He’d also like to open a South Beach restaurant. And most of all, he’d like to meet Barbra Streisand. And with his recent triumphs, Kelly says he knows each aspiration is within his reach.

In addition to proving his mettle to the masses over the past year, Kelly says he has learned a valuable lesson about life. “I learned that the power of the mind is really a strong thing,” he says, “and if you believe in yourself, nothing is impossible. I now know I would never be afraid of any project ever again. This has been an amazing experience. The fear of losing and then the high inside of winning, there’s no comparison. It’s worth all the fear to do it and win.”

Born in Havana in 1958, Noel grew up in a family of professional artists. His mother and grandmother were dancers, while his father was a painter and photographer. He attended the prestigious National School of Art, where he studied dance and dabbled in art. He came to the U.S. in 1981, by way of Costa Rica, after a promising early career with the most important dance companies in Cuba. In 1986, he joined the Boston Ballet and also toured with other major companies including Joffrey Ballet and American Ballet Theater.

After a dislocated knee ended his dance career in the late 1980’s, he turned to art as a vocation. Since then, his work has been internationally acclaimed and risen steadily in value. He is presently at work with a fellow Miamian, pop art superstar Romero Britto, on a collaborative work that will be unveiled early next year.

How did you become a dancer?
I had dreamed of being a dancer since the day I was born. There was a ballet school in my house, so I had no choice. I grew up in a theatrical family. My grandmother was the official dance teacher for the national opera company in Havana. My mother was a dancer. My father was a photographer and painter. I had the good fortune to be born into a family of professionals. They don’t push you. You have to come out on your own and show that you have talent, and then they encourage you.

How old were you when you started dancing?
I was four. I would try to imitate the students in the ballet classes.

When did you actually start studying dance?
At five.

When did you become a professional?
That’s an interesting question, because when you are a dancer, you are a professional from day one. If you’re not a professional from the beginning, you’re never going to be a professional. It becomes a very intense discipline. In terms of the economics, though, I became a professional dancer at 15.

What happened with your dance career when you came to the U.S.?
Before I came to the U.S., I lived in Costa Rica for seven months. I danced as a principal and taught with the national dance company. Then I came here to Miami, in December 1981, and I worked with the only two companies really working here back then, Dance Miami and Ballet Concerto.

You came just after the famous Mariel boat lift. That must have been a strange time in Miami.
I like the fact that I lived through the entire evolution of Miami, from the beginning.

Why did you become a dancer in the first place? What so appealed to you?
I don’t even know. I just felt it. Like I said, I grew up around singers and pianists, dancers and artists. So, it wasn’t a matter of “becoming” a dancer—it was my dream from the beginning. I can’t even explain it. I just felt from a very early age that it was my passion, my destiny.

When you came to the U.S., how far did your dance career go?
I moved to Boston and went to work with the Boston Ballet soon after I came to the States. I was in Miami a very short amount of time. I got to realize that there was not much support for the arts in Miami. It was a different city back then. There was not much going on at all. So, I heard from dancers and others who passed through that the only way to get a good opportunity was with one of the really good dance companies in a big city up north.

How did you end up picking Boston?
I said to myself, “I’m going to go audition for the first company that comes down,” because no matter where they come from, it has to be better than this. It was tough.

So, the first company to come through was the Boston Ballet, with Rudolph Nureyev performing Don Quixote at Dade County Auditorium. I went and auditioned and got the job. I danced in the chorus for some of the remaining performances with Nureyev. I ended up being with the company for two years.

Then what?
I wanted to explore more about myself in a different style of dance and repertoire. In Cuba, we do all different kinds of dance, not just classical.  You also get to dance a more open repertoire. If you just do classical, classical, classical—after a while it gets very robotic and you don’t feel it. So, there was a company in Boston called New England Dinosaur Dance Company. They did “contemporary” modern dance. They came to see me dance with Boston Ballet and then asked me to join their company. I was there for four years and I really enjoyed it.

What happened next?
Then I started doing freelance work in New York, both classical ballet and contemporary ballet, with small companies. And I was fortunate enough to be taken on as a student by David Howard, who was the most important teacher of his time, in the early 1980’s.

He gave me a scholarship, and the first day I walked into the professional class, there was Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland and all these famous dancers. I was surrounded by some of the greatest dancers in the world. So, I became a better dancer and made great connections as a result of him.

That’s when I started working with Joffrey Ballet. I started taking classes with them because that was my favorite company. At the time, I was dancing with American Ballet Theater, but my knee was starting to give me problems. I was getting old for a dancer. I was 28.

How did the knee injury happen?
It was the result of working the body to such a level that it’s not human. No matter what kind of shape you’re in, your body suffers. My knee got totally destroyed as a result of the extreme pressure that is put on a dancer’s knees. So, I had to face a very intense, strong reality. My insides told me that I had to quit, that this was it. It took a while though, because I didn’t want to face what was happening. It took a good five months for me to make the decision.

What finally caused you to make the decision?
I dislocated my knee and that was it. I saw all the doctors, and I could have had an operation, but I just knew that was it. I didn’t want to go through all that just so I could continue to inflict pain and physical damage on myself.

It’s a tough profession, isn’t it?
It’s a very cruel career, because you realize when you are a young person that you have all this energy, but it becomes so intense, that at a certain point you just have to let it go. At an age when most people are just starting to work at the career they want, your career is over.

How did the transition to an art career happen?
The art was a total accident, a pure accident. I had always painted. It was my hobby. My father was a photographer and artist, so it was in my blood. I was around art all the time, and I actually got started by doing sets and costume design for dance productions in Cuba. So, when I quit dancing, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was trying to become a normal person because dancers are not normal, I can tell you that. Dancers live in a whole different world and have a whole different philosophy of life. You live in a theatre, so you live the life of the theatre. It’s not real.

So, when I decided to quit dancing, I had to realize that there was a whole other kind of life that normal people lead. I had to come up with a way to enter that world. I tried every job in the world, but none of them were for me, from working in a bank to working in a store. I was in a shirt and tie every day and I just felt that it wasn’t me.

How many jobs do you think you went through before you decided to become a professional artist?
At least 15.

How did you finally make the transition to art?
I needed some time to think about what I really wanted to do, so I took a job in Boston working in a restaurant, and I did it for two and a half years. And I started painting on the side because painting was the only thing that kept me in touch with my creative background.

But you needed to get free of dance?
Yes. It’s an obsession, and once you get outside that world, you realize the extreme things you had to do to exist in that world, which isn’t natural and isn’t real. But it becomes all-consuming. You know the best way I can describe being a dancer.

It’s sado-masochism. It really is. If you don’t feel the pain, you’re not working hard enough.

But doesn’t a general ethic of hard work and pushing yourself carry over to the art career?
Yes, that’s the part I’m extremely thankful for. The discipline and focus that you get as a dancer are tremendous assets in your life. Those are the most positive elements of a dancer’s life.

How long were you painting on the side before you decided to get serious about it?
About a year and a half. I was working out my style, and I got to realize that painting was my salvation. I knew that the energy that brought me into this world made me to be an artist of some kind, a person in the arts. So now that I couldn’t dance any more, I had to refocus my artistic instincts on another medium of expression. I knew that I wasn’t going to be happy otherwise.

When did you sell your first piece?
I was painting in Boston and I started to accumulate a lot of work. One of my friends came to my house and saw how much stuff I had hanging around the house, and she said, “you’re very good at this. Why don’t you focus on art as your new career?” I said, “Every artist I know is starving, and I don’t want to have to go through that.” I’m doing it as a hobby, as an outlet.

But people kept insisting that I show my work. Then a friend of my friend’s opened an art gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in 1986, and he suggested that he organize a show of my work. He sold 13 of 15 pieces on the spot, and the rest within a few days. It was really amazing.

How much did the pieces sell for back then?
Three hundred dollars. I had done the show for the heck of it, but then after I saw that I had sold all this work, I said to myself, “maybe there’s something here. Maybe I should pay attention to this opportunity.”

So what happened next?
I just started doing it and kept doing it. Then people from all around Boston started calling me to do more shows and then events, and then posters for events. And before I knew it, three years had gone by and I was in the spotlight again—as an artist instead of as a dancer.

Then you opened your own studio in Boston?
Yes, in the fall of 1987. I painted a lot and I started showing a lot. And that lasted for three wonderful years.

How do you describe your style?
My style is technically figurative cubism. But I’m always changing—all my work is an exploration of the male or female body.

How often do you do shows now?
Once a year, in Boston and Provincetown. I have a huge following in Provincetown.

What does your work sell for now?
The smaller pieces, original oils, sell for anywhere from five or six thousand to twenty thousand. The larger pieces sell for more. Giclee reproductions sell for between six hundred and twelve hundred dollars.

And you sell everything you produce?
Yes. And I also get commissioned to do a lot of work, from both corporate and private individual clients.

When is your next exhibit?
Well, I just finished one in Provincetown, not long ago, but my next one is going to be a very interesting one. I’m doing a collaborative work with Romero Britto. We’re going to actually work together. We’ve been talking about it for a few months. I think the two of us coming together will create a whole new world, because our styles are so vivid.

When is it going to happen?
At the end of February.

Where?
At his studio and gallery on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach.

Is this the first time you ever collaborated with another artist?
In this way, yes, but I have collaborated in other ways with other artists.

But this will be the first time that I actually paint with another painter on the same canvas. It’s very exciting for me.

What do you think of the art scene in Miami these days?
I’m happier, because we have grown, and there’s a lot more to do than there was when I got here in 1981. But the art scene in Miami is really still in diapers. It’s very young.

But I’m encouraged, because many of the writers and dancers and writers and filmmakers and painters don’t feel the need to leave Miami any more to go out and have a career. It can be done right here. And that’s a great thing.

Do you think the art scene that does exist is moving over to Biscayne Boulevard?
Oh yes, totally. Biscayne is truly now the next South Beach.

What do you think has happened to South Beach?
The beach is over, unfortunately. Take it from one of those persons who are to blame, because we put it on the map, we made people pay attention to it. But then events got beyond our control. So, everybody I knew when I first got here is gone. Long gone.

But I still love the Beach. I have this very intense connection with the Beach, only to find out years later what the connection was—I was conceived at the Eden Roc Hotel.

What caused you to make your decision to move off the Beach?
I just cannot take it any more. I don’t feel like it’s a happening place any more. My Beach is gone.

Is there a chance the Beach will re-create itself over in this area, along Biscayne?
Oh yes. It’s already doing it—it’s happening already. Just look at what Mark Soyka has done with Soyka and the little community that has been created.

What’s your driving philosophy of life now?
I think it’s the same thing that has always driven me. My philosophy is that no matter what, life is a wonderful experience.

Even the bad stuff?
Even the bad stuff, and I’ve had my share. Plenty of bad stuff. But no matter what, life is a wonderful thing, a great experience.

Do you have a philosophy of art?
I don’t know if you could call it a philosophy. I think it’s more of a feeling.

Why do you paint what you paint?
I don’t know. You’re not supposed to know. I can’t say “I paint because…?” I just paint.

You’re self-taught?
Yes, but it’s in my genes. I come from a family of artists and performers, but I took some courses at the National College of Art, which is in the same building where I studied dance.

How are you different as an artist from who you were as a dancer?
As a person, there is a huge difference. I’m a lot less egotistical. There are other people living in this world besides me. That is how a dancer lives. You have people telling you how good you look, and how wonderful you are. You have photographers taking your picture all the time, always showing you in perfect light. And you are surrounded by mirrors, twenty-four seven. And so you get to a point of being so obsessed with yourself and your art that nothing is ever enough.

How do you adjust away from that once you stop dancing?
You have to correct yourself. You have to learn to be human again. And it is hard. My major number-one down period in my life was when I quit ballet. I really felt like I was let go from a great height and really hit the ground. I had to learn to be human from the beginning again, because I grew up being an inhuman dancer, not a human person.

What’s your next big goal?
Just keeping happy and working, just doing what I’m doing. My biggest goal is to be sure that I’m happy and that I’m happy doing what I’m doing.

Precious few establishments—Joe’s Stone Crab, for example—have kept alive the mythology of local food, despite the often terminal contagion of  hipness that covers much of the area. Through it all, though, a handful of outstanding examples of “indigenous” Miami cuisine, from Cuban to Brazilian to New York deli, have survived all of the society-page hoopla.

Perhaps the best among them is Tap Tap Haitian, a cherished local institution located on Fifth Street in South Beach. Part restaurant, part art gallery and cultural center, Tap Tap, founded in 1994 by Haitian documentary filmmaker Katherine Kean, features authentic Haitian “home cooking” and a dazzling collection of culturally interpretive art by some of the island’s most acclaimed masters, who flew to Miami to leave their unique marks on the town for their friend and fellow artist from a different medium.

In the main dining room, two murals by Wilfrid Daleus loom on opposite walls, One is of a family outside their modest home; the other is of a bustling produce market. In another room, a pair of large portraits by Jude “Papa” Loko-Thegenus humanize two of the most powerful saints in voodoo culture, Ezili Danto and Ezili Freda. In the rear of the restaurant, a “Rara Room” is painted from wall to wall and ceiling to tables and chairs with vivid, joyful images of the Rara festival that takes place in Haiti each spring.

In the hallway between the front and rear dining rooms, two long tile serpents symbolize elemental voodoo spirits danbala wedo and ayida wedo. On a half-dozen walls, big metal sculptures pay homage to other interesting aspects of Haitian culture, such as agriculture and the arts.

For good measure, an angel stares down from the bar, where you can play dominoes with a Haitian cab driver or European tourist and sip the delicious house cocktail, called a Soley and made with aged Barbancourt rum with fresh passion fruit juice. Tap Tap is also renowned for its Mojito—Cuba’s contribution to classic cocktails.

On Thursday and Saturday nights, Tap Tap features live Haitian folk-jazz, performed by a trio led by “the Woody Guthrie of Haiti,” the singer-songwriter-guitarist Manno Charlemagne—whose popularity swept him to power as mayor of Port-au-Prince during his homeland’s political crisis a decade ago.

While it’s a neat thing that Tap Tap showcases Haitian art, music and culture, the most significant thing about the place is its consistently excellent rendering of simple and classic food from the small island nation that shares Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. Night after night, Tap Tap turns out reasonably-priced Haitian fare so authentic it could be served on any family dinner table from Port-au-Prince to Petionville, and even into the countryside, without objection. Based on fresh fruits and vegetables to accompany seafood, chicken, beef or goat, Haitian cuisine highlights the ubiquitous and often subtle influence of the scotch bonnet pepper.

For starters, Tap Tap offers a wonderfully rich pumpkin soup with leeks, cabbage, celery, potato, carrot and the root vegetable malanga. Appetizers include malanga fritters or grilled goat tidbits with a watercress dipping sauce, or avocado filled with herring. Salads include an avocado and tomato salad with onion, olive oil and lime; a beet salad with potato, hard-boiled egg and watercress, or a house salad with mango, watercress, carrots and mixed greens.

Main dishes include stewed goat, fried pork chunks, stewed beef with okra, conch in Creole sauce, stewed chicken, or the exotic spaghetti with herring. House specialties include a whole steamed fish in lime sauce, or deep-fried without a sauce; shrimp in Creole sauce, or shrimp in coconut sauce. Grilled dishes include fresh catch of the day, goat, chicken, conch or spiny lobster. Popular Haitian desserts include sweet potato pie, coconut pudding, and banana fritters.

Beyond its excellent menu, in terms of its eventual legacy, Tap Tap is a widely-cherished symbol of Haitian culture that generates a lot of pride in the local Haitian community. “I’m very proud of this place and I support it because it’s the only place on South Beach that represents my culture,” says real estate agent Natascha Magliore, a regular weekly customer. “And it’s a very good impression, a very realistic one. The food, the music, the art—it’s all very Haitian.” Says longtime general manager Gary Sanon-James: “The joy of working here is shedding light on the true nature of my culture. It’s not the way Hollywood portrays it. Voodoo has been portrayed very negatively in the media, but there is so much more to it, so much richness and texture and beauty. That’s what we try to do here—to show the side of my country that’s never really been represented in the media.”

]]> 6637 https://www.southbeachmagazine.com/buster-a3tv/ Thu, 07 Aug 2003 17:07:50 +0000 http://www.southbeachmagazine.com/?p=1434 [...]]]> It’s 3:45am in Miami Beach’s Crobar nightclub. The music reached a fever pitch over two hours ago and hasn’t let-up since. Off to one side of the packed VIP room a lone male rips off his shirt, climbs up atop one of the gigantic speakers that flank the multi-level room and breaks into some serious dance moves completely oblivious to the crowd below him. It soon becomes quite obvious that at this particular moment in time this individual doesn’t give a damn about anything but the music...The music.

His real name is among the most guarded secrets on South Beach. His adopted moniker – Buster – is, after all, a more apt self-expression of the over-the-top, bleached-blond, speaker-dancing party boy who first made a reputation for himself as marketing director of Ego Trip Magazine, a back-pocket fixture among local hipsters since its creation in late 1999.

Today, as South Beach enters its new tourism and social season for 2003, Buster is a major force on the scene, a unique personality in a place where self-expression is a sacred rite.

Born in Beverly, Massachusetts, just north of Boston, he attended Emerson College and majored in communications before getting his big break in local radio just before his scheduled graduation. Just over two years later, he relocated to Miami Beach to start his life over again, with fewer drugs and more focused ambition.

After two and a half years as the public face of Ego Trip, Buster left the magazine earlier this year to pursue an opportunity to be an important player in the launch of the country’s first full-powered dance music radio station, Party 93.1 FM, operated by Cox Broadcasting. Simultaneously, he and two partners created A3TV, the country’s first all-dance music video channel, which is broadcast, via cable, for seven hours each night.

How did you get into radio?
I met the program director from WBCN, one of Boston’s biggest rock stations, at a dinner party. And I said, ‘you’re playing Chemical Brothers, you’re playing Crystal Method, you’re playing all these electronic bands. Why don’t you have a mixed show?’ And he said, ‘call me and we’ll do it.’ So, I just gathered up all these local DJ’s and I hosted a mixed show every Saturday night. That was my first on-air gig.

How old were you?
Twenty-three.

How long did you have that first job?
For about two years.

Then what?
After that, I got to a point where I couldn’t really go any further in Boston, and I really got to a point where I was being known personally for the wrong things. I used to do a lot of drugs when I was younger. I was known as this club kid who was crazy, crazy all the time. But it was the wrong image, because I was just known as that. So, I really had to start over, so I came to South Beach.

When?
In 1999. I had met Buzzy Sklar, the founder of Ego Trip Magazine, about a year before. I had his card, so I called him before I moved down. When I first got to South Beach, I worked briefly at a couple of night clubs, Wax and Groove Jet. Then I tried to work as a dancer, because that’s what I really love doing. I like putting on a show.

But your real introduction to South Beach was working for Ego Trip Magazine?
I went to work with Ego Trip a couple of months after I got here. The magazine was just getting started and it was something I could really sink my teeth into and keep focused on. Before that, I didn’t want to work nightlife particularly. I wanted to work in and around it.

What appealed to you about working for a new magazine?
My whole thing was, I just needed to focus this energy that I had. So, I really sunk my teeth into Ego Trip. I really wanted to do the best I could and use it as a vehicle to get to a lot of people.

How did you react to the opportunity?
For the first time in my life, I tried to be as responsible as possible.

You were that much of a reprobate in your earlier life?
(after long pause and sigh) I just wasn’t going anywhere. I just kept going down and down. So, I had to get motivated to be successful, and I had to do it on my own terms.
So, I came down here and got my chance with Ego Trip.

How long did you work there?
Two and a half years.

Many people say you were the heart and soul of the magazine, its most visible presence, during your time there?
I wore many hats, but it was a huge team effort. I went out every night and took the club pictures, and I would write most of the copy, a lot of it with David Winn, a founder and editor.

What do you feel that you accomplished during your stint at Ego Trip?
I really learned an unbelievable amount about marketing and sales. I became a lot better as a writer. It got me to meet the right people. Meeting people was the best part of the job.

What caused you to move on after two and a half years?
Well, there was only so far I could go there. I was marketing director of a regional magazine that was absolutely the coolest magazine. I will always think that. I worked with a really cool staff. But there was only so far I could take it. I knew the next logical step would be to go from a regional magazine to a national magazine. And I really had to think about that at the time. But in the end, I decided I wanted to try to put my time and energy into my own project.

And what is that?
It’s called A-3 TV and it’s the first 24-hour dance music video channel.

How did you decide on TV as your next move?
I had this little Ego Trip television thing going on. It was a one-minute bulletin of what’s hot and happening in clubland. It showed 30 times a week on MTV, Comedy Central and
E! Entertainment.

So, how did the TV network materialize?
I was working with my partner, David Mardini from Onboard Media, and we said to ourselves, ‘if Ego Trip can buy 60 seconds to put me on the air, why can’t we buy 60 minutes’? Then we thought, ‘why can’t we just buy from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. and make it late-night TV, after-hours TV?’ It could be a little bit risque But then the question was, ‘what will we fill it up with?’

How did you answer that question for yourselves?
We’re such lovers of dance music and I had seen dance music videos before, but they’re never shown in the U.S.

So, the videos are widely produced but never shown?
Not in the U.S. In Europe, they’re huge.

So that’s how you got the idea of creating the MTV of dance music?
Yes. Originally, it was going to be a lot more diverse. If we had more resources right now, we’d have more types of shows. Right now, in addition to the videos, we have a show called ‘After Midnight’ that’s being done in strip clubs, with girls going in and interviewing strippers. We also have a show called ‘Plant Love’ from a well-known woman DJ on the beach named Snezana.

What’s you concept for developing the TV network beyond Miami?
We’re only two months old, so we’re starting on the beach to get our format down. We need to get local advertising sales going.

Why will people watch it?
Why do people read Ego Trip? Why do people read Ocean Drive? They don’t read them for the articles, as much as I would have liked to think they do. They look at them to see if they’re in there or their friends are in there.

How do you translate that to TV?
We fill up, in between every single commercial and every single music video, we throw in what’s called a ‘bumper,’ a local bumper ID of a local party person saying, ‘Hey, this is so-and-so, and you shouldn’t be home watching A-TV. You should be out on the town partying with me.’ That keeps it local, and it means people will watch in their local markets.

The other rule is, if it’s cool, we’ll show it. Dance music videos are cool. They have no words. They don’t screw themselves up by having too many vocals or words that try to give it some kind of meaning.

What real need are you trying to fulfill in the Miami media market?
It’s late-night. You’re going out, or you’re coming home. You’re about to have sex. There’s escort services on there. We’re in all the hotels, because when you turn on the TV at most hotels on Miami Beach, the default channel is channel 3. So, you’re automatically tuned in to us when you turn on your TV. So, we have that audience. And we have the local dance music/club crowd.

How do you select the videos that are shown on A-TV?
I call record labels. They want to get their videos shown. So, we look at them to make sure they’re cool.

You’re the person who actually decides what gets shown?
Yes, along with my partners, David Mardini and Peter Wolfson.

You’ve also come up with some unusual promotions.
Yes, like our ‘VIP for a Night’ promotion. We go to a club and take the people who are last in line and give them a bottle and throw women at them all night. We just did one where we took the last guys in line to see Paul Oakenfold at Opium Garden. Then we took them upstairs to meet him. It was amazing, a lot of fun.

You’ve also been involved in the launch of the country’s first major-market all dance music radio station, Party 93 FM. How does that tie into the TV station?
The radio station approached me about a month before I left Ego Trip. I had talked to them on behalf of the magazine and we had done some events together, like hot body contests at the Clevelander and things like that. So, after I left Ego Trip and took a little vacation, I sat down with the radio people and we made a deal for me to become promotions manager of the new station.

How did it feel to go back into radio?
I was really excited. I would have never thought I was going to get back into radio, especially not something like Party 93.

Are the radio and TV efforts inter-related?
No. They are totally different, totally separate. But they do feed on each other, because I always put Party 93 on the TV channel and every once in a while, the combination of radio and TV helps get an artist or something else that we want.

You’re also on the air as a DJ?
We don’t have DJ’s yet, so I just do a club report every Saturday night, from midnight until 3 a.m., from Club Space. All of our broadcasts are live from clubs.

You’re adding more clubs this season?
Yes, as new and hot clubs come in.

How do you divide your time between the radio station and TV channel?
I work full-time at the radio station, so I work with my partners David Mardini and Peter Wolfson in my off hours. David also still works full time at Onboard Media. So, we work in the evenings and on weekends to develop the TV concept.

But you’re equally excited by the radio concept as well?
Absolutely. I love radio. I mean, I really love radio. We’re the first full-powered dance music radio station in the U.S. It’s owned by Cox Broadcasting. They bought the old WTMI-FM, a classical station, for $100 million in order to do this. It’s one of the strongest signals in the Miami market.

How has the station done so far in the ratings?
We’ve consistently ranked right around number three ever since we started. And that really says something about dance music in the Miami market, and even dance music in the entire U.S., because the two stations that rank ahead of us are both hip-hop.

What is the range of the music and why?
I’m a jaded clubber. Would I like to see Danny Tenaglia and Paul Van Dyk on there? Sure. But it has to be commercial top 40 dance music. We are not a club station, we are a real dance music radio station.

What’s the difference?
Nightclubs are more minimalistic and underground. A top 40 radio station needs a real song. And everything we do is researched. All of the tracks are put out to research to find out what people think of them before we play them. Our purpose is to identify and play the dance music hits. Our average listener tunes in for no more than 20 minutes at a time, so our rotation has to play what’s hot – over and over again. We repeat the hits the same way any radio station in any format does. That’s what people want to hear.

Do you think there will come a fork in the road between the radio and TV ventures?
I can continue to do both things, because I love doing both. I can a lot of support from both things. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll always be the promotions director at Party 93. As for the TV thing, once we get going, we can hire people to do the things that need to be done in order to develop it.

You’re planning to develop the TV concept nationally, into other major markets?
Yes. But we’re going to fully develop the Miami market and infrastructure first.

How strong is Miami’s influence now as a dance music capital?
It floats in between the second and third largest market by way of dance music sales. But the Miami market is huge for dance music.

Why do you think that is?
One of the biggest reasons is the influence of English-speaking Hispanics. Music is so important to the Latin culture. And dancing and expressing yourself is very important. I went to a Latin Thanksgiving dinner last year and there was a DJ and people were dancing and there was an open bar. And I said to myself, ‘Thanksgiving was never like this in Boston!’

Another factor is the club scene down here. It has become so widely known that it really infects people. And another big factor is that for the first time last Christmas, more turntables were sold then electric guitars. So, dance music is absolutely huge, and getting bigger all the time.

Going into a new tourism season, what’s your assessment of South Beach as a nightlife phenomenon?
It’s changing. It’s definitely going more urban. Hip-hop is the popular music on the scene now. And that’s a very good thing, because it brings in a lot of money. Maybe the wild party scene that you used to see on E! Channel is gone, but the beach will always have the VIP scene. We will always be the Ibiza of the U.S.

What do you say to those who have pronounced South Beach ‘over’?
(laughing)  Stay off my beach! If it’s ‘over,’ fine. We’re always going to long for the days of old. But I know that every new person coming to live on the beach will have the time of their lives over the next few months. And then they’ll say, five years from now, ‘Oh, remember back when the beach was like it was then?’ We’re just jaded, because we’re partied out.

What exactly do you think makes South Beach so unique?
It’s a small town. It’s a neighborhood of a small city. It’s like a village. I didn’t even have a car here for the first two years. I just had a scooter. You can get by with a bicycle.

Why do you like living here so much?
You can be whoever you want here. It’s very free. For someone like me, I have developed a higher comfort level here than I had in Boston.

And the smallness of the place contributes to the opportunities you can develop?
Yes. When I first got here, I was determined to meet everyone. So, I brought RollerBlades down with me and every day, I went from one end of the beach to the other end of the beach, going in every single store and introducing myself.

How did the famous Buster persona develop?
The name comes from when I raced jet skis as a teenager. I was actually a nationally ranked champion. My sponsors said, ‘OK, we’ll sponsor you, but everybody who rides for us has a nickname. And I said, you can call me Susan for all I care. Then they said, ‘Bustin’ Justin.’ Then people started saying Buster and that was it. So, I brought the name with me from Boston.

Describe the Buster persona as it is so well known and appreciated on the beach.
I’m a Gemini, but I’ve never really been a believer in astrology, But my friends who are into astrology have always told me there are two sides to me and that it’s very pronounced. And I came to realize that there really is a difference between Justin and Buster. Whenever I’m dating a girl, there’s always that moment when they say, ‘What do I call you?’ I say, call me Justin but call me Buster when you’re mad at me so I’ll know.

But the Buster persona when I’m out is that I don’t take anybody seriously. I always try to have as much fun with people as possible. It’s very loud, but hopefully in a good way.

And nobody gets more than a few seconds?
I’ll have a hundred 30-second conversations in a typical Saturday night, yeah. I talk so much I come out with what I call club throat. It’s really hard core.

How different is the private Justin person from the public Buster person?
I like to stay in and watch movies and chill. And when I’m out, I meet a lot of fake people and people who just can’t turn it off. I try to get to know people well enough that they can turn it off for a second. And I do the same thing. I try to turn it off.

So, most people don’t know the real Buster – or Justin?
Most people think I’m a freak who stays out all night every night. People see me at Space on Sunday morning and they don’t realize I got up an hour before that because I love Ivano Bellini as a DJ. So, I go to bed and get up early to go out and see Ivano on Sunday mornings. I call it the breakfast club. People who see me think I’ve been up partying like a maniac all night.

What do you think is the next evolution of the scene here?
This is always going to be an entertainment and nightlife mecca and there will always be clubs here. I think there will be more urban clubs and that the diversity will become really interesting.

So you categorically reject the opinions of those who say hip-hop has had a negative influence on the beach?
Hip-hop has had a positive influence on the beach. It has had a positive influence on music nationally. It brings money into this community.

What do you think would most surprise the people who think they know you?
I’m in my office every day by 9:30 or 10 a.m. I’ve learned to be focused. I’ve learned that you can actually use this energy that you have to actually get something done. And I know for a fact now that it’s going to pay off.

In the modern history of South Beach, no one has done it better or been more heralded for his charismatic, discerning presence than the 35-year-old Rizzo, an ex-model and actor who holds two law degrees and owns a sports agency that represents professional basketball players.

Born in Tarando, Italy, Rizzo, who promoted and co-owned nightclubs in his hometown and throughout Italy before migrating to South Beach to attend the University of Miami Law School, began his illustrious second career in the early 1990s at The Butter Club, located on lower Washington Avenue where Bash stands today. When DJ-turned-club-owner Eric Omores bought the failed Butter Club and transformed it into Bash, whose celebrity backers included actor Sean Penn and musician Simply Red, Rizzo signed on to work the door and help with promotions. Rizzo calls it “the Miami Vice era. If you didn’t have a nice suit on, you weren’t getting in.”

Over the next several years, Rizzo mastered the art of velvet rope-style doormanship at Bash and later at the fabled Living Room, which ranks historically as the hardest place in town to get into. “They called us the door Nazis,” he says with a chuckle. But, on a good night, he earned $2,000; met countless beautiful women; and most important, learned the arcane, and sometimes mysterious principles of velvet rope management.

“It’s very easy to play tough guy and say no to everybody,” he says, puffing on a cigar at Lincoln Road’s Segafredo Cafe. “But the thing down here is, you never know who you’re dealing with. There may be a guy who looks like a bum and he’s a freakin’ multi-millionaire, about to blow fifteen or twenty grand in a club. You can cost the owner a lot of money if you make a mistake.”

The ability to avoid mistakes requires developing what Rizzo acknowledges as a rare and eccentric set of skills. Often, however, such skills are characterized by intuition as much as anything, he says.

Massimo says he can tell when a potential patron, male or female, is still 20-30 yards away from the rope whether he or she will get into the club. “I scout them while they’re still a distance away,” he says. “You look for people who are good-looking, or funky-looking, or interesting-looking. And you look for people who know what the club is about.”

Not everyone belongs in every club.” Not even people with big money to spend are guaranteed an opportunity. Why not? “As far as the approach goes, I would leave attitude at home,” says Rizzo. “Very often, you can have the best-looking people and it looks like they have money, but they have the worst attitude. So, sure enough, they wait.”

Another sure way to ensure a long wait is to proclaim that you know the owner. “That’s the worst thing to say,” Rizzo says with a smile. “The next worst thing is ‘you don’t know who I am.'” He laughs heartily. “That’s when I’m an asshole.”

The first rule of good-status citizenship in clubland is “look good,” Rizzo says. “A club is about looks, about appearance. So, look good. If God didn’t give you the right cards, there’s not much you can do, but look the best you can.”

On the other hand, he says, expensive clothing in and of itself is no guarantee of success either. “You can have a lot of money and waste it on Versace suits and still be a peasant, look like one, behave like one, which means I don’t want you in the club. So, it’s not just about money,” he says, shaking his head.

In the end, Rizzo says, the game is all about mutual respect. A doorman who acts with respect and a potential patron who acts with humility are a marriage made in heaven, he says. “I’ve been called all kinds of names,” he says wearily. “It can get very personal. “It can also get quite dangerous, he says, like when huge crowds used to surge forward at The Living Room after the fire marshal had barred the entry of any additional customers. Fearing for their safety, Rizzo and his fellow doormen pushed back—and prevailed.

“It’s definitely a position of power,” Rizzo says of life at the velvet rope. “But you have to know how to use it. It shouldn’t go to your head. Respect for everybody is important, but you have to create your territory. I don’t let anybody touch my rope, owners and managers included. Everyone has to understand that once they cross the threshold, once they’re between the ropes, that’s my territory. Otherwise, it’s anarchy. I like dictatorships for some things, and the rope is one of those things.”

Today, Rizzo holds court at the ropes of mega-club Level, as well as fashionable new restaurant-lounge Pearl, co-owned by Eric Omores, who gave Rizzo his start at Bash. Rizzo points out that inexplicably, Americans do not make good door dictators. “You have to be able to get along with all different kinds of people from all different kinds of places,” he says. “For some reason, Americans are not very good at it.” All of the good doormen—Fabrizio at Crobar, Sergio at B.E.D. and Laurent at Nikki Beach Club—are European, Rizzo notes.

As for himself, he says is getting too old for the late-night hours and womanizing of the nightlife scene. Regardless of how late he stays out, he is up at 8:30 every morning working at his sports agency, Prosport International, Inc. He presently represents professional basketball players in the Continental Basketball Association and International Basketball Association. He dreams of placing players in the NBA.

This season, Rizzo and fellow velvet rope king Laurent Bourgade, also a veteran of The Living Room, are promoting a “house party” evening at fashionable new restaurant-lounge Touch. Rizzo says he also wants to open a small club, despite his failure and loss of $20,000 several years ago with a lounge called Exhibit in the space where B.E.D. is today.

For fun, he sits in the sun or goes bike-riding. He is perpetually at work on repairing a 1971 Vespa he acquired on a lark. He is also refurbishing a home he bought in Normandy Shores, on the same island where Eric Omores—who now owns Nikki Beach Club, Pearl and Lemon Twist restaurant in addition to the long-running Bash—is a VIP neighbor.

Rizzo says that given his long history here, with its ups and downs, successes and failures in the club business, he is happy with the maturing destination he sees. “I think the beach is finally reaching a balance between it used to be and what it is becoming, between quality and commercialization.” Still, he says, the club business remains brutally competitive. “Now with the new season beginning, we have all the grand openings of the new clubs,” he says. “Then in March, you have the grand closings. By May, you can tell who did their job properly.”

For the new season, Rizzo says he likes the chances of Michael Capponi’s new 320 and the soon to open Rain, where Groove Jet used to be. For fun, Rizzo hangs out at Crobar.

The moral of the story on ever-changing South Beach, he says, is that perpetual change is a cultural badge of honor. He also takes on the principle as a sort of personal mantra. “You can’t rest on your laurels,” he says. “You have to stay on your toes.”

For example, pieces in the collection address a vast spectrum of vita issues, from theories of sculpture that date back to the Renaissance, to fascinating questions about the nature of creativity and originality. Even more important, perhaps, a pair of paintings from the Rubell collection can single-handedly inject a credible mediation in art-related political disputes as timely as ex-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s philosophical altercation several years ago with the Brooklyn Museum of Art over elephant dung as a decorative motif.

More significantly, though, the Rubell collection, which contains 1,500 pieces by celebrated artists including Keith Haring, Peter Halley, Damien Hirst, David Salle and Cindy Sherman, as well as important local talents such as 62-year-old African-American folk artist Purvis Young, is a representation of every major influence in contemporary art over the last three decades. It includes paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, installation and videos. Fifteen exhibition spaces have concrete floors and corrugated metal ceilings that evoke the aesthetic and ambiance of an artist’s studio. Quite simply, the Rubell collection is a monument to contemporary art.

“It serves the important movements in contemporary art in the last 30 years and it’s probably one of the most complete surveys in the U.S.,” says Bill Begert, who served as curator for one year before departing for New York. Begert cites minimalism, neo-expressionism, neo-geo, photography and identity politics as the art movements best exemplified by the body of work the Rubells’ father Don, mother Mera, and children Jennifer and Jason, have lovingly assembled by seeking out the small studios of emerging but undiscovered artists in the U.S., Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Much to their credit, the Rubells did not use their wealth, largely inherited from the 1989 AIDS-related death of Don’s brother, Studio 54 co-creator Steve Rubell, to do the obvious as new collectors and buy expensive, universally-acclaimed works by the masters. “It’s very easy to buy Impressionist paintings,” says Don Rubell, a 61-year-old, Brooklyn-born former obstetrician who met his future wife in the library of Brooklyn College in 1962. Soon thereafter, the couple began collecting art with a $50 investment in a piece found during a European summer vacation. After that, they established a $25 a month budget for collecting original art. Ten years later, they crossed an important benchmark as serious collectors when they invested in a painting by young Italian artist Francesco Clemente.

Today, the Rubell collection, almost invariably bought from the artists at the earliest stages of their careers, is celebrated in art circles around the world. And Don Rubell enthusiastically points to the fact that they made their reputation without ever buying a single piece by an already “established” artist, much less a master. That’s just too easy, he says. “You buy your Picasso, then you buy your Matisse, then you buy right through Duchamps and Pollack,” he says. “It is more challenging and certainly more interesting to pursue these artists before they were considered Impressionists and to meet the artists. The uniqueness of this collection is not that we have objects from each of these periods. The uniqueness arises from the idea that we have pursued and obtained these objects at the earliest moments, before the definitions of these objects were clear.”

One thing is abundantly clear. Prescience in the world of art can be quite lucrative. For example, 20 years ago the Rubells invested $25 in a black-and-white photograph by Cindy Sherman, whose work injects the artist into scenes from famous movies. Today, the picture, which is reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, is assessed at $250,000.

Don Rubell likes to point out that all art is contemporary art at the time it is being created. “A historical master was once a contemporary artist, whose only advantage was probably that he’s been dead longer than some of the other contemporary artists,” he says. “But every artist was a contemporary artist in his time. No one was born an old master.”

In fact, he says, it was often the early work of the masters that was actually the best and most enduring. He cites the example of Rembrandt. “Early Rembrandts were the most popular paintings he did. Those were his social works. When he became what we call quote-unquote the good Rembrandt, he fell completely out of favor.”

Today, Don Rubell and his family have taken on a passionate collective mission to ensure that the most important artists since 1970 never fall out of favor. It is a highly-personal quest, without any constraints from public funding, corporate grants, sponsors or even a board of directors. Put simply, the Rubells can do whatever they want and their tastes run the gamut of the key influences in contemporary art.

Along the way, art has brought the well-educated family closer together. The children are now largely responsible for the collection. Daughter Jennifer, who earned an art history degree from Harvard before relocating to Miami in the mid-1990’s at the age of 25, works with her 31-year-old brother Jason, who earned an art history degree at Duke after launching his first art collection at 14.

In its current incarnation, the Rubell art collection addresses a number of important and controversial issues that are often in the headlines. A perfect example is the extremely controversial work of black artist Chris Ofili, who lives in London. The Rubell collection contains a pair of beautiful, elegant, haunting pieces by the man who created the “elephant dung” school of art so reviled a while back by former New York Mayor Rudolph Guliani, who proclaimed that Ofili’s work defamed the Virgin Mary by having the offending dung smeared across her personage.

According to the Rubells and their former curator, nothing could be further from the truth. “The Virgin Mary piece the mayor talked about was a very beautiful, highly worked and developed painting that involved many layers of paint, resin, glitter and collage elements,” says former Rubell curator Bill Begert. “It emphatically was not smeared or splattered with dung as the ex-mayor of New York presented it. That was a total misrepresentation, a lie.”

In fact, says Begert, noting the two Ofili pieces in the Rubell collection, dung is almost sacred in the artist’s native African culture. “You heat your house and cook with it,” he says. “It’s part of the cycle of life. It isn’t just excrement.”

But, Begert says, the Ofili-Giuliani incident demonstrates that “the amazing thing about art is that it can play whatever role you want it to play. So, for Giuliani, it played the role of being the perfect illustration of the decadence of art.”

Another Rubell collection artist who ignites fierce debate is photographer Sherrie Levine, whose 1987 black-and-white print “Untitled (After Alexander Rodchenko)” is merely a photograph of the Russian master’s original photograph. Levine’s work intentionally provokes a furious debate over the very nature, and definition, of creativity and originality.

A 1992 sculpture by Charles Ray, titled “Oh Charley, Charley, Charley,” consists of eight cast-fiberglass nude males all made in the image of the artist. The work blends homoerotica and egomania, while solving artistic riddles about sculpture that date back centuries.

For such courage and vision, the Rubell collection is praised by art experts.

“Everyone in the art world who comes through Miami goes through the Rubell collection,” says art gallery owner Fred Snitzer, one of the pioneers of the now burgeoning Miami art scene.

Bonnie Clearwater, director of the Miami Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), says the Rubell collection has had a major impact on Miami as an art destination. “I have been working with a lot of young artists in Miami,” she says. “And a lot of the, have pointed to the fact that it’s important to them to have the Rubell collection here.”

The Rubell art collection is located at 95 Northwest 29th Street in Miami. The exhibit, which is changed twice a year, is open Wednesday through Sunday  from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults and $2.50 for students, seniors and anyone under 18. Special tours can be arranged at other times. For more information, call (305) 573-6090 or inquire via e-mail at rubellcollection@mindspring.com.

Bustling Ocean Drive, the crown jewel in the shimmering vision many people had for the neo-boheimian neighborhood that would later blossom into “the American Riviera,”  had given way to rapidly gentrifying Lincoln Road as the hip, trendy street upon which the next wave of South Beach chic would break.

But, just as Soyka had been a major force in both the birth of the South Beach phenomenon and later its migration to Lincoln Road—where its only prospective customers seemed to be homeless people and pigeons—Bo Onur has also become a major force in the now wildly popular pedestrian mall. Both Soyka and Onur, with their strong visions and tolerances for high risk, played critical roles at defining moments in the evolution of South Beach.

Today, Onur, who owns Nexxt Cafe at the intersection of Lincoln Road and Euclid Avenue, and Soyka—whose expanding empire includes a handful of very successful restaurants including Ocean Drive landmark News Cafe and Lincoln Road icon Van Dyke Cafe—are a pair of human bookends to important chapters in the ongoing saga of South Beach.

Onur came to the U.S. nine years ago at the age of 21. Although he had already earned a management degree from his national university, he went on to attend the University of Hartford in Connecticut, where he earned another degree in marketing and business administration. After that, he lived for two years in Los Angeles, where he “did nothing”—except develop the concept for what would become Nexxt Cafe.

“I wanted to create an environment where people could come and enjoy coffee or dinner or lunch or breakfast, in a retro setting where they would feel at home,” says the 30-year-old Onur.

After refining his basic idea, he faced the biggest challenge for any retail business. “Location is very important,” he says. “I traveled all around the country and I found the perfect location—on Lincoln Road in South Beach.”

His decision was based on 15 months of research that included scouting more than three dozen locations in downtown Miami, Coconut Grove and Coral Gables. After inspecting 15 spaces on South Beach, he settled on his present location. “It was a combination of research and intuition,” he says. “South Beach is a very eclectic market. It has qualities other places don’t have.”

Onur’s role as one of the first major independent operators to come in from outside South Beach and open in a high-profile location marked a critical turning point in the evolution of Lincoln Road. The success of Nexxt Cafe helped accelerate the development frenzy that has transformed the fabled street in less than two years.

From its opening day 17 months ago, Nexxt Cafe met or exceeded Onur’s expectations. Just a few months after he opened the place, he faced the urgent need for expansion. The existing kitchen was simply inadequate to meet the demands for food from Onur’s 48 indoor tables and 54 outdoor tables. Then, a minor disaster struck. While Onur was doubling the size of his kitchen, a fire shut Nexxt Cafe down for a month early this year.

But through it all, Onur persevered—and succeeded. Today, Nexxt Cafe serves more than 1,000 meals a day and sells as many as 250 of the delectable pastries made on the premises every day by four highly-trained French pastry chefs Onur imported for the project.

In addition, the Nexxt Cafe concept has spawned three European outposts, in Italy and Germany. But it is Lincoln Road and South Beach that stir his passions.

“Lincoln Road is improving every day,” Onur says proudly. “There are a lot of things happening. A lot of the big national stores are coming in. In my opinion, Ocean Drive is on the decrease and Lincoln Road is on the increase as far as pedestrian traffic and people-watching.”

Onur attributes a lot of the success of Lincoln Road—which runs east to west from Collins Avenue to West Avenue—to a $16 million facelift funded by the City of Miami Beach and landlords and completed just as Onur signed a lease on his space. The cafe operator also gives the city high marks for its delivery of municipal services. “But there’s so much development going on that sometimes they are just overwhelmed by it,” he says.

Onur says he feels strongly that there should be a limit to the number of national chains that invade Lincoln Road. With The Gap, Banana Republic, Mayor’s Jewelers and Pottery Barn already there and others on the way, the Nexxt Cafe proprietor cautions that the balance between national stores and local “Mom and Pop” retailers must be maintained so that the delicate balance of the street is not overwhelmed.

Meanwhile, Onur says he and his staff are quite overwhelmed by the amazing growth Lincoln Road—and all of South Beach—have experienced since he arrived. Nevertheless, he is always on the lookout for ways to improve his business. Earlier this year, he implemented a special a la carte brunch menu on Saturdays and Sundays. “It has been incredibly successful,” he says. In recent months, he has developed a growing business for birthday cakes. In January, he will debut a line of wedding cakes, too. Recently, he began selling his delightful pastries on the Internet, shipping the orders by FedEx.

For all of his success, however, Onur has almost no free time. He works 15 hours a day, six days a week, splitting his attention between the kitchen and his customers. He prides himself on consistently good service in a destination where it is often lacking.

“I have no hobbies at the moment,” he says. “The business is my hobby.” He says the physical toll of his long hours is a little more than he bargained for, but when he needs relaxation, he goes to the beach, just a few blocks away from his cafe. “The hard work is a challenge and I like challenges,” he says.

His next challenge will be to expand the Nexxt Cafe concept into new markets, beginning with a new location on Ocean Drive early next year and additional locations in Coconut Grove and Coral Gables. After that, he says he wants to open a high-end, fine-dining restaurant.

“I never worked this hard in my life, but I see improvement in my business every day,” Onur says. “My philosophy of business is to be the best—to serve the best food with the best service to our clientele.”

At a nearby table on the sidewalk, a middle-aged woman speaks up enthusiastically. “I’ve never had such good food or good service on South Beach,” says Finnish native Siv Casper, who now lives in Sweden and visits South Beach often.

Onur simply smiles contentedly at her comment, one that he hears quite often, but never tires of. It’s obvious from his deeply apparent satisfaction that he hears such comments often.

Nexxt Cafe is open daily from 11 a.m. until midnight (10 a.m. until 1 a.m. on weekends). The restaurant is located at 700 Lincoln Road. For more information, call (305) 532-6643.

When 26-year-old New Jersey native David Bick returned to the U.S. three years ago after living in Israel for nearly a decade, he and two Israeli partners set their sights on a lofty and audacious goal – to build a friendly, innovative South Beach bar where the fabled and fickle locals would come to hang out. Today, one year after its low-profile debut, Lola Bar is a smashing success – so much so that Bick does almost no advertising and is trying to put the brakes on his most successful night because he thinks it has become overcrowded.

Located on 23rd Street just off Collins Avenue, Lola Bar is the U.S. sibling of Lola Bar in downtown Tel Aviv, launched in the mid-’90’s by Bick’s partners, Mark Averbuch and Mady Nassiamian. Lola Tel Aviv had, in turn, been loosely based on Good Bar in Tel Aviv, where Bick and Averbuch had spent many nights drinking and talking before the Lola plan hatched. Although Bick had no direct role in the actual running of Lola Tel Aviv, which was actually a resuscitated and re-invented version of a long-running but dilapidated bar of the same name in the same space, he played a pivotal role in the development of its core concept and its ultimate export to the shores of South Beach.

From the beginning, the trio had a precise and unique goal – to target the locals who work in the South Beach tourism industry – and particularly in the big nightclubs. “The kind of money that comes into Miami Beach is obscene,” says Bick, who became an Israeli citizen and served in the military and forestry service before returning to the U.S. to begin the South Beach Lola project. “Waiters, waitresses, bartenders, managers – those people make a good living and have plenty of disposable income. It just seemed like a great idea and a great opportunity to make them our customers. It was a no-brainer.”

From its opening night, Lola Bar drew an “insider” crowd of nightlife workers, journalists, artists, strippers, drag queens and assorted eccentrics, with an ever-growing population of discerning, in-the-know tourists thrown in for good measure. In fact, the entire Lola formula was based on interaction between people as Bick and Averbuch had observed it on countless nights from bar stools in Tel Aviv’s Good Bar.

“Mark and I drank in Good Bar every night for probably two years,” says Bick, who has been married for nearly five years to his Israeli wife, Dalit. “It’s the best vibe of anywhere I’ve ever been in the world on a regular basis. It’s all about the people and the interaction between people. Because of the way the place is laid out – it’s basically just a long, narrow bar – it’s absolutely inevitable that when you leave the place in the morning, you’ll leave with new friends. You will meet and talk to the people next to you. If you don’t like them, you move on a little bit down the bar and meet someone else. The interaction adds so much to the experience.”

On that simple premise, Bick and company built the foundation for Lola South Beach. The place is essentially a large black box with a long, horseshoe-shaped bar that runs the entire length of the room. Lola is simply furnished with white day-bed-style “bar stools” that each accommodates four people – making it impossible not to talk to strangers. Ambient light is provided largely by ubiquitous white candles on black cast iron candelabras. The latest works of South Beach’s best artists often adorns the walls. A pool table occupies a corner by the rest rooms. There is a certain Gothic-Bohemian charm to the place. There is a collective energy that is contagious.

Then there is the music – and the house Elvis impersonator. The former is provided by the sublimely eccentric DJ Smeejay, whose arsenal includes everything from movie themes to timeless gems such as Tammy Wynette’s country classic “Stand By Your Man.” The latter is provided by Randy Walker, an Elvis impersonator hand-picked by Bick to provide a good portion of Lola’s current quirkiness quotient.

What Smeejay and Elvis have in common with the décor, the furniture and the live bands he occasionally brings in to play is that Bick does exactly what he likes personally – and nothing else.

Most important, though, Lola Bar is designed as the very antithesis of the big South Beach clubs. There is no loud dance music, no elitist attitude at the door, no dress code, no “VIP room.” In fact, although it is a practice now being followed by other new clubs such as Rain, the “no ropes-no VIP room” philosophy was pioneered by Bick at Lola a year ago.In turn, the stereotypical clubgoer is not Bick’s idea of the perfect customer. “The people who want to do Ecstasy and jump around are getting the idea that Lola isn’t the place for that,” he says. “It’s for people who want to come and see their friends and listen to good music that’s different, and have fun. It’s a place to relax.”

Lola has turned out to be so relaxing – and so much fun – that its Tuesday nights have become the talk of the town – literally. Everybody goes there because Tuesday is the most commonly shared night off in the local nightlife industry. Now, Bick fears the Tuesday party has become too crowded and he wants to scale it back. He is now focused on an early-evening, after-office cocktail hour that starts at 7 p.m. on Wednesdays. His weekend business is growing, too.

Although Bick is not surprised by his success, many others are. “We were told that no one from out of town could come in and make it here – and especially not with a local crowd,” Bick says. “A lot of people were coming up and offering us advice six months ago. We tried to explain to them that we knew what we were doing. We designed something different and we knew it would take time to get people to warm up to it. But the kind of relationships we want with our clientele, that takes time.”

Bick says a large amount of Lola’s success can be attributed to a well-known local character named Janet Jorgulesco. When Bick met her at the infamous Monday night Back Door Bamby party at Crobar, the manic and amusing Jorgulesco worked as a waitress at the 11th Street Diner. “I found out she worked the morning shift,” says Bick, smiling. “Everybody in the restaurant business knows that is the worst time to work. I knew that if she had the grit to pull herself out of bed at five in the morning and go wait tables at the diner, she was a hard worker. I was so impressed by that.”

Bick immediately liked Jorgulesco. She, in turn, immediately recognized the opportunity. Today, the rest is history. “She does everything, from the bookkeeping and PR to jumping behind the bar when she has to,” Bick says. “I just basically pay for the place and otherwise, it’s all Janet.” In addition to her other responsibilities, Jorgulesco hosts a cable TV show called “Tube Talk” from Lola Bar on Tuesday nights. Given her wacky and spontaneous nature, her show, on any given week, is anyone’s shot at fifteen minutes of fame – if they’re over-the-top enough.

Next to Jorgulesco, Bick thinks his most important stroke of good luck has been finding Elvis impersonator Randy Walker, who performs from atop the crowded bar. “I love Elvis,” Bick says, laughing. “The twist I get a lot of kicks out of is that now we have him doing pop songs. Last night, he did ‘Genie in a Bottle,’ as Elvis.

“The plan at the beginning was to have a young Elvis, an old Elvis, a black Elvis, an ethnic Elvis. Unfortunately, there is a serious lack of Elvis impersonators in South Florida. Someone should address that. It’s a sad time in South Florida – forget about the Republicans stealing the election – that’s not nearly as embarrassing as not having enough Elvis impersonators. It says something about our culture and it points toward a decline.”     (Editor’s note: Viva la Elvis!)

Just as one wondered about his comments regarding Janet Jorgulesco’s role as “de facto CEO,” one wonders now whether Bick is kidding. It doesn’t seem so – on either count.

And just as he has a passion for Elvis, he has a passion for good contemporary live music, too. So far, Lola Bar has showcased several of Miami’s most acclaimed musical groups, including the alternative band Wanton Soup, generally considered South Florida’s best unsigned act. Bick promises more, a commitment which addresses another cultural problem on South Beach – a serious lack of live music.

Future plans for Lola Bar include expansion to other U.S. cities. Although he has had offers from New York and Los Angeles, Bick says he is more interested in an inquiry from Philadelphia. “Philadelphia has a great vibe, and that’s what it’s all about,” he says.

Says Bick, “Lola is built on the idea that the place, the furniture, everything, is up to the customers, our clientele, it’s their place, it’s not really ours. We get it in motion and then it’s up to the clientele.”  That philosophy appears to be the most important factor in Lola’s wildly successful equation.

That, and the quality of the Elvis impersonators.

You can’t find anyone who will say a bad word about South Beach nightlife impresario Eric Omores. You can’t find anyone who claims the 40-year-old, African-born, French-educated former DJ ever cheated them out of a dime. Unlike his rogue’s gallery of peers and predecessors, he has never been the subject of a scandalous cover story in the local investigative newspaper New Times. He has never been indicted for murder or income tax evasion. He has never been arrested for drunk driving or drug possession. He has never been the subject of a paternity suit. In a place like South Beach, where everyone has a past and trashing one’s friends and foes alike is a peculiar form of social blood sport, his spotless record arouses suspicion. It hints of extraordinarily well-enforced secrets or, worse, some kind of warped reality on the far side of cynicism.

But, it turns out, there is a simple explanation: Omores is a true cultural anomaly. In a ferociously egocentric trade that relentlessly perpetuates shameless self-promotion, he is a man of few words. In a brutally competitive netherworld of hazy situational ethics, he is a man of honor. Despite a string of successes since his arrival in Miami Beach in 1992—from pioneering celebrity-model-grunge club Bash and North Beach Mediterranean eatery Lemon Twist, to sun-sand-and-sex oasis Nikki Beach Club, fashionable champagne lounge-supper club Pearl, and New York’s elegant new Man Ray bistro, sister to the A-list Paris establishment—Omores is celebrated, from South Beach to Saint-Tropez, more for his personal nature than his stellar accomplishments.

His singular role in the perverse extravaganza that is South Beach nightlife raises an interesting question: is the local landscape so hopelessly besotted with narcissism and hyperbole that a humble, honest, hard-working, self-professed “simple” man can be elevated to near-sainthood? Or is Omores truly so exceptional as a human being?

“In terms of dignity and poise, he’s like Jackie Onassis,” says nationally-syndicated journalist Tara Solomon, who covered the burgeoning South Beach scene as “Queen of the Night” columnist for the Miami Herald from 1993-98. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true.”

“He’s like the old movie stars,” says veteran promoter Tommy Pooch, who co-created Nikki Beach Club and Pearl in partnership with Omores and Miami Beach mogul Jack Penrod. “He’s just classy. It’s nice to see old world charm in a guy in this day and age. It goes back to family, to roots. You can see it in his manners. You don’t get enough of that here.”

“It’s very rare, not just in South Beach, but anywhere in the world, to find someone with the kind of integrity he has,” says Lucia Penrod, who has observed Omores in his dealings with her husband for the past two years. “He never deviates. When he says he’s going to do something, he does it.”

His reputation has earned Omores the privilege of enduring business relationships with celebrities such as actor-director Sean Penn and Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall, the two original investors in Bash. Last year, Penn and Hucknall joined newcomers John Malkovich and Johnny Depp in the New York Man Ray venture. Omores cultivated his friendships with Hollywood celebrities during his tenure as a DJ at the Los Angeles club 20/20 from 1984 to 1989. The list included Madonna, Jack Nicholson, Prince, Kim Basinger and Eddie Murphy. Like more common folk, celebrities, too, were drawn to Omores.

Yet, his pre-South Beach resume yields little evidence of his eventual legacy. Born in Senegal, the son of a French-educated agronomist father, he moved to France at age nine. He attended public schools and earned a university degree as a theatrical sound and lighting engineer. At 22, he went to work as a sound and lighting specialist for Club Med, serving six-month stints in Yugoslavia, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Martinique, Mexico and the Bahamas. After three years, he decided to move to the U.S. He spent a month in New York and six months in San Francisco before settling in Los Angeles in 1984.

Once in the U.S., Omores made a life-altering decision—he became a DJ. “When I came to the States, that was a way for me to survive and make good money,” he says in his lyrical, soft-spoken French-African accent over espresso at Nikki Beach Club on a cloudy, deserted weekday afternoon. “I had learned about dance music in Paris clubs and then I had been exposed to music all over the world during my three years with Club Med. I had a technical background in the theater. It made sense to me.”

Very quickly in L.A., he extended his early success at Century City’s red-hot, movie star-populated 20/20 to a second club, Flaming Colossus, before entering the brave new world of party promotion.

Soon, he made another life-altering decision to open his own club. Exploring Hawaii first, he wound up back in the Dominican Republic, where he debuted Bar’ock, one of the first clubs in the Caribbean to play imported dance music from the U.S. and Europe. He also installed the European-style bottle service that would become the future business model for all of South Beach, beginning at Bash. Eighteen months later, he sold Bar’ock and ventured to Miami Beach. “I had come shopping here one time,” he says, “and when I saw what was going on, the scene, I just thought, ‘Wow, this is a great place to be. This is where I’ve wanted to be my whole life.’ There was a lot of energy in the air. It was very bohemian, like SoHo in its early days.”

He says that coming to South Beach was the most important decision he ever made. “Before that, I was not very grounded,” he says. “I was always ready to pack and go. Here, I opened a business, bought a house and grounded myself.”

Unlike almost all of his predecessors and peers, he avoided the classic pitfalls of heavy drinking, drug abuse, womanizing and marathon partying that had littered South Beach with the ambulatory corpses of once-talented and ambitious would-be club kingpins. With the will of Prometheus, he focused on his business plans. “I’ve never seen him with a drink in his hand,” says Tara Solomon.

Since April 1993, when he opened Bash, Omores has established himself as the most respected and successful player in town. Along the way, he has set a standard that few can match. “He is one of only three gentlemen in the business,” says journeyman South Beach publicist Louis Canales, who has known Omores since he arrived. “I mean that in both the traditional sense of the word and that he is a gentle man. He is a man of his word. He is focused. He is incredibly hard-working. Amazingly, I’ve never seen him lose his temper, even in the most disturbing circumstances. He’s just a kind and giving human being.”

In a time of ever-increasing cynicism, such an endless stream of sincere compliments strikes like a form of Chinese water torture. It is almost too much. Except for the time-honored credibility of observers such as Tara Solomon and Louis Canales, one would recoil at the accolades heaped upon Omores. But wait, it gets worse. He talks at length, unashamedly, about his mother. He credits her with his character and work ethic. “She is a woman with a lot of courage,” he says proudly. “She told me I could get out there and conquer the world. She gave me a great sense of self-esteem and confidence, along with love and discipline.”

She also nurtured a dash of the Renaissance Man in her only son, who has four sisters scattered as far afield as France, London, the Caribbean and Miami. Omores speaks and writes five languages fluently—English, French, Spanish, German and an African dialect, Woloff, from his native Senegal. He listens to Billie Holliday. The Great Gatsby is one of his favorite novels. He practices quiet humility like a powerful mantra. He is as calm as a Zen master. His mere presence in a room is a sort of human feng shui.

Naturally, he rejects any suggestion that he is much different from his peers. “I just look at it from a different perspective,” he says. “I’m not a show-off type of guy. I’m a working guy, a simple guy. I came by what I have the hard way. I’m very humble because I started with nothing and I’m pretty well off today. I just don’t get caught up by the whole scene. I like to preserve my privacy. I like to preserve my intimate moments for myself, so that’s probably what people interpret as being shy. In my family, everybody is pretty much reserved, but I’m not that shy. I mean, I get my way. I feel that I get my point across. I try, anyway. But, yes, I am reserved. To me, it’s important to stay spiritually focused and stay on track and not get caught up in and involved with the other side of what Miami has to offer. It can be a poison. It’s a big mirror. So, if you just look at the surface, it can be dangerous because it’s very artificial. You can ride that wave and get swallowed up.”

How has he avoided being swallowed up? “Its all thanks to my mother,” he says, smiling shyly. “I have great moral strength and I think twice about everything.”

Surprisingly, he rejects the suggestion that South Beach is a moral and cultural wasteland, driven by the lowest common denominators of sex, drugs and money. “I don’t think moral values and spirituality are as rare as they seem,” he says. “They get lost in the party lifestyle and the beautiful people, but they are here.”

Omores does not discuss his personal life, but it is said by those who know him that he discreetly collects a treasure-trove of the most valuable bounty on the beach—the company of beautiful women from all over the world. His skill at engaging the fairer sex comes as no surprise to Tommy Pooch, himself a legendary ladies’ man. “It’s the quiet ones you gotta watch out for,” he says, laughing, of his partner. Unlike his peers and Ferrari-driving playboys, however, Omores doesn’t show off his consorts for public scrutiny as trophy girlfriends. “That’s something I keep private,” he says, once again manifesting an attribute of classic old world gentlemanliness.

But for all of his personal integrity, it is his business acumen that has given Omores longevity. “Anything Eric is involved in, you know will be the best of its type in the market at that moment,” says Louis Canales. “Bash was the best celebrity-model-grunge club. Now Nikki Beach is the most unique party. It’s a straight Sunday tea dance, an absolutely brilliant concept. Eric just has that sense of timing and style.”

“He definitely has the best track record,” says Duncan Ross, the Miami-based director of new media and music for Fashion TV, which has used Nikki Beach Club as a venue. “He’s one of the few people who can keep the star factor around. He does quality over quantity in a place where everyone else is trying to do quantity. He’s a true nightclub mogul and we don’t have many of them.”

Despite his formidable history, however, Omores has painstakingly avoided the black hole that eventually beckons almost all denizens of the nightlife world. “He wasn’t ever egocentric and he wasn’t ever caught up in this microcosm of South Beach,” says former scene chronicler Tara Solomon. “I think Eric sincerely believes we’re all God’s people and that’s how he treats everyone.”

To Tommy Pooch, however, there is something even more amazing than treating one’s fellow man as a child of God, or creating a nine-year string of successes in a fickle, volatile market—Omores has gotten only four hours of sleep a night for the last 20 years, yet still emerges into each new day remarkably fresh and alert. Typically, he comes home at 5 a.m. and rises at 9. “He’s the only person who gets less sleep than I do,” Pooch says with a certain psychic exhaustion. “And I’ve still never seen him yawn.”

Long before he became mayor of the City of Miami Beach in 1997, Neisen Kasdin had a hand in its transformation from run-down tropical rest home to red-hot international resort destination. Born on the Beach to parents who also played significant roles in the history of Miami Beach, Kasdin began his public service career in 1980 when, fresh out of the University of Florida Law School, he joined the historic preservation movement that would become the salvation of the Art Deco architectural treasure that is South Beach.

“I always believed there would be a renaissance,” says Kasdin, who got elected to the city commission in 1991 and won the mayor’s seat in 1997. He was re-elected in 1999. Throughout the 1980’s, he worked in the historic preservation movement and chaired a campaign to approve a bond issue to revitalize boarded-up and largely abandoned Ocean Drive. “Even then,” he says, “I was very bullish on South Beach. But I don’t think anyone in the early years thought it would grow to the extent it has grown to. We realized we had something special. We just didn’t realize how special it was.”

Kasdin notes that the city fathers of that era, along with aggressive real estate developers, wanted to bulldoze the dilapidated Art Deco buildings and build a new, glistening resort. “A new, glistening and failed resort,” Kasdin says with a laugh over coffee at the Raleigh Hotel, whose renovation in 1990 was another critical moment in the long South Beach renaissance. “You had to be there to understand how out of touch the civic and business and political leadership of the community was at that time. When you mentioned preservation, they said, ‘What are you talking about?’ They didn’t know about Art deco and they didn’t see its potential. They thought we were nuts.”

Instead of preserving and restoring South Beach’s unique architectural heritage, the developers and their political allies wanted to erect high-rise towers, bring in casino gambling and open fabled pedestrian mall Lincoln Road to vehicular traffic. Today, of course, it is hard to believe anyone could have been so misguided. Back then, however, the threat of the bulldozer was a daily menace to Kasdin and his fellow preservationists.

“Except for the fact that there was a depressed real estate market in the early ’80’s and we also had a vigorous preservation advocacy movement,” Kasdin says today, “these wonderful buildings wouldn’t be sitting here and we wouldn’t be sitting here either.”

In the mid-1980’s, Kasdin explains, the fashion-photo industry discovered South Beach for its magical winter light and warm climate. A seasonal population of models followed, and then Europeans drawn by the emerging Bohemian trendiness. “The rest is history,” Kasdin says with a proud smile.

Today, Kasdin points out, Miami Beach is much more than just another hot tourist destination. A big part of the reason why it attracts eight million visitors a year — 80% of the tourists who come to Miami-Dade County — is that it is more than a palm-lined beach resort. It is also a world-class cultural arts center and a hub for media, entertainment and Internet companies. “One of my biggest surprises,” Kasdin says, “has been the development of Miami Beach as a business and media center. We have television companies, record labels, Internet ventures. We’ve become the media hub of the Americas.”

Kasdin says he believes one important reason why companies are setting up shop in Miami Beach is because of its high quality of life — a small residential community with historic neighborhoods and a culturally diverse population brought together in the two realms that truly define Miami Beach — the cultural arts and world-renowned nightlife.

“The nightlife industry has always been part of the character of Miami Beach,” says Kasdin, who literally grew up in the club business. His father, who came to Miami Beach in 1939 from West Virginia by way of New York, owned South Florida’s largest drug store chain and had interests in three nightclubs including Club Mocambo and Ciro’s. His mother, who arrived in 1944, worked for the father of TV news icon Barbara Walters booking acts into the legendary Latin Quarter.

Given his family history, Kasdin, who has been married for 18 years and has two teenaged sons, takes issue with those who say he and the city administration are anti-nightlife. In fact, the mayor says, he strongly supports a vibrant, upscale nightlife industry. “But I think you have some spin-masters who are trying to say the city is anti-nightlife because in the vicissitudes of the club business, these places go up and down. If they’re not doing well, they like to blame the city and say it’s anti-nightlife.”

By the same token, not every citizen agrees with the preferential treatment the city gives the cultural arts, including organizations such as Miami City Ballet and New World Symphony. Yet Kasdin says he is passionately committed to the cultural arts as a foundational element in the Miami Beach lifestyle. In that spirit, he helped launch the publicly-funded Miami Beach Cultural Arts Council two years ago. “We’re one of the few cities in this country that has not only a Cultural Arts Council, but an endowment for the arts. We spend a lot of money on the arts in this city and it is well worth it for the benefits we receive.”

Among the few things that truly frustrate Kasdin, he says, are chronic traffic and parking problems and what he and others see as a business-unfriendly city bureaucracy.

But to a certain extent, he admits, residents and visitors must accept that such realities are part of big-time success as a world destination. “We are going to have to adjust to the lifestyle of a busy urban center,” Kasdin says. “We are not going to have empty streets and free-flowing traffic. In the long run, people are going to have to get used to things like walking or Rollerblading, which they are already doing.”

By the same token, he says, business owners must understand that although the city administration is working hard to streamline the process for things such as building permits, the sheer volume of new development in Miami Beach is overwhelming.

To help resolve parking and traffic problems, Kasdin has proposed to Miami-Dade County a trolley system for carrying people back and forth across Biscayne Bay.

When asked about his legacy, Kasdin, who has not decided whether to run for a third term as mayor next November, says: “The city is headed in the right direction. We have a strong respect for our historic architecture. We’ve become a wonderful cultural arts community. We’ve become a world-class media center. We are a place that cherishes diversity instead of just tolerating it. Everyone in this city feels comfortable, regardless of their background. The growth and evolution of Miami Beach have been something I’ve been able to participate in. The overall evolution of the city is the thing I’m proudest of, because I had a hand in it for 20 years.”

Now, three years later, it is James Davis-as-Elaine Lancaster that conjures the same scene-transforming creative magic that Gianni Versace left as his legacy for South Beach. Moreover, it is a testament to Davis’s extraordinary will and determination that he did not flee from his newly adopted home when his idol was brutally murdered on the steps of his palazzo.

Instead, Davis channeled his energy into perfecting a character he had begun creating in Dallas—a “10-foot tall blonde with over-the-top glamour.” On his first night in South Beach, he went to the now defunct gay club Warsaw. “I started working the next week, hosting the Wednesday night amateur strip contest, and I’ve been working ever since,” he says. His second job was the legendary Fat Black Pussycat at Liquid. After that, stardom quickly ensued.

Although he has known haute couture designer and nightlife impresario Gerry Kelly since he arrived here, Davis began collaborating with Kelly only last year at Bar Room. “That’s where Elaine blossomed,” says Davis, who earned a degree in American history from the University of Kansas and owned a high-end home furnishings and gift store in Highland Park, Texas before pursuing his dreams in South Beach. When Kelly became the marketing partner in Level nightclub last November, he brought Elaine Lancaster in as resident house diva. Very quickly, the blonde goddess with “big hair and little dresses,” as Davis says, became a local legend. Today, Davis has an exclusivity agreement with Level among major South Beach clubs. He works there every Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and often works a fourth night. In addition, he performs at special events—locally, nationally and internationally.

With focus and determination, Davis has forged a unique, powerful celebrity for himself and a six-figure income that comes from being a star on South Beach and traveling the world with celebrities such as Dennis Rodman and Elton John. He has appeared on the TV sitcom “Wings” and was featured in an HBO special called “Drag Time.” He had a role in the Versace murder movie, and later this year will appear with Richard Dreyfuss and Burt Reynolds in a new film entitled “The Crew.”

And, he says repeatedly, like his superstar friends, he is merely an entertainer; Elaine Lancaster is a character he creates, not some kind of real-life sexual freak or alter ego. “I’m not Elaine,” says the soft-spoken Davis, who has never shed his melodic Texas drawl. “Elaine is a character I create.” He tries to explain her nature. “Elaine Lancaster is the illegitimate daughter of Burt Lancaster and Lana Turner.” What does that mean? “The strength and social awareness of Burt Lancaster and the social graces, elegance and beauty of Lana Turner.” But, he adds, there is more to the enigma of Elaine than such a whimsical character analysis. “Elaine is a very elegant, very beautiful, very witty woman,” says Davis. “But at the same time, she can swig back beers with the best of them and get down on any level.”

Most surprising, perhaps, is the fact that, for James Davis, dressing as a woman isn’t a sexual experience. In fact, Davis sees no real connection between his gay sexual orientation and his chosen career as a female impersonator. “I’m an entertainer,” he says proudly. “I’ve always known my whole life that I was going to be an entertainer, but I didn’t know the vehicle was going to be drag.”

Davis is quick to point out precisely what drag is about and to distinguish it clearly from other lifestyles that involve some sort of gender bending. “Drag goes back to the beginning of time,” says Davis. “You can see it from the Asian Kabuki theatre days. The term ‘drag’ comes from Elizabethan times, when drag stood for dressed as girl. Opera had its diva and the theatre had its drag queen.”

Davis says he views what he does as a sincere tribute to women, not making fun of them. “It’s sort of taken from where women leave off today,” he says, “because they really don’t dress up that much. They don’t wear hardly any make-up. So, I just sort of personify my interpretation of what the strong women in my past have been and always will be.”

He hastens to point out that drag is different from other activities usually associated with sexual orientation. “People who dress in women’s clothing for sexual gratification are cross-dressers,” Davis explains. “Then there are pre-op transsexuals who walk around with implants and live their daily lives as women. Those I don’t consider to be drag queens. That’s not an illusion. That’s reality. And then there are actors, or drag queens, and that’s what I am.”

On South Beach, where the drag queen has been a sort of cultural icon ever since the destination began its renaissance in the late 1980’s, Elaine Lancaster has become the queen-bitch diva without peer. “There’s no one who can hold a candle to what I do,” Davis says defiantly after describing the obstacles that littered his path to the top. “That’s why I get paid more than anybody else in this town, probably all of them combined. There’s not a drag queen in this town who does it with the professionalism and seriousness I do it with.”

Without proper context, such comments might sound brash or egotistical. But Davis provides the context that helps explain his quest to be the Michael Jordan of female impersonators. “The drag world is a sport and it’s a very competitive sport,” says Davis. “When other people see you’re progressing at a certain rate and surpassing them, they put up roadblocks and obstacles to prevent you from getting big.”

Such roadblocks can sometimes take the form of outright physical aggression. “About a month ago,” Davis says, “I was standing at the bar with some friends when out of the blue this guy, a friend of another drag queen, walked up and hit me in the face with a closed fist.” Fortunately, Davis remembered the lessons he had learned growing up with two older brothers who would become professional football players. “I hit the guy on the head with my cocktail glass.”

On another occasion, Davis, dressed as Elaine, actually punched out an overly aggressive, drunken would-be challenger. “It’s not something I’m proud of,” Davis says. “But if you allow somebody to challenge you one time, the word gets out?’she’s an easy target, fuck with her.’ Now, I think people know I’m not to be fucked with. I’m six-foot, two-inches tall. I’m a big man and I know how to fight.” In Elaine’s world, it all comes with the turf. “A friend of mine once said ‘don’t put on the wig unless you can fight in it,'” Davis says with a laugh.

But, he says, he is more interested in liberating others from stereotypes than fighting it out in a bar. “When people from Omaha or somewhere like that see me, I hope they go away with a sense of freedom, experiencing a form of self-expression that’s unconventional and saying that’s okay, ” Davis says. “I think what I do frees people up to be more who they are.” As an example, he cites the CEO of a major U.S. company he was introduced to at a special corporate event he was hosting at Level. When Elaine first greeted the CEO, the gentleman leaned forward and whispered: “I’m wearing panty hose under this suit.”

Now that Davis has established himself as both South Beach’s premier drag queen and someone not to be trifled with, he says he has even loftier ambitions. “I’d like to write a book,” he says. “I’ve had a very, very interesting life, both as a man and as a character I created.” Davis will also mount a one-woman show as Elaine later this fall at a venue to be announced. This year, Elaine Lancaster is serving as national spokesperson for Stolichnaya vodka for alternative markets.
In the long run, however, Davis sees himself out of women’s clothing and off South Beach. He says he wants to live on a ranch in Montana or Colorado and build an entertainment career that reaches beyond the world of drag. “This is just a stepping stone for me,” he says.

Superstardom appears to be just around the corner for Elaine Lancaster. Says friend Dennis Rodman, “She will get everything she wants and a hell-of-a-lot more…trust me on that.” But Elaine’s ever-increasing fame does present James Davis with a problem. He has seen how fame has affected the lives of friends such as Rodman and Madonna. “They can’t get through a bite of food in a restaurant without someone coming up and asking for their autograph. I wouldn’t want to live like that.” Davis adds, “I don’t want to have people bother me when I’m not in drag though?I tell them I’m on vacation.” Consequently, Davis guards his privacy in public and prefers to not be recognized as the man who creates the fabulous Elaine Lancaster.

Says James Davis with a smile, “I hope people don’t know I’m that person when they see me on the street?or else my drag wouldn’t be very good, would it?”

Miss Elaine now has her own line of cosmetics at Elaine Lancaster Cosmetics