Preservation board to decide on historic designation of the Miami Herald building

The city of Miami’s historic preservation office has compiled a lengthy, detailed report that substantially bolsters the case for designation of The Miami Herald’s “monumental’’ bayfront building as a protected landmark based on both its architectural merits and its historic significance.

Somewhat unusually, the 40-page report by city preservation officer Megan McLaughlin, which is supplemented by 30 pages of bibliography, plans and photographs, carries no explicit recommendation to the city’s preservation board, which is scheduled to decide the matter on Monday.

But her analysis gathers extensive evidence that the building’s history, the influential executives and editors associated with it, and its fusion of Mid-Century Modern and tropical Miami Modern (MiMo) design meet several of the legal criteria for designation set out in the city’s preservation ordinance and federal guidelines. A building has to meet just one of eight criteria to merit designation.

A spokeswoman for the city’s historic preservation office said there is no obligation to make a recommendation and the city’s preservation board didn’t ask for one.

Supporters of designation, including officials at Dade Heritage Trust, the preservation group that has received sometimes withering criticism from business and civic leaders for requesting designation, said they felt vindicated by the report, even as they concede that persuading a board majority to support it remains an uphill battle.

“It’s important that an objective expert is saying basically the same thing we’ve been saying, particularly in an environment where there is so much pressure,’’ said DHT chief executive Becky Roper Matkov. “It’s very hard to refute. When you look at the building’s architecture and history, it’s so blatantly historic, what else can you say?’’

The report also rebuts key pieces of criticism of the designation effort leveled by opponents of designation, including architects and a prominent local preservation historian hired by Genting, the Malaysian casino operator that purchased the Herald property last year for $236 million with plans to build a massive destination resort on its 10 acres. The newspaper remains in the building rent-free until April, when it will move to suburban Doral.

Citing federal rules, McLaughlin concluded that the building dates to its construction in 1960 and 1961, and not to its formal dedication in 1963. That’s significant because it makes the building legally older than 50 years. Buildings newer than that must be “exceptionally significant’’ to merit designation under city regulations. Opponents of designation have claimed the building does not qualify because it’s several months short of 50 years if dated from its ’63 opening.

The property also has a “minimal’’ baywalk at the rear but there is room to expand it, the report indicates. The building is considerably set back from the edge of Biscayne Bay, between 68 feet at the widest point and 23 feet at its narrowest, the report says. That’s comparable to what many new buildings provide, thanks in part to variances granted by the city, and could blunt criticism that the Herald building “blocks’’ public access to the bay.

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How They Pulled Off 'The Impossible'

The true story of the devastating 2004 tsunami that consumed the coast of Phuket, Thailand -- and how one family survived it -- is reenacted by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor in The Impossible. Watch the video to go behind the scenes...

Video: Tsunami Survivor Petra Nemcova Reacts to Latest Disaster in Japan

In theaters December 21, The Impossible finds Naomi as Maria and Ewan as her husband Henry, who are enjoying their winter vacation in Thailand with their three sons. On the day after Christmas, their relaxing holiday in paradise becomes an exercise in terror and survival when their beachside hotel is pummeled by an extraordinary, unexpected tsunami.

Video: Watch the Trailer for 'The Impossible'

The Impossible tracks just what happens when this close family and tens of thousands of strangers must come together to grapple with the mayhem and aftermath of one of the worst natural catastrophes of our time.

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Speeding SUV slams into Jeep, which then runs over family of four in Brooklyn

Benny J. Stumbo

This jeep flipped over and hit a family of four during a terrible accident in Brooklyn sparked by a speeding SUV.

An out-of-control SUV driver blew a stop sign and caused a domino effect of destruction — hitting a jeep that flipped over and struck a group of pedestrians in Brooklyn this afternoon, witnesses and authorities said.

Horrified onlookers watched as Jeep hit a family of four standing on a sidewalk, leaving one member clinging to life, witnesses and authorities said.

At least four others were injured in the massive accident.

“My mother and I heard screaming and a huge explosion coming from [the street.] I immediately thought my brother could be out there,” said Diana Babbo, 18.

“I ran up the street and saw that a Jeep was flipped over. An entire family was pinned between the jeep and a parked car on the street, she said.

“A lady was completely dead or passed out. It was horrifying. An infant and two other people were under the car. It was so terrible. I’m trembling thinking about it.”

Babbo bawled as they pulled the car off the woman, she said.

“She was turning blue,” the teen recalled.

“The guy driving the Jeep had his head cracked open. He was walking towards the police after they cut him out of his car.”

The man passed out on the street, she said.

“I pray to god everybody is okay. I can’t get their faces out of my head.”

Other residents like Mohammed Umair, 17, said accidents have happened at this location many times before.

“This cross street is a death trap,” he said.

“A car smashed into a house. This isn’t going to stop until there are more lights and signs put up. More people are going to die if something isn’t done.”

cgiove@nypost.com

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Events showcase Miami’s growth as tech center

One by one, representatives from six startup companies walked onto the wooden stage and presented their products or services to a full house of about 200 investors, mentors, and other supporters Thursday at Incubate Miami’s DemoDay in the loft-like Grand Central in downtown Miami. With a large screen behind them projecting their graphs and charts, they set out to persuade the funders in the room to part with some of their green and support the tech community.

Just 24 hours later, from an elaborate “dojo stage,” a drummer warmed up the crowd of several hundred before a “Council of Elders” entered the ring to share wisdom as the all-day free event opened. Called TekFight, part education, part inspiration, and part entertainment, the tournament-style program challenged entrepreneurs to earn points to “belt up” throughout the day to meet with the “masters” of the tech community.

The two events, which kicked off Innovate MIA week, couldn’t be more different. But in their own ways, like a one-two punch, they exuded the spirit and energy growing in the startup community.

One of the goals of the TekFight event was to introduce young entrepreneurs and students to the tech community, because not everyone has found it yet and it’s hard to know where to start, said Saif Ishoof, the executive director of City Year Miami who co-founded TekFight as a personal project. And throughout the event, he and co-founder Jose Antonio Hernandez-Solaun, as well as Binsen J. Gonzalez and Jeff Goudie, wanted to find creative, engaging ways to offer participants access to some of the community’s most successful leaders.

That would include Alberto Dosal, chairman of CompuQuip Technologies; Albert Santalo, founder and CEO of CareCloud; Jorge Plasencia, chairman and CEO of Republica; Jaret Davis, co-managing shareholder of Greenberg Traurig; and more than two dozen other business and community leaders who shared their war stories and offered advice. Throughout the day, the event was live-streamed on the Web, a TekFight app created by local entrepreneur and UM student Tyler McIntyre kept everyone involved in the tournament and tweets were flying — with #TekFight trending No. 1 in the Miami area for parts of the day. “Next time Art Basel will know not to try to compete with TekFight,” Ishoof quipped.

‘Miami is a hotbed’

After a pair of Chinese dragons danced through the audience, Andre J. Gudger, director for the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs, entered the ring. “I’ve never experienced an event like this,” Gudger remarked. “Miami is a hotbed for technology but nobody knew it.”

Gudger shared humorous stories and practical advice on ways to get technology ideas heard at the highest levels of the federal government. “Every federal agency has a director over small business — find out who they are,” he said. He has had plenty of experience in the private sector: Gudger, who wrote his first computer program on his neighbor’s computer at the age of 12, took one of his former companies from one to 1,300 employees.

There were several rounds that pitted an entrepreneur against an investor, such as Richard Grundy, of the tech startup Flomio, vs. Jonathan Kislak, of Antares Capital, who asked Grundy, “why should I give you money?”

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South Florida summit message: Climate change is here

South Florida took the threat seriously before most everybody else, with four counties reaching a landmark compact in 2009 to work together to start addressing the risks of global warming.

But four years and one “super storm” named Sandy later, the risks to Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties — as well as much of coastal Florida — seem only bigger, scarier and no longer quite so far down the road.

An eye-opening example: Fort Lauderdale’s famous “strip,” where waves from Sandy, followed by routine high tides and heavy seas three weeks later, chewed away beach, seawall, sidewalk and roadbed, leaving a four-block-long swath of State Road A1A whittled from four lanes to two.

During a two-day regional climate change summit that ended Friday in Jupiter, political leaders and climate experts stressed two messages: One, South Florida faces a long, immensely costly war to protect its heavily developed coast and economy from the rising sea and increasingly destructive flooding from hurricanes like Sandy. Two, the “super storm” underlined why the region should quickly ramp up “adaptation” efforts and spending to reduce its exposure — from restoring beach dunes to building bigger sea walls to elevating roads and homes and maybe even moving them from the most vulnerable areas.

“Planning is nice, but now it’s all about implementation,’’ said Susanne Torriente, an assistant city manager in Fort Lauderdale who helped craft a wide-ranging climate-change action plan approved by Broward and Monroe counties in the past few months. County commissions in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach are expected to consider the plans by early next year.

Fort Lauderdale, Torriente said, is working with Broward County and state transportation experts on shoring up its heavily eroded strip. Repairs will easily run into the tens of millions of dollars and include elevating some of the iconic strip or building beach dunes, which some residents have long resisted because it spoils the view from AIA.

“Adaptation is not something we’re talking about in textbooks any more. It’s happening right in our backyard,” she said. “People like to see the water, but let’s be realistic.”

Though Sandy’s worst impacts were in the Northeast — where the storm killed more than 100 people, flooded New York City subways, swamped New Jersey coastal — it also caused extensive erosion along much of the South Florida coast.

While it remains uncertain what if any impact climate change had on Sandy, the devastating storm, which caused tens of billions of dollars in damage, gave both the public and political leaders across the country a glimpse of potential future scenarios. It also has injected new urgency in efforts in South Florida, many of the elected officials, planners, scientists, engineers and other experts at the annual regional summit agreed.

John Englander, an oceanographer who this year published a book called High Tide on Main Street, called Sandy a wake-up call for many coastal communities like Fort Lauderdale.

“People are starting to get increasing awareness to their vulnerability from storm surge,’’ he said. “They just can’t ignore the beach and walk away from billions of dollars worth of hotels.’’

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The Era of Twitter Without Instagram Has Now Begun

We know everyone is a little bummed about all those filtered photos disappearing from your Twitter streams this weekend, but let’s not get all worked up about it: They are disappearing, and there is no scandal.

RELATED: Why You Can’t See Instagram Photos on Twitter Anymore

TechCrunch’s  Drew Olanoff got a little too excited on Friday and thought a single in-stream photo meant that Instagram was allowing its Twitter cards back on Twitter and thought the two services were planning a sudden reunion. You may have seen some, too, but a Facebook spokesperson assured users these Instagram photos on Twitter were the last holdouts in the switchover. ”What you are seeing now may be some sort of regression depending on the mobile client, but we’re checking in with the engineers,” read Facebook’s statement, via Talking Points Memo’s Carl Franzen.

RELATED: How to Get Over the Twitter-Instagram War on Photos

Which means the end of this particular social-media marriage is upon us. Despite the immediate user backlash, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom has made it pretty clear that the photo-sharing app doesn’t plan on making nice with Twitter. In case you hadn’t accepted the reality of Silicon Valley competition the first time around, this photo-friendly weekend might be the time to check out our handy three-step guide to getting over it. 

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Lady Antebellum Singer Hillary Scott is Pregnant

Newlyweds Hillary Scott and Chris Tyrell of Lady Antebellum have announced that they are expecting their first child together.

RELATED: Lady Antebellum's Lady Talks Weekend Wedding

"Chris & I are excited to announce that our Christmas gift has arrived a little early this year! We are having a BABY!" Scott tweeted on Friday. "We feel so blessed!!!"

Newborns seem to be a new trend in country music, as this news follows the birth of Sugarland singer Jennifer Nettles' son Magnus Hamilton on Thursday.

Scott and Tyrell wed January 7 after getting engaged on Independence Day in 2011. On Monday Lady Antebellum announced the launching of their new charity, LadyAID. The mission of the organization is to aid children's hospitals.

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Bonanno mob underboss gets 2 years in racketeering case

The underboss of the Bonanno crime family was sentenced to two years in prison today on racketeering extortion charges after he was caught on tape by the ex-husband of a “Mob Wives” star.

Nicholas “Nicky Mouth” Santora, 70, the crime family’s reputed second-in-command, must also serve three years probation and forfeit $5,000 - although he says he doesn't have the cash.

Part of his sentence — four months — is a penalty for spending time with wiseguys and committing the extortion while on probation for an earlier mob conviction.

Brooklyn federal Judge Carol Amon noted that Santora was present at a sit-down discuss of an overdue loan and "played a critical role" in the collection negotiations.

Robert Miller

Nicholas 'Nicky Mouth' Santora after his arrest in January.

Santora already had pleaded guilty to taking part in the Mafia shakedown from 2006 to 2008 to recoup a debt.

“I was trying to collect the money — that’s all,” Santora said at an earlier hearing.

His arrest last year came after Hector “Junior” Pagan, a Bonanno associate and the ex-husband of “Mob Wives” star Renee Graziano, recorded more than 70 conversations with Santora that centered on talk about Mafia business, officials say.

Pagan - who was featured on the VH1 reality show - left the mob to become a DEA informant.

mmaddux@nypost.com

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Pilots approve new contract

DALLAS --
Pilots at American Airlines approved a new labor contract, which could clear the way for consideration of a merger with US Airways.

The pilots’ union announced Friday that 74 percent of its members voted to ratify the contract. Pilots rejected a similar offer in August, but union leaders lobbied hard for passage the second time around.

Under the contract, pilots will get pay raises and own 13.5 percent of American Airlines’ parent AMR Corp. after it emerges from bankruptcy protection.

Union officials and analysts say the vote gives AMR creditors certainty about the company’s labor costs, making it easier for them to weigh which gives them more money — American on its own, or getting bigger through a merger with US Airways.

“This contract represents a bridge to a merger with US Airways,” said union spokesman Dennis Tajer. He said the vote “should not in any way be viewed as support for the American stand-alone plan or for this current management team.”

American also hailed the vote as a key step in its turnaround after years of heavy losses.

The pilots’ vote “gives us the certainty we need for American to successfully restructure,” said Denise Lynn, American’s senior vice president of people, in a statement. She added that “the modernization of our company is well under way, and we remain focused on emerging as a competitive, world-class airline.”

American employs 9,000 workers at its Miami International Airport hub.

“The members of the unions and other employees are relieved this part of the process is over,” Sidney Jimenez, president of Transport Workers Union 568, said in an email to The Miami Herald, “but now we have to adjust, take a deep breath and once again look towards the challenges ahead. Most prominent is the reported merger between American and US Airways which hold its own set of obstacle we must now contend with and overcome.

“It seems we’re in the middle rounds of a heavyweight fight and we haven’t been knocked out despite all the blows. We’re getting our wind back and preparing for the second half of the bout. Don’t count us out yet.”

AMR and American filed for bankruptcy protection in November 2011. With the pilots’ deal in hand, the company could exit Chapter 11 early next year, a faster reorganization than those in the last decade at United Airlines and Delta Air Lines.

Friday’s vote filled in the last unknown piece in AMR’s labor-cost puzzle. The company’s creditors “very much wanted a contract because they want some visibility on what the cost structure will be,” said Ray Neidl, an airline analyst for Maxim Group PLC.

US Airways has proposed a merger that would give AMR creditors 70 percent of the combined company, which would be run by US Airways Group Inc. CEO Doug Parker, according to a person familiar with the discussions and who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are private.

There have been reports that AMR might seek up to 80 percent for its creditors, which could be unacceptable to US Airways shareholders, the person said. Last month, a committee of bondholders told the pilots’ union they would only support an independent American if AMR had a new board that would pick managers to run the airline.

The airlines have exchanged confidential financial information and talked about a potential merger for several weeks, although a deal is not certain.

American has about 7,500 active pilots plus a few hundred others on furlough. The union said the vote to ratify the contract was 5,490 to 1,951.

The six-year contract will raise pilots’ pay by 4 percent on signing and 2 percent per year after that, with an adjustment in the third year to bring pay in line with that at other big airlines. The union will get 13.5 percent of the stock in the new AMR when it emerges from bankruptcy, which analysts estimate would amount to at least $100,000 per pilot.

In exchange, pilots will fly more hours and American will get more flexibility to outsource flying to other airlines.

American, which has already frozen pension plans and made other changes in benefits and work rules, is trying to use the bankruptcy process to cut annual labor costs by 17 percent or about $1 billion.

In recent months flight attendants and ground workers have ratified separate contracts that reduced benefits and outsourced thousands of jobs. American expects to cut about 10,000 jobs, with 3,000 layoffs and the rest coming from early retirements and attrition.

Miami Herald staff writer Hannah Sampson contributed to this report.

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A year away: Miami Art Museum’s new name, site, building on Biscayne Bay

By this time next year, if all goes according to a very immodest plan, the modern-art museum that bears Miami’s name will metamorphose into something almost entirely new.

The institution soon to be formerly known as the Miami Art Museum will have a conspicuous new location, at the downtown edge of Biscayne Bay; a striking new building designed by the Swiss “starchitecture” firm of Herzog & de Meuron; and a new, if not uncontroversial, name and less-than-sonorous acronym.

When it opens in time for Art Basel/Miami Beach in 2013, it will be as the Perez Art Museum Miami, or PAMM, after the Related Group’s Jorge Perez, a prominent Miami developer who made a contribution of cash and art valued at $35 million.

The fresh start, museum backers and administrators say, will propel PAMM toward the status that has long eluded the institution, launched in 1984 as a public exhibition hall with no collection: Art-world player. Agent of transformation.

“We have huge ambition for this institution,’’ said MAM director Thom Collins. “We have outsized ambition. In terms of scope and exhibitions and new commissions, it’s like going zero to 100, not zero to 60.’’

The new building, the product of an infusion of $100 million in public money and a private obligation to raise $120 million more in contributions, is rising at the foot of the MacArthur Causeway. The site occupies several acres of 29-acre Bicentennial Park, a desolate space that’s also slated for an eventual makeover as Museum Park.

Next to PAMM’s home, and about a year behind it in construction, will be a new cutting-edge science museum. The two buildings will flank a lushly planted new public plaza designed by James Corner Field Operations, landscape architects for New York’s High Line, the elevated rail running along the west side of Manhattan that was famously converted into a park.

For an art museum, Herzog & de Meuron’s building has an unusual configuration, designed to provide considerable exhibition flexibility and take maximum advantage of the waterfront location. It’s an arrangement of stacked, interconnected concrete boxes containing dramatically expansive exhibition and performance spaces that were made possible by a structural system that all but dispenses with interior columns.

“It really gives us much more space and makes it possible for us to create unusual juxtapositions,’’ Collins said. “We can do one gigantic thing or we can do multiple things of different character.’’

Large, hurricane-resistant windows will afford views of bay and skyline, and a grand staircase will lead down to a new baywalk. An open terrace wraps around the building and will be shaded by a massive, overhanging lattice-like canopy just now being installed. The landscape plan looks like a surreal dream out of a J.G. Ballard novel: Vines will hang from the canopy and trees will grow through the terrace, as if a subtropical jungle were about to engulf the building.

Like so many recent museum commissions, the building was conceived in part as a revitalization scheme. Forming a cultural nexus with the nearby Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, the museum should bring new life to the once-forlorn north end of downtown Miami, civic and government leaders say.

But museum backers’ hopes extend well beyond that. They say they want PAMM to function as cultural rocket fuel for the city and its maturing arts community, providing greater local visibility for contemporary art and helping boost Miami artists to the world stage. They plan to do so by bringing the best of the art world to show at PAMM, but also to work here and mix it up with the locals.

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