Say It Isn't So

From the South Florida Business Journal I read the following:

Jungle Island, a zoological park on Miami's Watson Island, could be replaced by a hotel and other upgrades if a group investors gets a hold of the property.

Aventura-based ESJ Capital Partners and a group led by Bern Levine, who bought the wildlife park back when it was called Parrot Jungle, confirmed with the Miami Herald that a sale is in the works for the 18-acre property. The buyers would take over Jungle Island's lease and its debt.

Yes Parrot Jungle left Pinecrest awhile ago to be repositioned on Watson Island and the experiment hasn't been a flaming success.  I've been to the new Jungle Islaand a few times and the attraction is ok.  Its location isn't a fun place to drive to.  Somebody thought that being near cruise ships, downtown, closer to the beach... would be a real boon.

The owners fought with the City of Pinecrest about expansion.  The result was a new library, community center and soccer field/park.  Too bad that the birds had to go.  It was old Miami, the garden is still there and so are the Banyan Trees.  They might have coexisted but that isn't the way and the current owners have decided to cash out.

Personally, I spent many pleasant Saturdays, jogging early and finishing with a silver bullet or two.  I also liked taking visitors from the North to see the parrots and eat breakfast.  Gone, gone, and gone again. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two Months and Eight Days

Early voting and mail in voting will take place before November 5, 2024. And on a related front I hope people will notice that it does not take four years of partisan snark and sniping for the voting public to make a decision about who the next president will be.  I voted  in the Florida primary for the November Election on August 20, 2024. Locally, the mood of the electorate in Miami has changed.  A few weeks ago I just couldn't imagine a person born in 1942 running for reelection as president or a person with as much baggage as an ex-president running for office, who could legitimately be understood to be running for office as a strategy for not going to prison.  Assuming he would win, he could, stop any prosecutions and if he lost he could further question what democracy is.  And it is no surprise that the former president has started complaining about an election that hasn't happened and claiming that the opposition will have stolen the election if he does n...
Read more

Internet Dust Ups

 A high school classmate shared on FB, something from a 64 year old commercial pilot who had passed a exam to fly on of the latest jets in their fleet of aircraft.  I was also aware of an FAA rule about retirement at age 65 for commercial pilots.    In the U.S.,  there are no  FAA  age limits for pilots except for commercial airline pilots employed by airlines certificated under 14 CFR Part 121 . These airlines cannot employ pilots after they reach the age of 65. However, these pilots may stay on with a Part 121 carrier in some other role, such as flight engineers. I then went on a digression about the retirement of folks in professions like law or accounting.  From my own experience 30 years at a job or working for an employer is a very good time to start serious planning for the next chapter in your life.   And for my efforts at explaining my work history, working with folks who lost their jobs through no fault of their own.  I wa...
Read more

What Is Official These Days?

 I would guess most people would understand what Official means.  Just because a person holds a public office doesn't mean everything he might do is official and everything he might not do is official as well. “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness". from J. Kenneth Galbraith interview. And oh, by the way, moral justification at times isn't much more than a fig leaf, you can bet someone got screwed or got the proverbial get out of jail free card.
Read more