The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 6

6A Tit '5 ci 3-3 3 THE MIAMI HERALD SOUTH BEACH TRAGEDY AT SEA District's rebirth celebrated Families wait for answers a HIV a I MIAMI MtSAlD fW OT A FIGHTER: Barbara Capitman left who ed in 1990 is shown being escorted off the terrace of The Senator hotel above in 1988 as she tried to block its demolition The build'ng eventually was torn down p-- a- I BOAT FR0N1A people my heart sank I didn't know" Desir said "He told me only five people were going on the boat" Now Desir can only watch wait and worry The US Coast Guard ended its search tor survivors Thursday night The identities of the dead and the survivors of the ill-fated overseas smuggling trip were not known Thursday All the victims are believed to be Haitian migrants who left on an overcrowded vessel from Bimini The Coast Guard spent Thursday combing the waters off Brevard County in search of more survivors But after roaming the waters off more than 100 miles of Florida coastline from Boynton Beach northward no other bodies had been found Eleven survivors are being detained on a Coast Guard cutter Three others are hospitalized in Palm Beach County Immigration authorities are holding the remaining two survivors they likely will be returned to Haiti A handful of families appeared at the Palm Beach County medical examiner's office Wednesday trying to determine whether their loved ones were among the dead With autopsies completed officials had photographs of the victims so family members could positively identify their relatives "We can see they're physically upset and they're very understanding this is taking time" said Operations Manager Tony Mead adding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were there to speak with families Adding to the anxiety: A hot line number given by the Coast Guard had a recording in English and Spanish and appeared to be intended for calls about Cuban migrants As hope for survivors dimmed anguish set in among Haitians families "I don't know anything" Desir told The Miami Herald from her home in the Bahamas where she had spent the past day calling family and friends in South Florida asking for news about daughters Judith and Judi Desir She said desperation and hopelessness in Haiti left her little choice but to find a way to get her girls out "They could not go to school I could not help them They said "Mommy see if you can do something for us' So she said she paid someone to get the girls from Haiti and smuggle them to Miami where she has family They had spent a month in the Bahamas waiting to complete the journey which began on Sunday night In North Miami Ermanie Lubin is praying that her 2S-year-old nephew was not aboard the doomed boat Lubin said she was speaking with a niece in the Bahamas on Wednesday when she heard the news "She told me Gibson went to Miami in a boat" she said sitting in her living room and clutching her cellphone "We've called family He's not in the Bahamas He's not in Haiti" Lubin married with a 4-year-old son had lived in Miami and Orlando for 10 years when he was deported to Haiti in 2007 after being denied political asylum His wife family members say is a US citizen "The last time I spoke to him he said 'Auntie I can't take it anymore I just want to die' she recalled Lubin lived in Port-de-Paix a city in northwest Haiti hammered by several storms last summed About three months ago he went to the Bahamas where he had family including an older sister On Monday he spoke to his wife He sounded cryptic telling her that he was on a small island in the Bahamas and couldn't really talk He had also called an aunt telling her that he planned to take a boat to the United States She warned him against making the voyage Now she and others fear he may have ignored them Ermanie Lubin blames former President George Bush and US policy for the sad state of affairs in Haiti She blames Bush for the 2004 departure of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide amid a bloody coup and for US immigration policy that keeps Haitians out Nearly 1400 Haitians have been apprehended at sea since last October up from 972 during the same seven-month period a year ago "It's not good for the country when Haitians keep dying at sea like this leaving behind five six children" Lubin said On Thursday Haiti and and immigration advocates used the tragedy to press for Temporary Protected Status for an estimated 30000 Haitians living in the United States The status would "allow undocumented Haitians to temporarily remain here with a work permit The Obama administration is reviewing the possibility of granting TPS to Haitians "This tragedy is a sad reminder of the hopelessness" and desperation facing the Haitian people" said Rep Alcee Hastings D-Miramar in a statement "Until the United States takes decisive action Haitians will continue to risk their lives" Miami Herald staff writer Nadege Charles contributed to this report ing bulldozers" Capitman was also well ahead of her time: Few understood then how buildings barely 50 years old could be historic Today saving mid-century modern buildings and sites the same age today as the Art Deco buildings of the 1930s were in the 1970s has become a prime focus of the preservation movement around the world TRANSFORMATION The vitality of today's Art Deco district preservationists say is a tribute to the perspicacity of Capitman and her lieutenants who included her son Andrew Capitman who did some of the first renovations on Ocean Drive and the late designer Leonard Horowitz who came up with the pastel palette that would characterize the reborn district Where others saw dull peeling beige paint and tacky architecture they saw dazzling design in the spires portholes and ziggurats of the old hotels and just as significantly a congenial human-scaled and nearly intact urban district with an unparallelled jewel of a front porch Ocean Drive "It was very clear it was a one-of-a-kind place in the world this kind of concentration of this sweet style of architecture the scale of the buildings the scale of the neighborhood" Goldman recalled "What would Barbara think of it today? It's not Disney It's not a quaint Savannah But we resisted the pressures of greed Most of the buildings are intact and utilized We wrote the ordinances and put people in power to protect them We put reformers into office "Barbara would have been thrilled" tections for historic buildings for the first time Martin also hired preservationist Ivan Rodriguez who polished the National Register application and helped win the endorsement of state officials over the strenuous opposition of Miami Beach politicians Compiling the application required cataloging all 1200 standing buildings in the proposed district By the time the application got to Washington DC Martin and others recalled Capitman had the deal virtually sealed "Barbara went to the Department of the Interior with her book of photographs and wouldn't leave" said Michael Kinerk a Miami Herald computer systems administrator and then one of Capitman's young lieutenants only half joking It was said current Preservation League Chairman Barry Chase "a long-suffering strange and stub-born-as-hell group of people" And none more so than Capitman who died at 69 in 1990 A widow who found her life's fulfillment in saving old Miami Beach she was only in her 50s when she launched her mission But her frail appearance wispy hair and quavering voice led many to underestimate Capitman That exterior hid a steely tenacity and a genius for generating publicity "She held candlelight vigils to save endangered buildings and though a few were demolished many more were saved and eventually renovated" wrote Miami Herald architecture critic Beth Dunlop in Capitman's obituary "It was an often-acrimonious battle complete with shouting matches protest marches and bodies thrown down before oncom tax credits the listing also began drawing the attention of developers like Goldman who specialized in historically sensitive renovations For at least another decade hard battles remained to be fought A strict ban on demolition would not come until later andseveral signature buildings including the New Yorker and Senator hotels would fall to the wrecking ball Just two years after the the National Register designation preservationists trying to save the New Yorker were met by picketers carrying "Deco Shmeco" and "Down With Deco" signs It was the first 20th century district included in the National Register A GATHERING "This is very much a living community" David Vela southeast regional director for the National Park Service which administers the National Register told a crowd of movement pioneers including Matti Herrera Bower now Miami Beach mayor who gathered to commemorate the anniversary at the rooftop Spire Bar at Goldman's The Hotel on Collins Avenue "This is what historic preservation is all about" Also at the gathering were unsung early combatants like Denis Russ former director of the Miami Beach Development Corp a nonprofit ally of the Preservation League which helped finance some of the earliest renovations and Ernie Martin retired director of economic development for Miami-Dade County In part to support the Preservation League's efforts Martin created a county historic preservation office and persuaded commissioners to approve pro- ART DEC0 FROM 1A Preservation League the group that started it all with speeches models in vintage swimsuits and a public celebration was only the beginning preservationists say But preservationists say the formal birth of the one-square-mile Miami Beach Art Deco District on May 14 1979 set the ragged heart of old South Beach on the path to becoming well South Beach a tourism super-magnet a cash engine of formidable proportions and a shining example of how historic preservation can transform a bedraggled urban district "It gave a sense of recognition to the activists who were trying to make the case mostly to deaf ears" recalled South Beach pioneer Tony Goldman who joined the battle when he first drove down Ocean Drive five years later and almost immediately began snapping up neglected properties "Many people didn't get it and people in power certainly didn't get it and didn't want to get it They thought it was an enemy They thought we were nuts" SETTING THE STAGE Inclusion on the National Register which honors the country's most significant places did not by itself safeguard the district's buildings But preservationists say it strengthened their political hand and set the stage for everything that came after the worldwide recognition Miami Vice the curious visitors the explosion in renovations new protection ordinances and eventually election to City Hall of movement pioneers Because it qualified old Deco buildings for federal FROM THE FRONT PAGE Report criticizes Crew's pet project In the zone Here are the 39 schools that made up the School Improvement Zone: Elementaries: Bunche Park Edison Park Florida City Holmes Henry MackWest Little River Lakeview Laura Saunders Leisure City Little River Martin Luther King Jr Morningside Myrtle Grove Norland Opa-locka Paul Dunbar Phillis Wheatley Santa Clara Shadowlawn Thena Crowder Toussaint L'Ouverture Middle schools: Allapattah Brownsville Campbell Drive Charles Drew Edison Horace Mann Jose de Diego Madison Norland Parkway Westview Senior high schools: Booker Washington Central Edison Hialeah-Miami Lakes Homestead Jackson Norland Northwestern But by the close of the 2007-08 school year the final year of the program none of the eight senior high schools had earned above a Four earned Fs While some of the elementary schools and K-8 centers made improvement the gains were inconsistent After its three-year run board members decided not to continue the program COMPARING SCHOOLS The school district released its final analysis of the program this week It compared the schools within the School Improvement Zone to a group of 39 other schools within Miami-Dade County The schools selected for the control group had similar percentages of black students students learning English and students eligible for free or reduced price lunches an indicator of poverty The analysis looked at each group's performance on state exams than anything else" Perez said "They used massive amounts of money without testing or piloting it first" Board member Agusti'n Barrera disagreed "It was a well-thought-out plan that unfortunately did not bear the fruits we all thought it would" he said He added: "The mistake would have been not trying the zone because then we would have failed the students by not trying something new" When Crew arrived in Miami in 2004 he made the School Improvement Zone the centerpiece of his administration The zone helped Crew's administration garner numerous awards: In 2008 the zone was named one of the top innovations in government by Harvard University The results however were less flashy At the time of the launch Crew pledged to eliminate all and schools from within the zone by 2007 ZONE FROM 1A students at other schools They also had a longer school year The zone was former Superintendent Rudy Crew's pet project It was praised in education circles across the country But the investment yielded few results when it came to student performance on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests according to the district analysis And both students and teachers said they were exhausted by the extra hour a day in the classroom and the heavy workload 'INCONSISTENT' "The zone program exhibited at best an inconsistent impact that was limited to the elementary grades" program evaluators wrote Crew who took a $368000 buyout from the School Board in September did not return calls for comment on Thursday On the reading math and science exams the schools in the control group did better than the schools in the School Improvement Zone according to the report Zone students did slightly better on the writing exam The report also noted that the extended school year starting a week early and tacking extra days onto the end was ineffective Many students didn't attend class once summer vacation began at other schools district officials wrote Additionally teachers and principals reported that "proficient students felt stigmatized by the mandatory additional time which was viewed as a punishment rather than an enhancement" District administrators knew of the problem according to the report But their hands were tied by contractual obligations to zone employees School Board member Ana Rivas Logan a vocal oppo- In previous interviews with The Miami Herald Crew disputed claims that the School Improvement Zone was ineffective He said it changed the district's attitude about its lowest performing schools and put the schools in a position to make a dramatic turnaround Crew chose the schools based on past performance on state tests Over its three-year life span the initiative cost more than $100 million Some of the money came from funds earmarked for low-income schools Major costs included educational materials and compensation for the employees who worked the extended school day and year Reaction from the Miami-Dade School Board on Thursday was mixed Board Vice Chairwoman Marta Perez an early critic of the zone called the project a waste of taxpayer money "It was more of a public relations campaign to make the administration look good a1 nent of the School Improvement Zone said the district could learn from the experience "This shows us that throwing money at the problem is not the solution We need to implement programs that have proven results".