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Coconut Grove Spotlight News and Features About Coconut Grove, Florida

Before I took my first ride in a self-driving Waymo car, I prepared myself for the possibility that I would die in some ...
23/03/2026

Before I took my first ride in a self-driving Waymo car, I prepared myself for the possibility that I would die in some stupid fashion. 

I feared the self-driving car would suddenly become self-aware, decide it hated humans, and careen into an oncoming bus or a nearby cluster of pedestrians. 

I worried it would get stuck on railroad tracks where I would be killed by a speeding Brightline train, or get confused and stall on a causeway (something that has happened in Miami twice before). 
But none of that happened. 

Instead, a white I-Pace Jaguar adorned with cameras and rotating radar and lidar sensors pulled up at a pre-arranged intersection in Coconut Grove earlier this month and drove me home to Miami Beach without harming a soul, stalling, or bumping into a single object. 

Continue reading at the link in bio.

✍️ & 📸 by Erik Bojnansky

With café seating spreading along a public pedestrian-only promenade in Center Grove, a looming redesign is raising ques...
20/03/2026

With café seating spreading along a public pedestrian-only promenade in Center Grove, a looming redesign is raising questions about public access, permits and who decides how the space will be used.

On a typical ArtWalk afternoon, the pedestrian block of Fuller Street filled with painters, musicians and visitors from near and far drifting between easels and artists booths in the heart of Coconut Grove’s commercial district.

But in December, GroveHouseArtists pulled the plug on its recurring showcase of local artists along the one-block promenade, ending a small but lively arts presence on the street.

In a Facebook post, the group said it was “unable to proceed” with its monthly event because of the growing spread of outdoor café seating.

Construction noise rang out last week along both sides of Grand Avenue in the West Grove as a new five-story apartment b...
16/03/2026

Construction noise rang out last week along both sides of Grand Avenue in the West Grove as a new five-story apartment building climbed higher in the sky while a smaller, dilapidated building across the street with 14 post-war apartments came tumbling down.

After years of desolation, there’s a surge of development activity along a three-block stretch of Grand Avenue at the center of a neighborhood battle over affordable housing and the displacement of Black families in the West Grove.

Three community organizations are fighting to preserve a neighborhood that many long-term residents can no longer afford. As part of that effort, the organizations filed a Fair Housing Act complaint against the City of Miami in 2023.

The complaint contends that hundreds of Black residents living on or near Grand Avenue were pushed out of the neighborhood because of unfair and discriminatory land-use and zoning policies put in place by the city.

Those policies incentivized developers to acquire, then demolish or shutter 18 multi-family residential buildings, displacing at least 162 people and hollowing out the neighborhood, in violation of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the complaint contends.

Last week, a demolition crew tore down a two-story apartment building at 3395 Grand Ave. – one of 18 residential properties that formed the basis of the complaint. 

✍️ by Jenny Jacoby and Don Finefrock
📸 by Don Finefrock

Friends and fans of Alan Cohen – the A.C. of A.C.’s Icees – came out on Sunday to celebrate Cohen’s 80th birthday in Ken...
13/03/2026

Friends and fans of Alan Cohen – the A.C. of A.C.’s Icees – came out on Sunday to celebrate Cohen’s 80th birthday in Kennedy Park, where he first parked his food truck more than 40 years ago. As legend has it, Cohen found his calling while relaxing in the park after moving to Miami in 1978. “Some of us were sitting under a tree in Kennedy Park,” he told the Spotlight in 2021, “and I said if I’m going to work again, I want this park to be my office.” He opened A.C. Icee’s a short time later, and the rest is history.   

📸 by .finkelstein

A Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge will decide in the coming weeks whether the long-running “Old Smokey” lawsuit against t...
10/03/2026

A Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge will decide in the coming weeks whether the long-running “Old Smokey” lawsuit against the City of Miami can move forward as a class action — a step that could open the case to tens of thousands of potential plaintiffs.

The decision marks the most significant development in a case that has hovered over Coconut Grove’s historically Black West Grove neighborhood for more than eight years.

“It’s about time the city did something right for these plaintiffs,” said Jason Clark, an attorney working on the case with The Downs Law Group.

The class-certification hearing is scheduled to run over five days between March 11 and March 20. Three plaintiffs are expected to testify, along with seven expert witnesses for the plaintiffs. The city’s attorneys will present their defense during the final two days.

The lawsuit, filed in September 2017, alleges that residents were exposed for decades to toxic substances — including dioxins, arsenic, lead and barium — left behind after the city’s garbage incinerator, known as Old Smokey, shut down in 1970.

✍️ by
📸 by Don Finefrock

For most of its 110-year existence, the house atop Silver Bluff owed its renown to its lofty prominence, perched on an a...
09/03/2026

For most of its 110-year existence, the house atop Silver Bluff owed its renown to its lofty prominence, perched on an ancient outcropping of limestone high above Coconut Grove’s South Bayshore Drive, looking out toward Biscayne Bay.

Designed by German-born architect George Pfeiffer, the two-story structure was more prized for its location and intricate coral rock and hard wood construction than its opulence.

“Every time I drive by there, I think to myself, ‘Poor Stanley,’” said lifelong Grove resident Tony Scornavacca. “He was only 52, a family man, self-made, well-loved in the community. But those were bizarre times. Co***ne days.”

In the 1980s, Coconut Grove, and especially the Mutiny Hotel, were at the center of the drug-fueled swirl of luxurious excess that characterized the era.

Read More at the link in bio.

✍️ by Mike Clary
📸 by David Villano and “In the Fast Lane: A True Story of Murder in Miami”)

When Illine Davila unlocks the doors of the Woman’s Club of Coconut Grove on the day of an event, she pauses to greet an...
03/03/2026

When Illine Davila unlocks the doors of the Woman’s Club of Coconut Grove on the day of an event, she pauses to greet an empty room.

“Good morning, ladies,” she says as she enters the 1921 clubhouse — a nod of recognition to the women who walked these floors more than a century ago.

Davila, the club’s current president, said she often finds herself thinking of the women who came before her. 

“I believe some of them are here still,” Davila told the Spotlight.

One hundred and thirty-five years ago this month, six of Coconut Grove’s earliest settlers – all women – began meeting in a local school house.

The women (and a few men) who belong to the Woman’s Club of Coconut Grove today are working to combat human trafficking, feed the hungry, protect the environment, and advance the cultural life of the community they call home.

“The club keeps growing and we’re a force to be reckoned with,” said Carol White, who chairs the club’s Human Trafficking Awareness & Prevention committee.

✍️ by
📸 contributed by the Woman’s Club of Coconut Grove

Crowds of people spent the long President’s Day weekend sizing up the art and sampling the fare at this year’s Coconut G...
17/02/2026

Crowds of people spent the long President’s Day weekend sizing up the art and sampling the fare at this year’s Coconut Grove Arts Festival. The three-day event offered a feast of sights and sounds, with 285 featured artists, a live music program, and a beer garden stretched along Coconut Grove’s waterfront. Freelance photographer Marra Finkelstein was there to capture the scene for the Spotlight.

📸 by .finkelstein


The annual art fair that expects to welcome 50,000 visitors this weekend in downtown Coconut Grove may not be the event ...
13/02/2026

The annual art fair that expects to welcome 50,000 visitors this weekend in downtown Coconut Grove may not be the event you’re thinking about. But you should.

The St. Stephen’s Art and MakersFest is a free, three-day event that takes place every President’s Day weekend at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on McFarlane Road — the same weekend as the larger, better-known Coconut Grove Arts Festival.

The annual fair, now celebrating its 37th year with 110 juried artists and 100-plus volunteers, has a creative energy very much in line with the community that supports it.  

“We’re known for sound, color, and flavor,” says Daisy Holcombe, the event’s producer. She’s been running the fair for 16 years. “Everything about the St. Stephen’s Fair is funky and accessible.”

Story by Liz Tracy


The last hour at The Last Carrot had arrived. Flowers lined the counter as patrons savored the last bites of their go-to...
11/02/2026

The last hour at The Last Carrot had arrived. 

Flowers lined the counter as patrons savored the last bites of their go-to orders – for many, the same spinach pie and juice combination – while surrounded by the restaurant’s orange walls and cartoon bunny decorations. 

The last apple was juiced, pita stuffed, and carrot chopped, bringing at least a temporary end to Coconut Grove’s oldest continually-operating restaurant.  

Family, friends, and lovers of The Last Carrot clinked Peronis as tears welled in the corners of their eyes and they pulled Erin Compton, owner and frontperson of the business, into hugs at the end of the counter. 

“It’s so emotional, but it’s all full of gratitude. The restaurant did what it was meant to do, and that’s what brings a community together,” Compton said.

Continue reading at the link in bio.

Story by
📸 by


After sitting vacant for nearly a year, a long-empty storefront on Grand Avenue has a new tenant. Garin Art Caffé has op...
02/02/2026

After sitting vacant for nearly a year, a long-empty storefront on Grand Avenue has a new tenant. Garin Art Caffé has opened in the space, ending the vacancy on a stretch of the street where few businesses remain.

The new cafe offers a little bit of everything — coffee and matcha, tapas and burgers, wine and mojitos — set amid art-lined walls and a shaded outdoor patio beneath mature oak trees.

But for its owners — an artistic, construction-savvy Coconut Grove couple — the cafe represents more than a new restaurant. It is the first step in a broader vision to revive the south side of Grand Avenue, between Douglas Road and Esther Mae Armbrister Park, as a small-scale business and arts hub rooted in the Grove’s Bahamian heritage.

Carlos Garin and Clara Garcia, Cuban immigrants who have lived in Coconut Grove for 25 years, say they have long hoped for an opportunity to help revive Grand Avenue’s once-thriving commercial corridor.

Continue reading at the link in bio.

Story by Jenny Jacoby

A Coconut Grove couple was walking home along South Bayshore Drive on a Sunday morning this month when they were struck ...
29/01/2026

A Coconut Grove couple was walking home along South Bayshore Drive on a Sunday morning this month when they were struck from behind and severely injured by a teenager riding an electric dirt bike near the south entrance to Kennedy Park.

The 15-year-old boy lost control of the bike and slid into Hank Klein and his wife Lisa Sloat, according to a Miami Police report, knocking them to the ground. 

Klein, 81, hit his head and was knocked out. He suffered a head wound and a brain bleed. Sloat, 76, crumpled under the force of the crash, fracturing her ankle.  

“We were walking home from Starbucks and all of a sudden, we are on the ground. I mean, like that,” Sloat told the Spotlight.

Three weeks later, they still haven’t made it home. They talk to each other by phone from separate rooms at Mercy Hospital’s rehab center, where they both are undergoing intense therapy. Their lives have been upended, and laced with a new uncertainty.  

Continue reading at the link in bio.

Story by Don Finefrock

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