GREAT GATSBY Thursday Lecture/Book Signing: Careless People - Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby by Sarah Churchwell

On Thursday, February 6th at 2pm in the Rosenthal Lecture Room at the Foundation’s offices, Sarah Churchwell will speak on and sign copies of her new book Careless People - Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby.

Careless People is the biography of a book.  It’s the true story behind F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a mix of biography, social history and literary essay. The autumn of 1922 found Fitzgerald at the height of his fame, a spokesman for America’s carefree younger generation. Careless People reconstructs those crucial months - the parties, the drunken weekends at Great Neck, the drives back into the city to the jazz clubs and speakeasies, the intersection of high society and organized crime and the growth of celebrity culture – that explain the relation of Gatsby to the chaotic world of 1922. Find out what speakeasies were really like and how to get into one, recipes for prohibition cocktails, how wild the parties really were, what they really were wearing (not what you might think) and what they really were dancing, and where the ideas for Gatsby come from. Ultimately about the relationship between art and life, Careless People is the story of the carelessness and the chaos of those four months and how Fitzgerald’s imagination shaped that chaos and gave it an order and a meaning. It also offers the chance to examine and enter into the lifestyle and society of the 1920s boom era and the East Coast socialites that so shaped the world of Palm Beach.

Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of East Anglia. Her journalism has been published widely. An American currently living in London, she is a regular broadcaster and contributor to the BBC.

“Sarah Churchwell has come closer than many to the heart of this mystery. Careless People (whose title alludes to Fitzgerald’s description of Tom and Daisy Buchanan) is a literary spree, bursting with recherché detail, high spirits, and the desperate frisson of the jazz age.” - The Observer

“An excellent book . . . prodigious research and fierce affection illuminate every remarkable page.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred)

The lecture is free to members and students and $20 for non-members.  Seating is limited.  To make reservations, or for more information, please call 561.832.0731. 

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Ruling could hurt Loxahatchee Groves group’s lawsuit to force...

Anything sound familiar here? Another piece of case law saying that you can't have a referendum on a land use issue. A matter in Loxahatchee Groves may be impacted by the ruling. So too Ms. Decker's lawsuit against the city regarding the height special election last March. Click title for link.

The 4th District Court of Appeal reversed a lower court’s ruling that required a public referendum on a Boca Raton development by Archstone Palmetto Park LLC, saying state lawmakers have made it clear that a referendum goes against the intentions of their 2012 amendment to the state law.
In April, a group of Loxahatchee Groves residents filed a complaint, compelling the town clerk to show why the campus issue shouldn’t come to a vote. The residents have said the a new campus, and the commercial development that will come with it, will ruin the town’s rural character.
Robert Hartsell, the Pompano Beach attorney representing the residents, said he was disappointed with the ruling and the legislature’s willingness to deny its citizens the right to vote on such an important issue.
When asked if the ruling kills the lawsuit, Hartsell wouldn’t go that far.
“It makes our case a lot more difficult,” he said.

As far as Ms. Decker's lawsuit, the status remains the same as last reported. No new court date. This is taken from  the Clerk of the Court website today.  It is still the last docket entry on the site.

Miami's Wynwood Brewing Co. to triple capacity

According to William Waters, we can have a use like this in our newly designated, through adoption of the land development regulations last year, Artisanal Industrial zoning district. It can either be an administrative approval or through a conditional land use. These areas are found along the railroad tracks between Lake and 6th Avenue South and a little more along the northern boundary of the city, behind the Arbor Plaza commercial center on the west side of Dixie. Click title for link to the Miami Herald article.

The City of Deerfield Beach uses Facebook to proclaim its Tree City USA status.

Booming software company finds home in historic WPB building | www.mypalmbeachpost.com

Nice article about a tech related start-up company that has chosen to stay in West Palm Beach and work out of the historic Comeau Building. That building was built during the 1920s boom period and survived the 1928 hurricane, as historic pictures can attest. I pulled this quote because it is all too easy to forget that Palm Beach County has a great deal to offer over the cold and gray northeast and northwest part of our country. Click title for link.

On the business end, not a lot of the Arrow’s clients are local. So having a funky, urban location is a draw for customers to visit Arrow offices, instead of Morgan constantly having to be on airplanes to Chicago, Boston or San Francisco.

Morgan says that customers conclude that if they pick Arrow for a job, “They have an opportunity to (come to) West Palm Beach every couple of months. It’s actually helped us get a couple of clients,” he said.

On the recruitment side, West Palm Beach is no Silicon Valley. But the company found that moving downtown made it easier for employees in Miami or Fort Lauderdale to hop on Tri-Rail and work at the company offices: “The train has been huge in our recruiting efforts,” he said. “It gives us the ability to cast a wider net.”

Click here for a link to the company's website. Interesting also that transit is so important to recruiting.

Can rising condos erase blight 2 blocks away? | www.mypalmbeachpost.com

The West Palm Beach City Commission will consider this request tonight. Click title for link to article. We are talking about six (6) towers, all around 30 stories tall, along the northern part of West Palm Beach's waterfront. Lake Worth resident Chris Fleming is quoted in the article. Click title for link.

Perhaps the condos would rekindle Publix’s interest in putting a store on Broadway or in Northwood Village, said Chris Fleming, a commercial real estate broker and board member of the Westgate Community Redevelopment Agency
“This could trigger Publix to build a store there,” Fleming said. “You don’t get anywhere unless you see some name-brand retailers on the street.”
Still, he said, the condos wouldn’t create instant improvement.

And this from urban planner Carl Flick, who lives in the area:

Critics of Rybovich’s proposal say new condos alone aren’t enough. Flick said crime is the top priority.
“The city has not kept its promise in keeping crime in check in the north end,” Flick said. “Nothing economically is going to happen until you do that. It needs to be a marked improvement over a sustained period for the development community to take notice, and that hasn’t happened.”

I think that Carl is right and that is why quality police services, like PBSO in Lake Worth, really need to be in place before serious investment and redevelopment can occur in the area.

Council again to consider zoning referendum language | www.palmbeachdailynews.com

Apparently, some parties still have problems with the proposed PUD-5 ordinance ballot language and the Town Council is holding a special meeting today (2/3) at 1 p.m. to discuss it. Might be a good one to look into. Click title for link.

Keystone XL Pipeline Protests Throughout South Florida Tonight

Join a vigil tonight near your neighborhood. Just don't eat any mucus-covered snails if asked. Click title for link to Fire Ant's article.

Vigils to Protest Keystone XL:

Miami , 6 p.m., 
State Department Office, 1645 Biscayne Blvd.

Fort Lauderdale, 6 p.m.
Federal Building and Courthouse, 299 E. Broward Blvd.

Palm Beach, 7 p.m.
Four Arts Plaza, Palm Beach

Port St. Lucie, 5:30 p.m.
TD Bank, 8000 S. Federal Highway

Giant African Land Snail invades South Florida - Sun Sentinel

Beware the 8 inch, mucus-covered snail, coming to a neighborhood near you. This is one of those "only in Florida" stories. Imagine, they can partner up with iguanas, pythons and walking catfish. Click title for link to article.

And the oversized, mucus-drenched mollusks are poised to move north from Miami-Dade County, where agriculture officials are preparing to unleash dogs in their two-year battle to wipe out the pest. The snail-detecting dogs will join a force of 50 snail hunters, along with a public awareness campaign, that is finally winning a grudging victory over the snails.
Their numbers may be slowly diminishing, but the snails' capacity for movement isn't.
"They're definitely knocking on the door up in Broward," said Omar Garcia, a Miami-based snail wrangler for the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. "A lot of people are puzzled why we haven't discovered one there yet. It's something that we expect someday."

Dee McNamara's Critique of the Casino building's [sic=*] "hostile prison style* wall entombing it's* unortunate* occupants."

This was sent to the City Commission, City Manager and anyone else that would listen. She is referring to the wall that serves as a railing around the second floor patio area, among other things. She and her husband were instrumental in the design of the building as it appears today. Some people are perennially hard-to-please.  Click image to make larger. This is another from the mailbag full of e-mails I requested from the city and all of them are part of the public record.

Deputies and officers tackle anti-protest training in Sunrise

Broward County taxpayer dollars at work and you can bet we are paying for similar protections through PBSO. Too bad public services need to be used as part of the promotional tools used by protesters. Perhaps the better choice is to ignore them? Click title for link to article.

About 40 Broward Sheriff's deputies and Sunrise Police officers trained for three days with the tools and techniques used to safely end hard-core demonstrations such as those seen at the World Trade Organization conference in Seattle in 1999, which inspired this training.
And this:
"We were deployed a couple of years ago during the Air and Sea Show for some demonstrators out in Fort Lauderdale at a car dealership," he said. "Actually, when they saw the lights and sirens and the big trucks and the tools getting ready to come out, they let go and said, 'We don't want to play.' "

To the tune of "Mission Impossible" - Prophetic choice...

Lake Worth Casino hundreds of thousands in red

First of all, let us remember when we read this article by Eliot Kleinberg, that the building that was there was actually torn down. It was not "all but demolished"; there was no "core" left to the building. Click title for link to article.

Remember Commissioner McVoy's constant reassurances that the business plan contained three scenarios and that the city was solidly on its way to making money on the building/project even with the most pessimistic scenario. That even included paying back the $6 million of utility money that was "borrowed" from the city and would easily be paid back. We must also remember that Johnny Longboats was ready to have a two-story restaurant. But if the city went with that proposal, it would lose out on an opportunity for a first class restaurant on the second floor. We were told by McVoy that there would be tenants clamoring for the space and its "killer views."

Well, that space with killer views is now killing the revenue projections. No restaurants are falling all over themselves to secure the space. The inconvenience of the parking area in relation to the placement of the building - since we were all about "saving the building" and couldn't look at a central location for it. That would be blasphemous! And the pool was left out of the mix entirely.

So, now we have a building that is hemorrhaging $400,000 a year. And let's not forget about the defense of the Greater Bay lawsuit which cost the city $800,000 over a series of years that no one seemed to care was being spent. And then we have the Greater Bay settlement which required the City to write a check for $1.6 million to settle.

This has all been said here before in this blog. But it apparently needs to be said again.

Detroit: City on the Move (1965)

Garden Class: Vertical Planting - Friday, February 7, 2014 in Pan’s Garden

On Friday, February 7, 2014 the Preservation Foundation will offer its first Garden Class.

Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach Director of Gardens Daniele Garson will lead participants through a class on vertical planting in Pan’s Garden. From the hanging gardens of Babylon to the Saks Fifth Avenue living wall on Worth Avenue, vertical gardening has a rich history both culturally and architecturally. Participants will learn to create their own unique vertical gardens.

The class takes place at 11am in Pan’s Garden.

Pan’s Garden is located at 386 Hibiscus Avenue in Palm Beach between Chilean and Peruvian Avenues; one block north of Worth Avenue. 

The event is available to only Preservation Foundation members.  There is no fee to attend though there is a charge of $20 for each individual’s equipment and supplies.

Reservations are required so please call 561.832.0731 to make them.