8 June 22-28, 2023 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times b e s T o f m i a m i ® 2 0 2 3 B E S T AC T I V I S T Enid Pinkney Earlier this year, when the City of Hialeah floated the idea of annexing an unincorporated chunk of Brownsville, the latter community’s leaders banded together to preserve the legacy of their historically Black neighborhood, which was a key destination for civil-rights leaders and entertainers during the segregation era. One of the most prominent speakers during the annexation debates was Enid Pinkney, a long- time Dade County educator and preservationist who told residents, “We have a rich history. We need to learn it so we can defend it.” The heart- felt, pointed opposition paid off when Hialeah backed off. An author, activist, and a retired public-school administrator, Pinkney has been a stalwart advocate for safeguarding landmarks in Brownsville and the Miami area, leading ef- forts to preserve the Historic Hampton House and the Miami Circle. B E S T P O L I T I C I A N Florida Sen. Shev Jones, District 34 fl senate.gov/Senators/s34 @shevrinjones (Twitter and Instagram) “Best Politician” is a tricky category. It’s the one most likely to figuratively bite a humble writer in the keister ten years down the line, when a best-politician laureate is arrested for actually biting someone’s keister during a coke binge at a moldy motel. That said, this year’s selection, Florida District 34 Sen. Shevrin D. “Shev” Jones, seems a safe bet. Humor aside, Jones has be- come the de facto foil for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “culture war” agenda. Jones, whom pundits of- ten distill to “the first openly gay state senator in Florida,” refused to shy away or back down when DeSantis and his allies in the legislature pushed through a deluge of legislation targeting LGBTQ issues. When DeSantis signed bills in 2023 restricting the use of state funds for trans- gender healthcare and expanding the state’s so- called Don’t Say Gay bill, Jones spoke out wihthout mincing words, at one point deeming the governor “wildly out of step with where Flo- ridians actually are on these issues.” Born in and still based in Miami Gardens, Jones ensured that LGBTQ people in Florida knew that some- one was sticking up for them in the statehouse at a time when many felt marginalized, stigma- tized, and dehumanized for political gain. B E S T P OW E R CO U P L E Avra Jain and Dalia Lagoa thevagabondgroupllc.com Wife-and-wife team Avra Jain and Dalia Lagoa don’t mind playing in the Miami developer sandbox, even if it’s overrun by cis white males. The successful married duo lead the Vagabond Group, a real estate company that’s leading the repurposing and reviving of historic and indus- trial properties in Miami’s MiMo District, Little Haiti, and Little River. They oversee an all-fe- male staff, providing opportunities to young women eager to break the glass ceiling in the world of commercial development. One of their first endeavors, the renovation of the Vagabond, transformed a gone-to-seed motel into one of the hippest hotels in Miami’s Upper Eastside neighborhood. Having applied that blueprint to other ’50s-era properties on Biscayne Boule- vard — including the South Pacific and the Se- lina Miami Gold Dust. Now the two are keen on making Hialeah their next vibrant frontier, where they recently developed Factory Town, a dance-music venue that harks back to the hal- cyon days of all-night raves. B E S T S C H O O L ITech @ Miami’s Mega Technology Magnet High School 6101 NW Second Avenue Miami, 33127 305-762-5000 itechhighschool.com Inside a modest three-story schoolhouse that’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places, students at iTech @ Miami’s Mega Technology Magnet High School are being primed to become the next Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. In 2015, the former Thomas Edison Middle School shuttered to make way for iTech and its new curriculum, steeped in coding, pro- gramming, software use, financial services, geospatial information systems, STEM re- search, and more. Students adhere to a strict dress code to prepare them for corporate America: crisp white Oxford shirts, Dickies- style khaki or black pants, solid black or white shoes, and optional red tie and black blazer. B E S T LO C A L B OY M A D E G O O D Marcello Hernandez marcello.live Whether in the halls of Belen Jesuit Prepara- tory School or the studios of Saturday Night Live, standup comedian Marcello Hernandez has been making Miami laugh for years. He cut his teeth opening for giants like Gilbert Gott- fried and Dave Chappelle, but locally he’s known as a creative force behind the ludicrous social-media company Only In Dade, where he interviewed celebs like Floyd Mayweather and Nicky Jam. More recently, he expanded his au- dience outside the 305 to late-night TV as a fea- tured player for SNL’s 48th season. B E S T LO C A L B OY G O N E B A D Fabián Basabe fabianbasabe.com Fabián Basabe peaked sometime in the early aughts, back when he was grinding with then- president’s daughter Laura Bush, appearing on reality TV (remember Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive? Of course you don’t), and fashioning himself as “the male Paris Hilton.” Rather than fade into adulthood, he attempted to run for a seat on the Miami Beach City Commission but was dis- qualified for flunking the residency require- ment. Undeterred, he ran for a Florida House seat as a moderate Republican, pledging to sup- port gay rights and a woman’s right to choose — two stances that ran counter to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ legislative slate. When bills on those matters came up for a vote, Basabe...didn’t show up. Perhaps not surprisingly, his flip-flop- ping has led to calls for his resignation and pub- lic heckling. Oh, and Basabe is under investigation for allegedly slapping an aide across the face at a reception in Tallahassee and he’s being sued by a cousin over a deal to import and resell vintage Land Rovers. B E S T LO C A L G I R L M A D E G O O D Coco Gauff @cocogauf (Instagram) Coco Gauff was born in Atlanta, but from age 7 onward, she trained a short I-95 hop north of our chaotic metropolis in charming Delray Beach. Now that she’s ranked as the world’s sixth-best tennis player in women’s singles, we’re officially claiming her as one of our own. It was right here in South Florida, after all, that Gauff became the youngest Orange Bowl Inter- national girls’ 18-and-under singles champion — at the tender age of 14, no less. She seems proud to rep South Florida, too: At the ’23 Mi- ami Open at Hard Rock Stadium in April, Gauff and her partner Jessica Pegula held up their doubles trophy in front of a hometown crowd and dedicated their win to the Florida Atlantic University and University of Miami basketball teams that had been eliminated from the Final Four the previous night: “This was for you, Mi- ami and FAU.” And in May, after a first-round women’s singles victory at the French Open, she declared, “Heat in 7 — and maybe Coco in 7!” A local gal after our own heart. B E S T LO C A L G I R L G O N E B A D Victoria Méndez Miami City Attorney Victoria Méndez, known in some circles as “Tricky Vicky,” hasn’t been a good egg in a while. But this year we’ve been in- formed about what might be her biggest scan- dal to date. This past spring, WLRN investigative reporters Daniel Rivero and Joshua Ceballos (a New Times alum) published a series of stories revealing that Méndez’s fam- ily members have purchased homes at a mar- ginal cost from the county’s guardianship program — which uses the proceeds to pay for the care of the incapacitated property owners — and then flipped them for a profit just months, or sometimes days, later. Méndez her- self now lives in a home on a property that was purchased from the guardianship program, ac- cording to WLRN’s reporting. Méndez denies any impropriety. But the guardianship program has frozen property sales at the direction of Mi- ami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava while county investigators look into the pro- gram’s real estate dealings. B E S T P U B L I C A R T Typoe Sculpture Garden In the Underline’s Brickell Backyard Fern Room Between SW Tenth and Eleventh streets Miami 33130 typoe.com @typoe (Instagram) Don’t be afraid to touch, sit, and even climb on the artworks at the Typoe Sculpture Garden. Located along a Brickell section of the Under- line’s ten-mile linear park, the colorful and geo- metric pieces by Miami-based artist Typoe Gran include a bright-red flower, a pink profile of a head, a yellow happy face, and curvilinear benches and arches. Typoe has called the sculp- ture garden, which debuted last December, his “love letter to Miami,” explaining that it’s in- tended as a place where people can “come come together with a sense of adventure and explore their imaginations.” B E S T P U B L I C A R T ( U N I N T E N T I O N A L D I V I S I O N ) FTX Arena When naming rights for the Miami Heat’s arena were sold to the cryptocurrency ex- change FTX in 2021 for $135 million, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez tweeted that he was “overjoyed” at a 19-year deal that “advances our efforts to be the most crypto friendly city on the planet.” The mayor’s brand of blind optimism didn’t last long: A year later, FTX shed billions of dollars in value in a matter of days and was forced to file for bankruptcy in November 2022 amid allegations that customer assets had been mishandled. Founder and CEO Sam Bankman- Fried resigned in disgrace and was later ar- rested on federal charges in what prosecutors called “one of the biggest frauds in American history.” Those in charge of the arena, of course, looked to sever ties — a change of course that required a rebrand of everything from the building’s roof to employees’ embroi- Arts & Entertainment
