Video Games in a Museum?

At lunch the other day, the chief curator and I were kicking around the idea of a video game exhibition. As an avid gamer and a curator, this was a topic I had spent some time daydreaming about. To have her bring up the topic … well, let’s just say I was geeking out a little.

We both had a moment where we were lamenting that there weren’t more connections to video games in South Florida, so we were discussing Ms. Pacman arcade cabinets and Nintendo Wiis. Then, as we dug deeper in our discussion, we realized there are connections. IBM built their first PCs in Boca Raton. She informed me that she used to work for the studio that created Cabela’s Big Game Hunter, which was based in Greater Miami. Legendary arcade gamer Billy Mitchell calls Hollywood home. There are plenty of games that are set in Miami, from Miami Vice tie-ins to DRIV3R to the barely-fictionalized Vice City of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Writing this has gotten me excited about all of the possibilities. What do you think of this idea? Is there a South Florida connection to video games that I missed?

-- Robert Harkins, Assistant Curator

America's Most Wanted

As with many exhibits, the materials in Crime in Miami came from a variety of sources. Most of the artifacts and photographs are from HistoryMiami’s collection, but there are also a variety that come from law enforcement agencies and private individuals.

One portion of the exhibition that did not come from our collection is a video that features Samantha Steinberg, a forensic artist who works for the Miami-Dade Police Department, showing how she creates an age progression. The age progression, which is featured in the “Forensic Art” section of the exhibition, is of Gustavo Falcon, an alleged drug kingpin from the 1980s who was never apprehended.

The video came to be a part of the exhibition because of the television show America’s Most Wanted. AMW featured Gustavo back in 2008. The goal of the show, of course, is to encourage private citizens to help law enforcement locate fugitive criminals. Since the most recent photograph of Gustavo was from 1990, Samantha was enlisted to give viewers a better idea of what he would look like almost twenty years later.

After locating the video on the website of America’s Most Wanted, I contacted them to see if they would provide us with a copy. As with any organization that is unfamiliar, it took me some time to locate the people who were able and willing to help. There were many phone calls and a number of e-mails, but I found people with a passion for what they do in the form of the Miami-based producer and the folks at the D.C. headquarters, including a lawyer who authorized the use of the footage, technicians who located the master file and burned it to a disc, and the administrative assistant who coordinated it all.

When all was said and done, I had the finished product in my hands about a week and a half before the exhibition opened. It was a bit tight, but into Crime in Miami it went. Getting the disc to play the way we wanted in the space we already had was a task, but that’s a story for another time.

If you want to see the footage, check out the Gustavo Falcon fugitive brief on the America’s Most Wanted website: http://www.amw.com/fugitives/brief.cfm?id=61019 (click on the “Media” tab). Maybe you’ll see something that will help to bring in the last of the Cocaine Cowboys.

-- Robert Harkins

Go Team Audio Tour

A three-person team, including myself, has been working for more than six months of putting together an audio tour of Tropical Dreams, the permanent exhibition at the Museum of HistoryMiami (formerly the Historical Museum of Southern Florida). The exhibition chronicles the history of South Florida, beginning with Miami’s prehistoric inhabitants and ending with the region’s growth into a modern metropolis.

We just completed our second draft of the script, which has about fifteen stops, some of which are serious, while others are a bit more light-hearted. We’ll be testing the script out over the next few weeks, so if you visit the museum, you may hear us reading portions of it in the gallery. We might even ask you to listen and give us your thoughts!

-- Robert Harkins, Assisstant Curator

Parting Fingerprints on Crime in Miami

Crime in Miami. It’s been quite a ride already and it’s not even done yet. The latest temporary exhibition at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida went up on February 19th. I have to admit, I think we here at the museum misjudged its popularity while we were planning. I don’t have any attendance figures, but there’s no question that our temporary gallery is much busier than it usually is, even after the incredibly successful run of Black Crossroads. I’m well aware of the fact that this is a good problem to have. If you have come to see the exhibition, I thank you.

The picture above shows one problem that “high attendance” has wrought. At the end of the exhibition, guests are invited to leave their fingerprint. Unfortunately, the wall designated for this purpose is basically full, so we’re trying to figure out how to add space for new visitors to leave their print, while also preserving the prints that have already been left. If you have any suggestions, or other comments about Crime in Miami, please leave them below.

-- Robert Harkins, Assistant Curator

Illustrating Justice

I had the privilege of working with Shirley Henderson in curating Illustrating Justice, an exhibition of courtroom drawings that spans her thirty years of work in this field. You may recognize her work from nightly network news broadcasts and newspapers; that is because media outlets commission her to go into federal courtrooms and sketch scenes that cameras, by law, are not allowed to capture.

Henderson was incredibly interesting to work with because she knows so many of the individuals who make justice work in Miami, as well as a number of those who have passed through the justice system. While we were working to choose the 93 pieces that are on display in Illustrating Justice, she told me some of her stories about folks like Alcee Hastings, Ted Bundy, Yahweh Ben Yahweh, Raul Martinez, and Alex Daoud.

Illustrating Justice: The Courtroom Art of Shirley Henderson will be on display at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida until June 20, 2010. There you can see her work and learn more about the process of creating them. If you’d like to hear some of those stories straight from Ms. Henderson herself, you can do so on June 17. She will be talking about her experiences as part of HMSF’s Explore History & Culture Series from 6:30 to 8:30.

-- Robert Harkins, Assistant Curator, Object Collections

Interama

As I write this, our exhibits designer and preparations staff are at the Kovens Center, located at the Biscayne Bay Campus of Florida International University, to install the traveling version of Interama: Miami and the Pan-American Dream. The exhibition going up there is only natural, as BBC was part of the Graves Tract that the state of Florida purchased to house the permanent World’s Fair that never was. In a sense, the university’s campus is all that ever came of Interama. It was originally to be called “Interama University,” but was eventually combined with FIU when the creation of that institution was imminent. In fact, the only building that was ever built by the Inter-American Center Authority now houses the internationally-renowned hospitality management program.

In a sense, this coming together is very personal for me in a number of ways. I graduated from FIU twice, and both times I was at the Biscayne Bay Campus. I took a large portion of my undergraduate classes there, then worked at BBC as a teacher’s assistant while working on my master’s degree. Panther Square and the Wolfe University Center were the hub of my social life, and BBC became my second home.

In addition, when the Interama exhibition went up, I was still an educator, though I had started helping to digitize the archaeological collection thanks to an IMLS grant. I assisted with the final touches in my budding role as a curator, making it the first exhibit I ever worked on, and then gave the first tours to the general public in my role as a museum educator. Now, I am one of two persons working on launching a formal traveling exhibitions program, which could include this slightly scaled-down version of Interama.

If you want to see the exhibit, call 305-919-5700 for more information.

-- Robert Harkins, Assistant Curator - Object Collections

Burned Cross in Black Crossroads

As a history museum, we’re charged with finding the visual images and objects that tell the story or piece of history presented in an exhibition. This can be a challenge since more history has been captured in text than in actual photographs, and objects are often junked before their historical importance is realized. This was not the case with burned cross above, one of the signature objects on display in the museum’s Black Crossroads: The African Diaspora in Miami exhibition.

The cross is part of the collection of the Black Archives, History and Research Foundation of South Florida. Its charred frame sits at the entrance to the Struggles section of the exhibition – the area that explores blacks’ century-long struggle for equality in Miami. It was burned on the lawn of Hazel Howard in 1982. Howard was an African American woman who had just moved into a new home in North Miami.

As telling as that story is about the prevalence of racial prejudice in Miami, how this piece of history got saved also deserves telling. The Community Relations Board (CRB), an inter-racial group created by county in 1963 “to solve hardcore social problems and economic distresses” collected the cross from Howard’s lawn after the incident and attempted to investigate the event. Members of the CRB at the time included community activist Bob Simms, who recalls that they then kept the cross in their offices as visual symbol of the past.

Eventually the board donated the cross to the Black Archives, saving it from historical extinction and enabling future generations to also experience its significance. And experience it they do – visitors to the exhibition are compelled towards it and have reported back to us the powerful connection they make to it. The charred 10-foot cross speaks volumes, makes the past real in a way no text can. All thanks to the CRB who saw that an object of history, no matter how painful, has something to teach all of us.

-- Joanne Hyppolite, Ph.D. Chief Curator.

Jimmy's Hurricane

It’s amazing what a lost membership card can start!

Long time HMSF member Sara Ellenburg called to request a new membership card to replace a lost one. While speaking with her, I learned a fascinating story. On a recent visit to the museum Sara had seen a diner replica in the permanent exhibit, Tropical Dreams. She informed me that the diner in the photomural had belonged to her and her husband, Jimmy, who appears in the photo's background. The diner was Jimmy’s Hurricane Restaurant.

Within a few days, Sara donated menus and promotional coupons from Jimmy’s to the museum’s Research Center. She returned to the museum once again at the invitation of President/CEO Bob McCammon. They shared a lovely lunch, and those present heard many recollections about Jimmy, old Miami and how things have changed. Following the lunch Mr. McCammon’s wife, Karen Corlett-McCammon, told him that her family traditionally ate at Jimmy’s Hurricane on the way home from visiting her grandparents in Miami Beach.

Jimmy’s Hurricane Restaurant operated on the corner of Bird and Douglas Roads. Their specialty was Snapper Fingers. The Shrimp Creole, with generous sides, was listed on their menu for $1.49. Sounds like quite a bargain today! Jimmy’s Hurricane had an extensive drive-in area and an indoor dining counter. Jimmy and Sara Ellenburg presided over this Miami establishment from November 1950 to June 6, 1966.

Sara Ellenburg is someone who not only loves and supports history, but she has made her own. Meeting Sara made us very glad that she lost her membership card!

-- Hilda Masip, Membership & Data Officer