NEIGHBORHOOD: Miami-Dade County

Nightlife legend Susanne Bartsch has a monthly super gay cabaret extravaganza at Brickell's El Tucàn called Susanne Bartsch Presents the Bareback Follies, and having already come in December and January, it's back for its February incarnation on the 28th. Last month's show was an absolute ball (I got on the stage twice!), but each month is a little different.

A group of architects and preservationists interested in preserving modernist architecture is fighting to save the Office in the Grove, an office building designed by seminal Miami architect Kenneth Treister in 1970, from demolition. Treister artfully tempered the building's precast concrete brutalist facade with creative architectural details of local flora and fauna, highlighting the surrounding Coconut Grove neighborhood.

The traveling exhibit 'Letters to Andy Warhol' will be in the Design District's Palm Court all this week. The exhibit is a collaboration between the Andy Warhol Museum and, for some reason, Cadillac.

Oh my. It will be fascinating to see how all this bark stands up to the South Floridian elements (and hurricanes!) when the store opens.

Tomorrow, the Architect's Newspaper is bringing their Facades+ Conference to Miami Beach for its second year running in South Florida.

The continuing saga of Icon Brickell's huge leaky pools and structurally questionable amenity deck, both of which are now having an emergency gut job to make just as huge repairs, is getting kind of morbid. Up until just recently, dozens and dozens of flourishing shade trees originally flanked the two pools and a very oversized hot tub, creating a park-sized forest about fifteen stories in the sky.

On the completion of a two-year renovation (sorry, these pictures are about a month old. Sue me.) the Betsy South Beach is unveiling its new wing tonight at a New Years Eve party.

SLS Lux, one of the many collaborations between the Related Group and SBE, has just topped off. All fifty seven stories of it. Bam. It follows its two sister towers to the west (and twins) Brickell Heights 1 and 2. Bam bam.

So far maybe not so good for those looking for a little grace-and-favor nepotism for the international art world in the Donald J. Trump administration. The unpronounceably-named Mnuchin Gallery, which is exhibiting at this year's Art Basel Miami Beach, is publicly disavowing any connection to Steven Mnuchin, the Donald's pick for Treasury Secretary and son of the gallery's head honcho.