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I can spend all night reading these posts. They nring to good, the bad, and the ugly. Awesome memories of West Kendall. The 80's and early 90's were good years. The places - restaurants, shops, movie theaters, bars and clubs in the area were one of a kind. Kept a neighbor hood flare but with big city enjoyment. Your posts already cover the names and your stories - very similar to mine. Indeed the good old days!!! The neighborhoods with the expansion and rapid town homes and larger stores out pacing the mom and pop business damaged West Kendall. Lost it's town persona. The horse country symbol. After hurricane Andrew in 1992 "my town" lost what made it a fun place to be and live. There was a rush of people that were not in tune with those that grew up in areas like Calusa, Country Walk, Winston Park, or even the "original" folks that lived in the Hammocks. No need to go into the negatives as those that have lived her for sometime know. Peace-out!!!
Being a Black male living in Kendall...never again. Now I'm around Haitians, and it isn't any better...well at least I somewhat fit in now. School needs to be done so I can hightail it out of here!
To those folks anywhere around the country thinking of moving to Miami and looking for housing around the Kendall area, be aware of what you are about to read, before making a decision I'm sure you will regret. Take this from our family who has lived in the Kendall/West Kendall area since the 80's ...
This is a third world country down here, a "Barrio" in the worst sense of the word. About 98% of the time you get addressed in Spanish, as Spanish is all you hear and English seems to be a second language that not many understand. The majority of the people do not know English nor care to learn it. We have gotten a huge invasion of Venezuelans taken over the area. They are arrogant, drive expensive cars, yell all the time and they are plain and simple rude. These are the rich Venezuelans running away from Communism in their country that bring along with them their 1800's Colonial behavior, treat everyone as inferiors and have an attitude as if this land was theirs. Keep in mind in countries such as Venezuela there are only two social classes: Rich and Poor, and their rich people usually behave in a controling, dictatorial manner. That same attitude is being imported to Miami. The biggest Hispanic group that once lived here and cared to learn the language (the Cubans ) have gotten out in great numbers and moved to other states in search of America. You will still see on TV a visual association of Cubans to Miami but that's not true. Areas such as El Doral, West Kendall and even Little Havana are now made of a much, much higher percentage of people from other Latin-American countries and the Cubans have been reduced to very low numbers. West Kendall and El Doral in particular are now mainly "Venezuelan territory", much more than the Peruvians and Colombians that also lived here for many years. There are lots of rude people here and quite a bit of vandalism. They drive horribly, they are not polite and could care less about the rest of the country. There are drugs everywhere. Keep in mind Miami and Fort Lauderdale are the main distributors for illegal pills in the country. The place is packed with illegal immigrants, people driving without a driver's license and zero car insurance, so if you get hit you'll have to sue but, how can you sue someone that is here illegally? Here is also the #1 place for Medicare fraud in the country and people practicing medicine without a license. Recently, it was all over the news, a local "dentist" was sentenced to 15 years in jail for stealing 20 million dollars from Medicare. The list goes on. Let me just give you an example of what life is like here ...
My area used to be a decent, freshly built neighborhood, quite and away from it all as it is near the farming areas of Miami. My house was built in 1999 to our specifications and there were people living around us having a certain level of education, consideration and respect for the neighbors. There was a community/small town feel in this area. Ever since the economy went downhill and prices on housing fell to record lows, the delinquency that lived in other areas began to move in to areas like mine. Now they can afford to live here because houses once worth over $500,000.00 or more have decreased to half of its value. Along with them, these people bring their drugs and bad habits. Last year along two pot houses were busted within my area. One of them, only three houses down from mine. The Cubans that lived next door to us sold their house and left as they couldn't take this place anymore. The house was bought by some guy that rented it to a group of Venezuelans. There are now anywhere between 9 to 15 cars any given day in their driveway barely fitting in, and thus they drive in our property, over our grass to get to their own driveway and park. That is a 4 bedroom house so I have no idea how 15 people could live in there. When they moved in they just plugged in a coaxial cable to our curbside cable box, laid it on the grass and ran it into their house stealing from our Cable TV and thus weakening our signal. We were forced to notify Comcast/Xfinity. Our manicured, luscious front yard was recently vandalized. All our landscape was burnt/dried up within a 48 hour period with some sort of acid destroying all of our plants, our hedge (once wrapping around our entire property) is nothing more than brown stick today. We are talking about thousands of dollars worth of plant material. This wasn't caused by a bug, but intentionally done as we had an expert come an analyze the soil and dead leaves. "Miraculously" the front yards on the houses to each side of us and in front are perfect
Dominicans moved in the house next door to mine a few years ago (opposite to the aforentioned house where the Venezuelans live). They first painted the house BRIGHT green, and I mean as bright green as bright green can be. Ever since they moved in, they throw parties on weekends up to 4:30 - 5:00 in the morning. Loud music and yelling go on and on. Even one time they spent all night drilling and hammering on the fence that divides both houses and extended their side of the fence in the middle of the night a few feet. Meanwhile my wife, my son and I were unable to sleep. They smoke pot outside. Sometimes they actually start smoking outside at 5:00 a.m. , making loud noises/laughing and the wind blows all that pot smoke over to my house. Not only do I have to get up early in the morning to go to work and they don't let me sleep with all the Merengue (Dominican monotonous music sound) and yelling, but I have a child that is seeing all this going on and picking up second hand pot smoke. This morning at 6: 00 a.m. they turned up the music as low as it could go, waking up my wife who had worked until late last night and had to go in to work early today. Who in the right mind turns up a receiver with loud music at six in the morning? ... and they even have a little girl about three years old being put through all this! One can tell these aren't respectful, educated individuals but yet, judging by the Mercedes and Acura they drive one was to be under the impression they were professionals to afford these cars. That might be the case but, professionals ...what? This is all taking place in the once popular West Kendall (Country Walk area ) here in Miami.
The police seems to "protect and serve" whenever they feel like doing so, and not so when needed. I have called them, letting them know about all the noise (since there is a noise ordinance in effect) but they never show up and claim they are busy with other priorities. They used to come years ago but nowadays you call, they say they will dispatch someone to take care of the situation, we wait and no one comes. We are in the process of selling our house and never again coming back to this Third World Country, the Miami/West Kendall area has become.
Am I a racist, an Anti-Hispanic or any other politically incorrect name that could be thrown at me? Heck, no! I was born in Spain, grew up in this hreat land of opportunity the U. S is. I speak Spanish, English and Italian, and my marriage of 25 years is to a white Anglo/American so, I don't have an issue with color or ethnicity however, I am part of the American Way of Life, I respect the laws of thic country, I do have respect and have the consideration for others and West Kendall and its people these days have lost it for the most part. If you can, steer away from this hell house, do yourself a favor ... do so.
Last edited by IwantOutofHere; 06-15-2014 at 04:18 PM..
I just moved to west Kendall and I dont know..... It seems pretty decent to me. I live just west of the turnpike and there are tons of shops around. It's almost too much. But at least it's convenient and traffic is heavy on the main roads, but it's seems fine to me.
I live in a gated rental complex and the ppl here are fine. It's quiet and safe and convenient to everything, except the beach, but hey what does one want in west Kendall.
Also, I'm a white anglo American so I speak English and have not had a problem language wise. I go to strabucks, I go to restaurants, movie theatres, stores, gas stations, etc and conduct myself entirely in English and have been fine lol. This whole "no one speaks english" stuff just doesn't ring true. At least for me anyway.
I dont know any Spanish, so I speak English here as I would anywhere and everyone has been able to speak English back to me. Yes, a lot of it is accented English, but whatever, I've not encountered a problem language wise. I went to the home Depot to get assistance on how to hang heavy pictures and mirrors and the staff there spoke perfect English and actually recommended items I should purchase and offered to show me how to actually install. Good customer service if u ask me.
It's not a glamorous area, but it certainly isn't "a dump" like many have said. A dump to me is a place like Opa Locka or some other place riddled with abject poverty. Kendall is hardly a dump. Like, puh-lease. Do u ppl say it's a dump even know what a bad neighborhood actually looks like?
Last edited by OptimusPrime69; 06-16-2014 at 09:48 AM..
i lived in kings creek in the 80s. i remember the kings court murders, i was at dadeland mall going to cozzolis pizza 5 minutes before the dadeland massacre. pretty hairy stuff
I have been hearing rumors of a mall on the north end of West Baptist hospital but as far as I can tell it's just rumors. I am surprised that that land remains undeveloped. Everything else around here is.
To those folks anywhere around the country thinking of moving to Miami and looking for housing around the Kendall area, be aware of what you are about to read, before making a decision I'm sure you will regret. Take this from our family who has lived in the Kendall/West Kendall area since the 80's ...
This is a third world country down here, a "Barrio" in the worst sense of the word. About 98% of the time you get addressed in Spanish, as Spanish is all you hear and English seems to be a second language that not many understand. The majority of the people do not know English nor care to learn it. We have gotten a huge invasion of Venezuelans taken over the area. They are arrogant, drive expensive cars, yell all the time and they are plain and simple rude. These are the rich Venezuelans running away from Communism in their country that bring along with them their 1800's Colonial behavior, treat everyone as inferiors and have an attitude as if this land was theirs. Keep in mind in countries such as Venezuela there are only two social classes: Rich and Poor, and their rich people usually behave in a controling, dictatorial manner. That same attitude is being imported to Miami. The biggest Hispanic group that once lived here and cared to learn the language (the Cubans ) have gotten out in great numbers and moved to other states in search of America. You will still see on TV a visual association of Cubans to Miami but that's not true. Areas such as El Doral, West Kendall and even Little Havana are now made of a much, much higher percentage of people from other Latin-American countries and the Cubans have been reduced to very low numbers. West Kendall and El Doral in particular are now mainly "Venezuelan territory", much more than the Peruvians and Colombians that also lived here for many years. There are lots of rude people here and quite a bit of vandalism. They drive horribly, they are not polite and could care less about the rest of the country. There are drugs everywhere. Keep in mind Miami and Fort Lauderdale are the main distributors for illegal pills in the country. The place is packed with illegal immigrants, people driving without a driver's license and zero car insurance, so if you get hit you'll have to sue but, how can you sue someone that is here illegally? Here is also the #1 place for Medicare fraud in the country and people practicing medicine without a license. Recently, it was all over the news, a local "dentist" was sentenced to 15 years in jail for stealing 20 million dollars from Medicare. The list goes on. Let me just give you an example of what life is like here ...
My area used to be a decent, freshly built neighborhood, quite and away from it all as it is near the farming areas of Miami. My house was built in 1999 to our specifications and there were people living around us having a certain level of education, consideration and respect for the neighbors. There was a community/small town feel in this area. Ever since the economy went downhill and prices on housing fell to record lows, the delinquency that lived in other areas began to move in to areas like mine. Now they can afford to live here because houses once worth over $500,000.00 or more have decreased to half of its value. Along with them, these people bring their drugs and bad habits. Last year along two pot houses were busted within my area. One of them, only three houses down from mine. The Cubans that lived next door to us sold their house and left as they couldn't take this place anymore. The house was bought by some guy that rented it to a group of Venezuelans. There are now anywhere between 9 to 15 cars any given day in their driveway barely fitting in, and thus they drive in our property, over our grass to get to their own driveway and park. That is a 4 bedroom house so I have no idea how 15 people could live in there. When they moved in they just plugged in a coaxial cable to our curbside cable box, laid it on the grass and ran it into their house stealing from our Cable TV and thus weakening our signal. We were forced to notify Comcast/Xfinity. Our manicured, luscious front yard was recently vandalized. All our landscape was burnt/dried up within a 48 hour period with some sort of acid destroying all of our plants, our hedge (once wrapping around our entire property) is nothing more than brown stick today. We are talking about thousands of dollars worth of plant material. This wasn't caused by a bug, but intentionally done as we had an expert come an analyze the soil and dead leaves. "Miraculously" the front yards on the houses to each side of us and in front are perfect
Dominicans moved in the house next door to mine a few years ago (opposite to the aforentioned house where the Venezuelans live). They first painted the house BRIGHT green, and I mean as bright green as bright green can be. Ever since they moved in, they throw parties on weekends up to 4:30 - 5:00 in the morning. Loud music and yelling go on and on. Even one time they spent all night drilling and hammering on the fence that divides both houses and extended their side of the fence in the middle of the night a few feet. Meanwhile my wife, my son and I were unable to sleep. They smoke pot outside. Sometimes they actually start smoking outside at 5:00 a.m. , making loud noises/laughing and the wind blows all that pot smoke over to my house. Not only do I have to get up early in the morning to go to work and they don't let me sleep with all the Merengue (Dominican monotonous music sound) and yelling, but I have a child that is seeing all this going on and picking up second hand pot smoke. This morning at 6: 00 a.m. they turned up the music as low as it could go, waking up my wife who had worked until late last night and had to go in to work early today. Who in the right mind turns up a receiver with loud music at six in the morning? ... and they even have a little girl about three years old being put through all this! One can tell these aren't respectful, educated individuals but yet, judging by the Mercedes and Acura they drive one was to be under the impression they were professionals to afford these cars. That might be the case but, professionals ...what? This is all taking place in the once popular West Kendall (Country Walk area ) here in Miami.
The police seems to "protect and serve" whenever they feel like doing so, and not so when needed. I have called them, letting them know about all the noise (since there is a noise ordinance in effect) but they never show up and claim they are busy with other priorities. They used to come years ago but nowadays you call, they say they will dispatch someone to take care of the situation, we wait and no one comes. We are in the process of selling our house and never again coming back to this Third World Country, the Miami/West Kendall area has become.
Am I a racist, an Anti-Hispanic or any other politically incorrect name that could be thrown at me? Heck, no! I was born in Spain, grew up in this hreat land of opportunity the U. S is. I speak Spanish, English and Italian, and my marriage of 25 years is to a white Anglo/American so, I don't have an issue with color or ethnicity however, I am part of the American Way of Life, I respect the laws of thic country, I do have respect and have the consideration for others and West Kendall and its people these days have lost it for the most part. If you can, steer away from this hell house, do yourself a favor ... do so.
I was just in Kendall over the weekend, and didn't have any issues finding people that spoke English. It's not the main main language in many places, but it's not like it's impossible to get by without being fluent in Spanish. That said, Kendall has always been poorer than Miami and some of the North-Western suburbs. It's been a farming community pretty much from day one. It's also very isolated from the rest of the Metro area. It was always a very mixed community, composed predominantly of farmers and laborers, with a smattering of gated compounds owned by an eclectic mix of land-owners, people that REALLY REALLY value their privacy (a lot of shady and paranoid characters), and people that wanted to grow pot/make meth somewhere away from civilization.
The homes were also never really worth what people charged for them at the height of the first bubble. It's not that they've dropped in half after the recession, it's that they've always been worth 200-300k, but in the mid-2000s, developers hugely inflated their value and tried to pass them off as being way more impressive than they were. I mean, think about it - a house's worth is based on a couple of factors:
1) Proximity to jobs
2) Surrounding income levels
3) Proximity to amenities
4) General desirability or cachet of an area
5) Schools and education
Kendall doesn't really do too well on any of these. It's far away from the main employment hubs (20-30 minutes to the airport/downtown Miami WITHOUT traffic). It doesn't have much of an economy itself to produce more localized jobs, outside of retail/service and agricultural. The income levels in the area are pretty diverse, but the median is right around the national average, which means that home prices should be right around the national average (about $230k). While the amenities are getting there as the area urbanizes, there's still a dearth of things to do outside of Dadeland. Kendall has never been a "cool" neighborhood/suburb, so there wasn't any cachet to raise home prices, and the school system is ok at best.
Also, keep in mind that Kendall was always rough around the edges. It was a center of drug activity during the "Cocaine Cowboys" era, so it's not like the area hasn't always been chin-deep in drugs. It's always been a frontier-town place. That may change as Miami grows and starts absorbing surrounding suburbs into one massive conglomerate, a la Chicago or NYC, but I have a feeling Kendall will always be a little set apart.
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