More than two years after local preservationists decided to restore Fort Lauderdale’s third firehouse, the building looks as good as it did 80 years ago. Maybe better.

On a recent Saturday, memories littered the city's Fire Station #3, during a yard sale that organizers used to raise cash for the museum’s new Children’s Safety Program. The station has since been transformed into the Fort Lauderdale Fire and Safety Museum.

“We hope to have a relationship with the county public and private high schools,” said former city commissioner John Aurelius. “We’ll be able to bring in ... about 40 kids at a time.”

If everything goes right, he said, the program should begin by next school year.

Designed by architect Francis L. Abreu in 1927, the 1,300-square-foot, eight-room station used to house up to eight firefighters, and included a rotunda, tile floors, a fireplace and a wood-beam ceiling. The museum also offers free tours from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.

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After an unenthusiastic response to initial renderings of redevelopment plans for city-owned land on the Intracoastal Waterway, which includes a 256-room Waldorf-Astoria hotel and a renovated 180-room Bahia Mar hotel, LXR Luxury Resorts and Hotels Vice President Peter Henn recently appeared again before the Central Beach Alliance group with new plans exhibiting improved “wave” architecture.

The new sketches come after a lukewarm response to initial plans that Henn showed the group in November. Back then, some in the Central Beach Alliance group said the buildings appeared too rectangular and boxy.

“You need to work on the aesthetics,” Alliance member Joe Panico said during the November meeting. “The buildings have no wow power.”

This time, Henn showed the group improved sketches of various parts of the project that utilized “wave” architecture, including concave structures that mimic modern buildings in Dubai.

“They rise to a crescendo,” Henn said. “They’re either approaching you or retreating from you [and] we sought a balance between ‘edgy’ and ‘timeless.’”

This time around, Alliance board member Fred Carlson was impressed.

“We have to balance the need for orderly development with exploiting the resources of the beach and the water,” he said. “If we don’t, it will hurt the tax base. We need the money for schools and public services.”

City commission public hearings and votes on the proposed hotel-residential projects will come later this year.

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A rock concert on Friday that is meant to pay tribute to a 1969 Beatles concert will have an unusual stage: the rooftop of Broward College, 111 E. Las Olas Blvd.

Beginning at noon, The Beatles tribute band Anthology will perform on Broward College’s rooftop on Las Olas, just as the Fab Four performed 40 years ago atop the Apple Records building in London.

The local concert, known as the Fab Four Rooftop Concert, will celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Beatles original concert.

The idea was cooked up by midday host Mindy Lang on WMXJ-FM Majic 102.7. The group will perform the same songs that The Beatles did during their 1969 rooftop concert, and the radio station will eventually have videos available at its Web site, www.wmxj.com.

While the concert is free, visitors will only be allowed to watch and listen from street level.

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Even if a Federal bailout package never comes through, there is financial help to be found in the same place you might borrow books and movies: the public library.

“We’d like people to know they’re not as helpless as they think,” said Helene Palmer, supervisor of the Business, Law and Government Services section at the Main Library in Fort Lauderdale.

The section, which occupies the library’s entire fifth floor, began offering systematic financial and business help about three years ago. Back then the library debuted its Financial Literacy Awareness Program, which offers everything from credit seminars to business and legal reference guides.

The library’s computers — which are also free to use — feature online databases and links to information on real estate, jobs, and local foreclosures.

NEXT free FINANCIAL SEMINAR:

Resolving Debt Issues
noon on Jan. 27
Main Library
100 S. Andrews Ave.
Fort Lauderdale

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Poinciana Park Civic Association members got some moderately good news recently when city law enforcement officers addressed residents at a monthly meeting, reporting that the neighborhood saw only two residential burglaries in December, down from the previous month.

Only one vehicle burglary took place in the month of November, however, both months reported two business burglaries, according to Fort Lauderdale Sgt. Joseph Hoover and Detective Rod Morrow. Vehicle thefts also dropped to zero in December.

The sour news, however, was in the category of vehicle burglaries, which jumped from two to six from November to December.

“Those were crimes of opportunity,” Hoover said.

Association member Dwight Ledbetter said the area needs more police on the streets.

“But what we really need to do is empower the police,” he said.

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For five months, Louis and Spiro Marchelos have been asking the Lauderdale-by-the-Sea Town Commission to reopen an access road between the Anglins Pier parking lot and the Oriana By The Sea Condominium, which has been closed off by a fence.

But so far, the fence remains.

The Marchelos brothers want a safe way for merchants, employees and patrons to easily enter and exit the lot, which is difficult with only one entrance, they said, due to construction of a new pavilion about 6 feet from the lot’s entrance on Commercial Boulevard. Just past A1A on Commercial Boulevard traveling east, drivers can only travel in one direction to the lot’s entrance.

“Because of the pavilion construction, we are held hostage in the pier parking lot,” said Spiro Marchelos, who owns the parking lot and pier along with his brother. “I’m concerned the problem will intensify because of the season.”

Everett Sorensen, who built the pier and parking lot in 1963, said the lot’s entrance was originally on the north side, with the exit on the south, where the Oriana condo is now.

“[This issue] has really handicapped [the Marchelos brothers] and the pier,” Sorensen said.

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Following a Dec. 16 shooting that left 27-year-old Jason Exantus dead and two others injured, five Fort Lauderdale neighborhood associations have finally had enough.

Now the District II associations — including Poinsettia Heights, Middle River Terrace, Progresso Village, South Middle River and Lake Ridge — are organizing an outdoor crime meeting on Jan. 23 at the corner of Northwest 15th Street and Eighth Avenue, near the spot where the shooting occurred.

According to Sal Gatanio, chairman of the South Middle River Civic Association’s crime committee, he and former city commissioner Tim Smith pushed hard to have the meeting exactly where the murder took place.

“Crime and codes and code enforcement — or the lack of it — are all connected,” said Robert Alcock, president of the South Middle River Association. “I drive around my neighborhood and there is an atmosphere of neglect, and that’s unacceptable.”

Although the December shooting is still under investigation, according to Fort Lauderdale Police spokesman Sgt. Frank Sousa, effects of the killing still linger in the South Middle River neighborhood.

Middle River Terrace Neighborhood Association president Mark Hensel said he wants the meeting to be a show of force, a way for the neighborhoods to get the city’s attention.

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December was a bad month, at least for the Victoria Park neighborhood.

Seventeen vehicle burglaries in the area led Fort Lauderdale Police Officer Shane Calvey, speaking at a recent meeting of the Victoria Park Civic Association, to describe the last month of 2008 as a “rough” one for the neighborhood.

“There’s no pattern,” Hannold said. “There’s nothing specific [the thieves] are after.”

There were also five vehicle thefts, one armed robbery and two business burglaries in December. Calvey warned association members to make sure everything in their car is on the floor or locked in the trunk, even items as small as a lunch bag or a towel.

The neighborhood also experienced a small rise in crime in October, as officers reported 23 instances of either larceny, robbery or burglary in the neighborhood. Calvey urged residents to be vigilant.

“You know who lives in the neighborhood and who doesn’t, and if you see someone who doesn’t belong, call [the police],” he said.

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Irony can be wicked sometimes.

When Middle River neighborhood resident and former Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner Tim Smith stopped to help two drivers shortly after a car accident on Sunrise Boulevard last month, he hardly thought to lock up his bike before he dashed out into the road. Turns out, somebody ran off with his bike while he was helping the drivers.

After witnessing a rear-end collision less than 10 feet from where he was riding, Smith said he jumped off his bike and stepped into traffic.

Adding to the irony of the situation, during his time on the commission Smith helped lobby for a citywide bike registration program designed to help city police curb bike thefts.

“I only had the bike about a week,” he said. “It was a present from my wife.”

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If town commissioners in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea have their way, residents enjoying free parking have already had their fun.

Now it's time to pay.

Town officials are considering beginning a three-month trial period of paid parking beginning Feb. 1 to gauge the impact financially for both the town and area businesses. Bags that cover the parking meters will be removed, forcing patrons to pay to park. The commission however, must vote favorably on the issue at its two regular meetings this month.

“What we currently have doesn’t work ... we are losing $2,500 a week,” Commissioner Stuart Dodd said. “Unfortunately, free parking gets abused.”

The bagged meters have been the source of controversy in the town for some time, according to area businesses. Louis Marchelos, along with his brother, Spiro, own the Athena by the Sea restaurant and have had a lease with the town for nearly seven years, when the bags were first installed.

Marchelos told the town in December that he wanted to cancel the lease but officials cited a 30-day termination clause in his contract, which forces Marchelos to pay his monthly installment of $688 until Feb. 1, in time for the proposed three-month trial.

“It’s OK with me because I want peace in town, to make [it] a better place,” he said.

Commissioners do want to take small steps reintroducing the meters to residents and tourists. If all goes well, Dodd said he wants to replace the old meters and provide those that will also accept credit cards in addition to cash.

Town residents narrowly appear to be in favor of the bag removal, based on the results of a straw poll conducted on the topic.

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The massing of the bagpipe bands will begin at noon.

But this isn’t your ordinary demonstration. This will be part of the opening ceremony of the 26th annual Southeast Florida Scottish Festival & Highland Games from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, where about 10 bands will move into the center of Fort Lauderdale Stadium, 1301 NW 55th St., rending the air with the whir of drums and the skirl of more than 100 bagpipes.

Nigel MacDonald will be there in white shirt and green kilt with a red sash across his middle, leading the St. Andrews Pipe Band of Miami onto the grounds. Originally from Scotland, MacDonald is one of the founders of the sponsoring Scottish American Society of South Florida, which prepared the program for this year’s festival.

Last year’s festival attracted more than 100 guests, MacDonald said, and he expects even more this year.

“It’s colorful [and] entertaining,” he said. “Much of it is traditional, but lately there’s a tremendous amount of new music written. It’s more sprightly.”

The festival features food, music and games including caber tossing, the hammer throw and sheep herding competitions.

Wanna know more? Visit www.sassf.org.

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Now that all the holiday gifts have been unwrapped and stored away, there’s just one more thing to keep in mind: “Keep those boxes out of sight, you don’t want burglars to know what’s in your house.”

This tip and dozens of others were part of Fort Lauderdale’s post-holiday crime meeting organized in part with Citizens’ Crime Alert of Fort Lauderdale Inc., a group dedicated to combining the efforts of the city’s police and area residents. The meeting drew a crowd of less than a dozen residents.

Among the scores of helpful tips, Jackson urged residents to utilize home security systems, cautioned ATM users, and offered warning signs for pickpockets.

“You have to be aware of your surroundings at all times,” said Detective Nate Jackson of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department’s Crime Prevention Unit.

Citizens’ Crime Alert, which began in 1983, is entering its third decade now and still hosts monthly meetings around the city with guest police officers. Meetings typically take place the first Monday of each month at City Hall.

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