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1669-25 Social, Society,& Local News 1946-1993 o-1 RANK 1 OF i . PAGE 1. OF 9, DB H85 THU JAN 24 1985 ED: FINAL_ SECTION: NEIGHBORS MB PAGE: 10 LENGTH: 00. 00" SHORT ILLUST: photo: Edward Copeland , Ana Acosta Ayon , Helen Owen with committee, Abe Resnick MIAMI BEACH GARDEN CENTER) ; • color- photo: orchid (MIAMI BEACH GARDE:N CENTER) SOURCE: CRAIG GILBERT Herald Staff Writer DATELINE: MEMO: COVER STORY CENTER OF CONTROVERSY Outside, on the Garden Center grounds, survivors of the Nazi death camps held their first gathering at the site of Miami Beach ' s future Holocaust memorial . Inside, the women of the Garden Center gathered uneasily around a table. Board President Helene Owen was making every effort to soothe them. "Ladies, the Holocaust is where it ' s going to be, away from us, in the back. Let ' s get on with what ' s important to us. And what 's important to us, " she reminded them, "is the flower show. . . . " It has been an unpleasant interlude for the :ladies of the Garden Center. First the center ' s lona-awaited expansion was modified RANK 1 OF 1 , PAGE 2 OF 9. DB H85 to make room for a Holocaust memorial . Then they protested the change and people called them Nazis. "This hasn 't been a happy year for us, " Owen said last Thursday as the Garden Center Conservatory Committee held its monthly meeting at the center , 2000 Convention Center Dr. As they met that morning , the 15 committee women were uncomfortably aware of the other gathering at the Garden Center that day, in memory of Raoul Wallenberg , the Swedish envoy who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from the death camps. It was the first ceremony at the center since the city last month designated it the site of a memorial to Holocaust victims. The whole Holocaust episode was a rude shock , a -first-time- ever trst-•time- ever slap to the garden club women . now in their 50s., bis and 70s, women accustomed to getting a good deal more respect . Now other voices speak 1.ouder than theirs. Times have changed. The Garden Center isn ' t what it used to be. Evelyn*Frink ,*widow of former Beach Mayor*Herbert*Frink*and founding chairwoman of the center , remembers what it was like i.n the beginning. In 1959, the Beach 's four rnai.n ciarden clubs --'-- Miami. Beach , Tropical , Mount Si nai and Palm-Hibiscus-Star Islands ---' got RANK 1 OF 1 , PAGE ._. OF 9 , DB H85 together to lobby the city for a botanical garden and meeting . place. *Frink*remembers going to city officials with the idea of "not just a garden center , but an outstanding tourist attraction. " Beach residents would be voting on more than a dozen bond issues, and a special council meeting was called to add the garden clubs ' $150,000 proposal to the lot. "They were wonderful to us, "*Frink*said of the city fathers. "They put us on (the ballot) . We went out and mounted a campaign. We had every minister , rabbi , school principal , bank president --- everybody -- and sold them on the i.dea . . . it was a wonderful thing that a group of women did. " And not just any group of women. "They were club women , i social and philanthropic , " said Mary Anna Dempsey, president of Tropical. . " It was always elegant. " Miami Beach was the oldest club , Mount Sinai the Jewish club. Palm-Hibiscus-Star dissolved a few years ado for lack of membership . Age and the era of the workino woman have tended to cut the rolls in each club , whose memberships now range from 45 to 80. Club members meet once a month for luncheons and educational RANK 1 OF 1 , PAGE 4 OF 9, DB H85 programs. The center puts on an annual flower show of plants and flower arrangements, set this year for March 8-10. "Garden club people, they are a different breed , honey, " *Frink*said. "They 're talented , they 're sharing , they 're wonderful . They 're the cream. " She clarified: " I don 't mean they ' re better than anybody else. " The Garden Center was dedicated in 1962. Under t:he thumb of former Parks Department head John Poulos, it grew into a postcard attraction , its greenhouse filled with bril ]. ianttrop:ical plants. "You had flowers in bloom. Most of the place was cleaner than it is now, " recalled Gil. Bougher , parks supervisor now incharge of the center. "We had things for people to see. We had the plants labeled in the conservatory. Now most of the labels are gone. " As are the orchids. The orchids used to be the pride of the Garden Center , a major attraction until a half-dozen years ago when reduced Staff in the city 's nursery led to neglect and neglect led to disease. "They 're still dying off , " Bougher said. "We didn 't have anybody taking care of them in the nursery RANK 1 OF 1 . PAGE 5 OF 9. DB H85 , there and they got diseased and we had to throw them away. They had black rot. ,' " It used to be absolutely magnificent , " Owen said. "And now people come to see it and they say 'Our backyards look better than this. ' " The Garden Center today is neat enough , green enough , but altogether unspectacular. The main building houses a gift shop , conference room and auditorium. Across a small courtyard stands the greenhouse, bisected by a single curving walkway. The rest of the lightly 1 andscaped grounds -- between Conventi on Center Drive and Meridian Avenue along Collins Canal -- will be developed into a patio, gardens, ponds and the memorial . Barring conventions next door , club functions and special events like the flower show, hardly anybody goes there. When he can , Bougher likes to eat his bologna sandwich under the big -Ficus tree near the canal . " It ' s a shame we don 't have more people coming through, " he said. "You can almost fall asleep here. " _ '_`� ---_- ~�'~`_ _ The Barden Center was a victim of - budget cufbacks. Along ' with the rest of the city 's parks program, it wasn 't a priority. Ronald Rumbaugh , director of Parks and Recreation ,said he had 155 men in 1973. Now he has 84. In 1979, a $250 000 bond ' RANK 1 OF 1 , PAGE 6 OF 9, DB H85 issue was passed for expansion of the center , to include a Japanese Garden , a patio, improvements to the greenhouse~ a network of gardens and ponds with waterfalls and bridges. But work has been slow. Nearly $150,000 has been spent , but mostly on repairs to the buildings. A house on the westernend of the property was a longtime obstacle to expansion. When the city arranged to buy it last year , it seemed to finally clear the way for the Garden Center ' s long promised rebirth. That is when Abe Resnick , a Beach developer who lost hisfamily in the concentration camps, came to the city with plans for a memorial . He wanted to put it in the Garden Center. "There are 20-25,000 survivors in this region. We felt this is the right place to put up a monument to represent all of Florida, " Resnick said. Placing it in the Garden Center would satisfy his two basic requirements: that the memorial be beautiful and accessible. "We analyzed some other sites, " he said. "But why should we settle for something secondary?" In response to the women ' s protests, Resnick pared down his plans so the project would take up about 15 percent of the six- acre site, an area where a pond with a water cascade and wooden deck was to go. In the latest design , the memorial would cost RANK 1 OF 1 , PAGE 7 OF 9, DB H85 $2 million , and feature an eternal flame. But Resnick says that may change. In two loud , emotional meetings packed with survivors bused in by Resnick , the Planning Board and City Commission unanimously approved the memorial . It was no contest. " I 'm Jewish and they were calling me Nazi , " said Owen , who spoke up in protest . The women 's attitude about the memorial , she said , "has nothing to do with religion. " As for their opponents, " I really can 't fault them. This is the way these people feel . It 's just they superimposed on our plans, " Owen said. " I just hope that it 's not a thing that ' s going to really wring your heart , because it 's going to be in a park that is A thing of beauty. " Owen is now conciliatory. Before the Wallenberg ceremony Thursday she walked up to Resnick and greeted him. But many of the women at Thursday 's meeting were still bitter. Some feel the center will ^ slowly be taken away from them. "Tell them we 're being raped , " snapped Helen Dean , past president of the committee. "Helen, it 's a new day, " Owen said diplomatically. " It 's not a new day. " Dean said. RANK 1 OF 1 , PAGE 8 OF 9, DB H85 Later she added she would never never be reconciled to the memorial : "The Garden Center is not the place for it . Our place is a happy place. " Resnick said he doesn 't want to take over the center , just add to it. He said the memorial will do something the garden clubs can ' t -- draw people regularly to the site' | "You come inside and you don 't see anything ' " he said. "These ladies have actually isolated themselves. They 're very much concerned that anything should happen to their baby. "They started a war because they didn 't understand , they still don ' t understand , what happened here. This community has changed in the last 30 or 40 years. When they started off it was a different city, the city had different plans, it had a different leadership , " said Resnick , who expects to start building the memorial within a year. "We don 't want to fight. We 're going to listen to their ideas, they should be a part of us. " Owen is unhappy, but willing to talk. "This is the first time the city has ever done this -- given something only for it to be taken away, " she said. "No way" would it have happened 20 years ago. "Times change, " Owen said. "That 's what I say to myself , RANK 1 OF 1 , PAGE 9 OF 9, DB H85 let 's face it , you 're another generation. These people are doing what they want to do. " ADDED TERMS: