Miami: Vice Paradise

Miami, Florida, 1962. The sun beats down like a sweaty fist, baking the pastel facades of the Art Deco hotels along Ocean Drive. Neon signs, relics of a brighter past, flicker against the relentless glare, promising paradise but instead deliver something far more sinister. Organized crime from the old-guard Italian mafia & the rising new blood of Cuban gangs, corruption within the city council & police, & narcotics being a major issue for what’s supposed to be the tropical getaway for America.

⬇️ Lore Below: ⬇️

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Miami, Florida, 1962. The sun beats down like a sweaty fist, baking the pastel facades of the Art Deco hotels along Ocean Drive. Neon signs, relics of a brighter past, flicker against the relentless glare, promising paradise but instead deliver something far more sinister. The air, thick with the scent of salt, exhaust fumes, and cheap perfume, hangs heavy over the city, a humid shroud concealing its rot.

The postcard images – palm trees swaying against turquoise or purple-yellow-orange tricolores skies, sun-kissed beaches teeming with tourists in flower shirts and bikinis – was a carefully crafted illusion. Beneath the veneer of glamour, Miami was a pressure cooker, simmering with corruption, narcotics, and the ever-present threat of violence. The remnants of Streamline Moderne architecture, once symbols of optimism, now stood as hollow monuments to a bygone era, their sleek curves unable to mask the decay creeping in from within.

For decades, the Italian mafia had owned this town since the bygone days of Prohibition. Their influence, woven into the fabric of the city’s underbelly, was as deeply entrenched as the roots of the banyan trees lining Biscayne Boulevard. They run the rackets, control the flow of illicit goods, and grease the palms of payrolled cops and politicians alike. Their reign was unchallenged, their power absolute.

But the winds of change were suddenly blowing in from the south, and hard. Castro’s revolution in 1959 had sent a tidal wave of Cuban refugees crashing onto Miami’s shores. They huddled in what’s now Little Havana, clinging to the remnants of their former lives, speaking in rapid-fire Spanish, and drinking strong, sweet coffee or Caribbean rum. At first, they were just another struggling immigrant community, trying to grab a slice of the American Dream pie.

Then, things started to shift. The desperation of exile, the lures of easy money, power, and respect; the resentment towards marginalization, and the inherent organizational skills honed in the fight against the old dictator Batista began to coalesce. Small-time gambling dens and numbers rackets bloomed in Little Havana, controlled by men with hard eyes and harder hearts. The Cubans are learning the game, and they’re learning it fast. They are no longer content to stay within their own borders. They were expanding, pushing outward, encroaching on territory the Italians had long considered their own. The old bloods were being challenged by rising new bloods.

The whispers then begin to circulate; rumors of turf wars, back-alley brawls, and sudden disappearances. The old order was crumbling. The established hierarchy of the underworld that the mafia resided in comfortably was being challenged. Miami, once a playground for sun-seekers and gangsters alike, was becoming a battleground; a tropical noir where the stakes are high, the nights are long, and the only certainty that someone is going to get burned, and it won’t be from the sun. The neon glow couldn’t hide the darkness anymore. It only illuminated it even further.