So I was standing on Collins Avenue waiting for the 120 Bus, kicking the white stuff between my toes. No, not snow.

This bus stop was on the popular Beach Max route that runs all the way up Miami Beach to Surfside and then Aventura. I was waiting at the bus stop in Sunny Isles town, watching the construction on the other side of the street.

Notice the non-rectilinear sculptural form of the building. The undulating balconies and walls. The bright blue glass. Exciting for rubes from Ottawa.

At first I thought some of the glass panels were not windows, just cladding, but as I studied the building it looked more and more as if these were all-glass walls. Haulover Beach is right on the other side of the building, and the “Indian River” intercoastal waterway behind me. The sun is high in the sky at this lattitude, so the protruding concrete ledges will act as brise soleils.

The top floors of the building, under construction, had a curious scaffolding on it. At first I thought maybe it was to break the wind, so the workers didn’t sail away.

Then I thought it might be to keep the Turkey Vultures, seen roosting at the top, from stealing the workers.

This building is condos, so here’s the web site if you want to peek, complete with a nifty movie and soundtrack:   http://theresidencessunnyislesbeach.com/

The new building had a very similar sculptural shape to the adjacent three towers, also right on the beach. It made me wonder if the developer had licensed the Ritz-Carlton name for variety or if he was tired of the adjacent ones:

Yup, the Turkey-eye view above, courtesy of Google, is of Trump Towers 1,2,3. The Ritz is going up where the shovel is on the left. In their movie, they airbrushed those three towers right out of existence. Mind, they show no one on the beach next door either.

Perhaps because the beach to the left  is …

Ahh Winter. We gotta love it. The warmth on our bare skin of our … Arctic parkas.