BY FABIOLA SANTIAGO

 Downtown Miami's graceful beacon is about to shine again.

 During its 77-year history, the Freedom Tower has housed a newspaper and a refugee processing center, held wedding parties and gala balls, and been a home to
 vagrants who spent the night and scribbled graffiti on its crumbling walls.

 Soon, the 19-story Mediterranean-style landmark at the heart of the Miami skyline will glimmer with a new identity, adding yet another chapter to its eclectic story line.

 After years of faded glory and neglect, the distinctive building is undergoing a $40 million transformation. It is scheduled to reopen May 20, 2002, on the centenary of Cuba's independence, as an interactive museum, research center and library chronicling the Cuban exile experience in South Florida.

 ``For Cuban exiles, the tower represents something similar to Ellis Island -- it's a symbol of freedom,'' said Jorge Mas Santos, chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation. ``We wanted to leave a permanent structure that would speak to our history and be a symbol for people fleeing a totalitarian regime. It is also a testament to the greatness of this country and its willingness to welcome us with open arms.''

 Next weekend, the public will get a peek at what lies ahead when the foundation lights the tower, throws a block party on Biscayne Boulevard, and hosts an open house to start the countdown.

 The museum, historical archives and exhibition spaces will showcase in a unique, central location the 42-year-old story of Miami's rise as the capital of Cuban exiles.

 ``When people come to town and want to experience Cuban culture, you take them to Versailles restaurant to have a medianoche and a cafecito, and then, what? We have to do a better job of telling our story, and the Elián González case showed we haven't been able to do that,'' foundation spokesman Joe García said as he led a recent tour of the tower in a white guayabera and blue jeans.

 Its architecture inspired by the Giralda Tower in Seville, Spain, the Freedom Tower was built in 1924 to house The Miami Daily News (formerly the Metropolis). But the building proved inadequate for a newspaper -- with delivery trucks having problems with traffic on busy Biscayne Boulevard.

 NEWSPAPER MOVES OUT

 Tower turns to refugees

 After the newspaper moved to more modern quarters in 1957, the tower was leased by the U.S. government and used as the Cuban Refugee Emergency Center from 1962 to 1974.

 ``Perhaps more than any other building, Miamians love this tower,'' said project architect Raúl Rodríguez. ``Some relate to its architectural style. . . . Others identify to its use as headquarters of The Miami News. Many remember it fondly as the U.S. Cuban refugee assistance center or El Refugio, as it came to be known. Everyone admires its silhouette on the Miami skyline.''

 About 450,000 Cuban refugees made their way through the tower.

 Most arrived on the freedom flights, a special airlift, and underwent immigration processing here. Many came back to collect monthly government assistance checks and food and clothing disbursements, while still others came to arrange resettlement to other states.

 ``You went there to get a coat and a one-way ticket out of Miami,'' Rodríguez said. ``People talk about getting the cheese and the peanut butter, and how they went there to have their teeth checked, but the main reason for the U.S. Cuban refugee assistance center to exist was to relocate Cubans who were coming in quantities impossible for Miami to absorb.

 ``It would be poetic justice that their story be told from that place, which is where they started their journey.''

 Ironically, the building so beloved and historic has stood empty for most of its life span.

 Refurbished in the late 1980s by a Saudi Arabian prince, but abandoned because the rooms were too small to attract tenants who required more modern space, the
 building had been vacant for years when the Mas family bought it in 1997 for $4.2 million, two months before the death of foundation founder Jorge Mas Canosa.

 Now the tower, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, is undergoing a complete restoration. The Mas family has committed $20 million to the project, but the total cost of restoration and of establishing a fully operational museum is expected to reach $40 million, García said.

 Next weekend's activities are designed to raise funds for the next two phases of the project. The foundation is tapping well-to-do Cuban Americans with a $500-a-person, invitation-only fundraising party Saturday at Gloria and Emilio Estefan's Bongos Cuban Cafe. The sponsors also hope to inspire thousands of exiles to send donations with Saturday's public celebration.

 ``We need people to buy into this,'' García said. ``If this is just a Mas family thing or just an old Cuban exiles thing, or a foundation thing, people won't buy into it.''
 
NEW STRUCTURAL WORK

 $4.5 million spent so far

 The structural phase of the reconstruction, which began in January 2000, has already cost $4.5 million, said José G. Puig, an engineer and a director of the Cuban
 American National Foundation, who is donating his services as project director.

 The previous renovation in the 1980s amounted to only a superficial face-lift, Puig said.

 ``All they did was cover up the bad and make it look pretty, but it did nothing to preserve this historic jewel,'' he said.

 The structural work includes bringing the building up to modern codes, reconstructing and reinforcing beams and columns, and restoring key areas in a way that
 addresses potential problems in the future.

 The stunning rosette pattern on the ceiling of the lobby, for example, has been restored by hand by specialists Norma Reboredo and Arthur Kellogg in a material that gives the plaster a rich wood look, but is reversible and can be removed with a solvent to tackle a leak or crack in the roof.

 The next phase, scheduled to be completed in November, will tackle elevators, air-conditioning units, safety systems, and small details such as restoring the building's
 original antique brass elevator floor markers. The last phase will be the installation of exhibits.

 Other highlights:

   A parking lot behind the tower will be turned into The Freedom Plaza, lushly landscaped grounds with a ceiba tree at its center. The ceiba, also called a kapok, is
 considered a sacred tree in Cuba.

 ``We're going to get a lot of Santería dumped off there, and that'll be nice, too,'' García quipped, referring to the practice of leaving offerings to Santería deities under ceiba trees.

 Six Cuban royal palms to be planted on each of the four walkways leading to the tower will represent the six provinces in pre-Castro Cuba. The Freedom Plaza will be similar in design to Havana's Parque de la Confraternidad, dedicated in 1928 to American fellowship.

   A mammoth mural depicting the founding of Florida is being restored and will be part of the main exhibition space. The mural shows ancient Old and New World maps, Spanish galleons, conquistadors and American Indians.

 ``It's important to note the link between Cuba and Florida that dates back to the indigenous population,'' García said.

 The museum will include ``state-of-the-art'' interactive components, and an area specially designed for children. A national search will be conducted for a curator later this year, but foundation officials already have been working closely with librarians from the University of Miami's Cuban Heritage Collection.

 NEW LOOK FOR SPACES

 Office re-creation is planned

   A large area where The Miami News' presses used to be will be turned into ``one of the largest gallery spaces in town,'' García said.

   The Cox Room will re-create the office of newspaper tycoon and politician James Cox, who owned The Miami News, as it was when he occupied the building in 1925. Even the Ohio governor's ``fake'' cast-stone fireplace -- the building had no chimney and the smoke had no way out -- has been unearthed and restored.

   A stately conference room, elegantly paneled in rich woods and equipped with the latest audio-visual systems, will accommodate special events, such as visits by
 heads of government, film showings and exhibits.

   Despite concerns that the Cuban American National Foundation would turn the Freedom Tower into a museum dedicated to Mas Canosa's memory and to the
 foundation, the Cuban exile leader will get just one room dedicated to his life and work on behalf of democracy in Cuba, project coordinators said.
 
HOMAGE TO MAS CANOSA

Historic objects will be displayed

 Mas Canosa's favorite room in the tower, a 14th-floor office with a balcony looking out on the bay and the Port of Miami-Dade, will be turned into a replica of his office at MasTec, the cable and fiber optics installation company he founded.

 The room will be filled with photos of the Cuban exile leader, who died of cancer, and the world leaders he sought to win over to the cause of a democratic Cuba. Objects of special historical significance will be displayed -- such as the pen with which President Clinton signed the Cuban Democracy Act, and a stunning sculpture of a sinking tugboat, made by Sergio Perodín, whose family died when Cuban gunboats sank the tugboat loaded with Cubans trying to flee the island.

 ``When we were looking at the tower, my father saw this room and said, `This is where I want my office,' '' Mas Santos said.

 The foundation's offices also will move to the tower.

   The research center will house historical documents and databases on Miamians throughout the city's history -- from turn-of-the-century pioneers to Cuban exiles. The names of all the refugees who were processed at the tower will be digitalized as genealogical research tools so that future generations can investigate their Cuban roots.

 ``We are thinking 50, 100 years ahead,'' Mas Santos said.

   ``La azotea,'' a rooftop courtyard with a stunning view of Miami's skyline, will be tiled, Spanish-style, and used to hold fundraising events for the museum. Directly
 across the boulevard from it is the mammoth wall of the AmericanAirlines Arena, which will make ``a great surface from which to show movies,'' García said.

 Mas Santos, who accompanied his father on visits to the Freedom Tower when the family was planning the building's purchase, says he wants the museum to have a
 lasting impact on its visitors.

 ``I don't want to make comparisons because these are totally different issues,'' Mas Santos said, ``but I want people to leave the Cuban museum with the same feeling of empathy that I felt when I visited the Holocaust Museum and the Museum of Tolerance.''

 Howard Kleinberg, a former Miami News editor who writes about the city's history and has helped Rodríguez gather photographs of the building's early years, says the project can serve to merge separate histories into ``one Miami.''

 ``That building represents the great span of Miami's history in that it's beloved not only by the exiles who came through, but also by old Miamians who remember it as the paramount building in Miami,'' Kleinberg said. ``It's a great bridge of the two Miamis.''

                                    © 2001