Audible crosswalk signals and accessible live performances are among the changes R. David New has pursued in Miami Beach. Blind after an AIDS diagnosis led to spinal meningitis and months in hospitals, New has made improving how people with disabilities navigate the city a focus of his advocacy.
New described the AIDS diagnosis, the spinal meningitis that followed, and the months in hospitals that cost him his sight, hearing and mobility in an account detailed by Miami's Community News. “When you're in it, when you're in the thick of it, you are just thinking about survival,” he said of that period. He also credited his family with helping him through it, describing his mother as a source of energy and his father as a steady support, according to the same account.
A Slow, Incomplete Recovery
New's hearing eventually returned, and through grueling physical therapy he relearned to walk. His blindness, however, remained permanent. His mother spent years urging him to put the experience into words, a nudge that eventually became the memoir he has just released, per the report.
After returning to South Beach, New contacted City Hall about the risks of crossing busy streets without being able to see oncoming traffic. That effort led him to join, and eventually chair, Miami Beach's Disability Access Committee, Miami's Community News reports. The city says the committee reviews and coordinates proposals and addresses public complaints to support accessible facilities, streets, sidewalks and programs, according to the City of Miami Beach.
Pushing the City to Listen Louder
New's advocacy helped bring audible pedestrian signals to Miami Beach, providing blind and low-vision residents with an audio cue at crossings. The city says it maintains and improves permanent accommodations, including curb ramps and audible pedestrian signals, according to the City of Miami Beach. Miami's Community News also reports that the city has held a disability awareness event where elected officials experienced navigating the city with a disability.
What the City's Signal Count Shows
Miami Beach’s 2023 ADA Transition Plan says the city’s Transportation Department and ADA Office had installed audible pedestrian signals at 52 intersections by requesting them through Miami-Dade County, according to the City of Miami Beach.
That figure documents installations reported by the 2023 plan; it does not, by itself, identify which other intersections remain unserved or set out a schedule for future installations.
New has also focused on access at performances. Through his nonprofit, Power Access, and the South Beach Jazz Festival he founded, he works to make live events more accessible to musicians and audiences, Miami's Community News reports. Miami & Miami Beach describes Power Access as a nonprofit that produces experiential events to raise awareness of challenges facing artists with disabilities. The organization launched the annual festival in 2016, with performances by musicians with disabilities staged across Miami Beach venues over three days, the site says.
Feeling the Music, Not Just Hearing It
At festival events, live audio descriptions convey what's happening onstage for people with visual impairments, per the Community News account. Power Access is also developing a program called Feel the Music, which would let people who are deaf or hard of hearing experience musical vibrations through a specially equipped box, the outlet reports. New's advice to event organizers, per the same account, is simple: ask people with disabilities what they actually need.
The concept echoes accessibility efforts elsewhere in live entertainment. At a Lincoln Center Silent Disco in July 2023, the organization Music: Not Impossible outfitted attendees with haptic suits built with Avnet engineers and 24 actuators, letting deaf and hard-of-hearing guests feel the music through vibration, according to NPR. That event also offered American Sign Language interpreters, captioned music, audio description, and a chill-out space, with 75 of the haptic suits available for attendees to borrow, NPR reported.
Miami Beach's own jazz festival has been building toward something similar. Its 2026 edition, marking ten years of the event, planned tactile and audio-described experiences for blind and low-vision audiences, according to Modern Luxury. The 11th annual South Beach Jazz Festival is now set for January 14 through 17, 2027, with events spread across the Faena Theater, The Bass, Miami Beach Bandshell and Lincoln Road, per the festival's own ticket listing. The Jazz for Tomorrow Student Stage is scheduled to return to Lincoln Road on January 16, running from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the festival is also offering a free virtual panel on accessibility in the arts, led by New, that addresses accessibility, inclusion and opportunities for people of all abilities to participate, according to the South Beach Jazz Festival.
From Survival Story to Self-Published Memoir
New's book, The Unthinkable: Turning Tragedy into Triumph, almost didn't make it to shelves in the form readers will see. After struggling to get a response from agents and publishers, New chose to publish the book himself, Miami's Community News reports. He has upcoming book talks scheduled, including one at Books & Books on November 30, where he is listed as discussing the memoir in an evening event in Coral Gables, according to Books & Books.
New has invited readers to visit his website to learn more about him, purchase the memoir, and register for the book talk, and he has pointed audiences to themiamibookhub.com for a fuller conversation and information about the Miami Book Hub, per the Community News report. For a man who once measured his days by survival alone, the memoir marks a different kind of milestone — one built on decades of pushing Miami Beach toward a city that works better for everyone.
