A large concrete structure at the corner of Grinnell and James Streets does not seem like a very good subject at first glance for a blog essay but there is more to the Park and Ride than meets the eye. Parking in Key west is a nightmare for much of the year. In winter it gets desperate and in summer it gets better, but the issue of where to leave your cage is always on the mind of residents. Not for nothing I have noted previously that OSP is a valuable asset for home buyers to consider. Off Street Parking has become a premium item owing to the mad need for bigger homes and garage conversions that swept the city. Not everyone can bring themselves to ride motorcycles and the city has set aside some precious few scraps of land for parking. The Park and Ride is the big bad daddy of them all.
It is in many respects a conventional operation: drive in, collect ticket as you go, park and leave. Pay for parking on return, pick up car and drive out. $2 per hour, $13 a day, with a $100 per month option. Storing cars in the Park and Ride is strictly prohibited:
And the multi storey building is prime ground for parking when a hurricane threatens. Especially after Wilma drowned 10,000 cars in 2005. Some people park their classics here to collect dust:
The Park and Ride also offers that most Floridian commodity, shade:
If it occurs to you that this open cement area might be ideal for skateboarding you might be surprised to learn others have already thought of this and police officers take it upon themselves to patrol the parking garage at odd hours to keep it nuisance free. However the steps make an excellent spot to pass some time of a sunny July afternoon:
This philosopher surprised me by A) drinking tea not beer on the stairs and B) bemoaning his ex-wife and not asking me for money as I carried my camera to the top floor.
After I checked out the Fly Navy building (Bachelor Officers Quarters is the Navy's proper name for the building with the words
Fly Navy! painted on the side) I noted someone had been rhapsodising on the garage walls:
Indeed you get quite the view from the third floor of the Park and Ride. Across the leafy streets of the city, towards Strunk Hardware:
At the entrance to the Coastguard Base at Trumbo Point:
At the luxury Steam Plant condos and the low income Railroad Condos in the foreground:
At Wisteria (Christmas Tree) Island in the background, with the Fort Myers ferry wending its way out of the Key West harbor:
And the Key West Bight laid out higgeldy piggeldy before me, a mass of masts and boats and water:
I was almost but not quite alone at the top, admiring the views:
It couldn't have been a brighter summer afternoon, but apparently not bright enough for the city to dim its parking lights, in these times of expensive energy:
The late afternoon sun, not the electric lights, gave my shadow a peculiar profile. I look as though I am dressed in sackcloth of a particularly bad fit:
I read in Joy Williams' excellent guide to the Florida Keys that there was a time people got married up here and I think I found the ideal location:
And this is where we broach that other particular secret. If you don't want to get married or go skateboarding you can still climb up here and have a sunset picnic, all to yourself most likely, and watch the famous Key West sunset from an almost unknown spot. Or you can mingle with the plebs at Mallory Square, but now you know you have a choice. Also we discover here the reason for the Park and Ride's peculiar name:
For the cost of a ticket you get to ride around town all day on the city buses. Cool deal indeed with your car safely in the shade. If you ride a two wheeler you don't need the Park and Ride; mine was in a free spot on James Street:
And as usual aircraft fly low overhead, especially low if you are on the top floor,
as they make their way to land at the airport across town. Downstairs being local has its privileges as the lower floor is currently reserved for Keys Energy employees whose headquarters is across the street:
Even though the Park and Ride doesn't solve Key West's parking issues it is a useful building. And if like me you are easily amused you can spend a happy hour here pootling around and enjoying the views...simple things for simple minds.
3 comments:
Isn't that a Simca Aronde? The photo underneath collect dust.
French cars. And French women. Adolescent dreams.
I love the way French women have to pout when they pronounce French vowels.
Sorry. Private fantasy.
Can you park up on the higher levels during storms, or do the authorities take control of them to avoid floods?
Charlie Whitten
I knew it was French and attributed it in my midn to Renault but Simca could well be right. what it's doing dumped in the key West Park and Ride is beyond guessing. On the subject of French pouting I surprised my two young Latino colleagues the other night by assisting a lost French tourist in his native tongue. Their drooling made me very uncomfortable as they mouthed at each in franglais. Personally I prefer French caribbean pouting- ooh, what a giveaway.
And yes the fair city of key west snags a number of spots for taxpayer owned cars during the onset of a storm. The cab companies line southard street with theirs- my wife evacuates hers.I wrap the motorcycle in tarps and towels and tie it up under the house. One does what one can.
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