Upper Duval is the bastard stepchild of Key West's most famous street, it's the part of the main drag that gets least exposure and sees less tourist traffic and is, at the same time the most attractive part of Duval. It is eminently walkable and even though it is less treed than the middle portion it has it's own attractions.
Art galleries by the dozen,
and they tend to come and go in these difficult times. They were offering all sorts of sales as I walked by at closing time:
Call it a sign of the times but this realty office was closed and a hand written sign in the door offered body painting services instead. For Fantasy fest only, I assume, though probably body painting pays better than real estate these days:
Some shops seem recession-proof, including my favorite ice cream store, Flamingo Crossing:
Personally I prefer ice cream to publicly traded sex acts but of you feel the need, the Scrub Club, renamed with the more delicate title of Adult Entertainment, seems recession proof:
I think it costs a hundred and fifty dollars to get in the door, and another six hundred to hang out with a naked Eastern European woman. The terms are a little vague, owing to the illegality of blatant prostitution, thus from time to time people call up to complain about getting shorted by the club, and other times frustrated gentlemen callers get angry and police are needed at the club to keep everyone calm. I can think of better ways to spend six hundred bucks, incinerating them on the stock market comes to mind, but some people really do think paid sex is glamorous and not sordid. Weird. Even weirder are the laws that make it illegal to pay for sex. I don't know why anyone cares. Fortunately it's not up to me to make sense of all this convoluted nonsense, and ice cream is still legal though always sinful. And if you don't have naked ladies to peddle, or excellent ice cream, you could very well go out of business like this storefront:
And all that's left of the venerable Valladares is the sign:
And businesses that are continuing to operate can find their buildings sold out from under them:
That last one, the Coffee and Tea House used to be across the street here:
And this move was all part of an elaborate game of musical chairs because the building currently occupied by the coffee and tea place used to be where the Banana Cafe used to be. The Banana Cafe moved to the building where Camile's Italian restaurant used to be, until they got turfed out abruptly by a rent hike. The building languished empty for a while and now has a new paint job and the French restaurant has established itself there:
For some reason I can't fathom that end of Duval that is furthest south is known as Upper Duval, perhaps because the street numbers are highest here, culminating in 1499 at the beach. In any event Upper Duval tenants have complained in the past that their end of the street got less attention and less tourist traffic, especially from cruise ships which dock closer to Lower Duval. It seems lively enough to me but I just tend to pass through this area. There are tourists enraptured by chickens, of course...
or each other...
or the need to rest their aching feet...
...from walking so far down Key West's main drag:
Businesses come and go like I say, but bits of Upper Duval have been around for a while:
And of course there are new entertainments to check out, this one in place of the old Alice's Restaurant:
Alice herself I'm told, may be going to cook at La Te Da:
Which I doubt will be inducement enough for me. I am not really flamboyant enough for La Terraza de Marti, and there's another art form I've never figured out, that of cross dressing. Plus I've never really understood why people throw beads at Carnival or Fantasy Fest, beads which end up everywhere, even on the "ignored" end of Duval:
Oh and while we're at it, lets not forget that other feeble excuse for a holiday extravaganza, All Hallows Eve.
Did I ever mention how annoying it is to have been born on the one day in the year when everyone feels it incumbent upon themselves to dress up in a stupid costume? The older I get the more crotchety I become.
10 comments:
Men holding hands! They do that here. Or walk arm in arm. And all the English get the wrong idea.
Except that here you should get the wrong idea; the love that only occasionally even in Key West dare speak it's name on public streets.You don't see men holding hands near as much as you'd think.
Sad. I liked Alice's restaurant (actually enjoyed taking my grandmother there), but didn't she do that once before (close it at that location and go to cook for the La Te Da) and then reopened?
Maybe upper Duval will see it again.
Could it be upper Duval because of a higher elevation?
I'll bet it became known as "Upper Duval" for the same reason the "Upper Nile" and "Upper Egypt" are south of the Lower Nile/Lower Egypt. The Nile flows north, and I guess people flow north "down" Duval when they get there....
Or perhaps Upper and Lower represent relative moral standards? Snark.
Happy Birthday Eve, Conchskooter! Perhaps you could dress down for the occasion since everyone else will be "dressing up" in weird costumes? Birthday suits are still in fashion, especially in the Keys. ;)
For as long as I've known, Upper Duval has been known as the gay part of time and I don't mean happier than lower Duval. Perhaps the reason more tourists don't go up there is because they're not gonna find a heterosexual hook-up for the night. And then there's that old joke, what do you do when you drop your wallet on Upper Duval? Answer: Kick it down to Duval and Fleming!
Is it still gay though? The Atlantic shores I heard was being converted to condos. No more "unsh unsh unsh unsh unsh" with a disco ball twirling.
As much as gay people from Topeka, IA moved to KW to be in a "gay culture" 25 years ago, I think they just stay in Topeka these days. Why? They don't have to move.
IMHO, they go to Key West the same reason any other tourist goes these days (the reasons are as varied as people).
I don't know about you all, but we have been invaded. The "Q-tips" (older people's hair that is white looks like a Q-tip when driving behind them) and the leaves... I mean license plates are changing color. Local eateries are happy about it.
The condos at Atlantic Shores are there but not yet open. I think there's a lot of truth to the Topeka thing. Gay friends told me a while back that Fort Lauderdale is the much more hip place to gay and be seen, as it were. Key West is the left overs...Give it a generation and people will be wondering what the fuss about being gay was. I hope. The Police Chief is gay, the Mayor is a devout Christian the Schools' Superintendent is a (computer)scientist, but they are all Conchs so they get along just fine.
So, where is the Banana Cafe now? It was on the NE corner of Duval and Louisa.
We always make at least one stop into the New French Cruelty for breakfast.
Go to the old location and mourn a moment as I did, change comes hard especially as the bar stools are now gone. Then turn right and walk a block south and there it is all yellow and green and with outdoor seating upstairs.
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