There is something very fetching about the fact that the city of Key West hires sign writers who can't spell. I always get a grin out of
Galvaston Lane, and
Carsten is in the singular at one end and in the genitive (or plural for all I know) at the other end of its lane. Schippens Lane is to be found off Fleming Street near Margaret and even though city sign writers disagree with me over the placement of the vowels I'm pretty sure the sign has it wrong:
And on the subject of signs there is this, which hardly seems necessary considering the width of this particular lane.
However...
It wasn't really parked as the owner was doing clean up work and the truck was actually just waiting, or standing or something. Schippens is tiny and ends ignominiously in a gate and a dead end:
Ignominiously I say because I wanted more, some mysterious curves or corners, an extension of the half block of canyon land that is Schippens:
That last is I think the backside (so to speak) of the Island House for Men, a raucous place by reputation whose entrance I have never sullied being as I am rather uninterested in the goings on among more or less clad men of my gender. On the other hand Schippens was quiet and peaceful that afternoon as a tiny Key West alley should be.
Schippens (or Scheppins for those more pedantic than myself) is short straight and mysterious for all that. It offers glimpses through the trees and around the corners of the massive buildings that dominate it:
I look for signs of Art or something offbeat when I take photos in these lanes but in this case I was pretty much stymied. This was the best I could do. A tropical egg on a knife edge (and I didn't pose it):
So by way of compensation I have appended two views of Fleming Street, outside the lane, one looking east towards Margaret Street:
And the old sponge warehouse on the left which merits a photo of its own. And to the west, towards the setting sun and the library:
Key West really is quite lovely and these daylight hours foreshortened by winter give us an opportunity to enjoy the effects of the lowering sun on it all.
4 comments:
Frost on my vehicle yet again this morning - damn I could use some warm up time in Key West. Yes, I have another job starting on the
15th.
You know, Conch, I hope you never get so jaded that you quit looking at your world with fresh eyes. I seldom comment but really enjoy the trips with you!
If I remember correctly, I believe Pepe's on Caroline uses the Galvaston version of Galveston. Maybe they got it from the street sign or maybe the street sign got it from them or maybe they include it on their menu as a quaint misspelling from one of their ealier menus from 80 years past.
I'm a geography nerd amongst all the other crosses I bear. I can't tell a lobster claw from a gladiolus or a scarf from an ascot but I know where the Kerguelen Islands are and who governs them. And Galvaston Lane was probably a street in Atlantis cause it ain't in Texas...It's a curse, probably caused by my lonely escapist childhood. I hope the sign writers forgive me.
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