Tell a friend you're moving to Florida and almost invariably they wonder why. Granted its snow-free, but isn't it humid and flat and boring? By implication life in Florida is geared to old folks gumming their grits in the sunset of their arthritic existence . Old stereotypes survive long past their due date, and while its true this is the "Sunshine State" for a reason its not a place just for older people to retire to anymore. St Petersburg used to be "God's waiting room" with all its old green benches lined with old folks perched like pigeons waiting to die. The benches are gone and the population is a lot younger than it used to be. Lots of people have discovered the benefits of a snow-free life. 
Southard Street, on Sunday in Key West, the road is empty fading into Duval Street in the end... and it looks just endless doesn't it? I swear this town plays tricks with one's perceptions. Many residents hate getting off The Rock, as they call it and dread making a car trip even ten miles North. That far? they say...Fully one third of the 25,000 residents don't have cars and rely on their feet bicycles and scooters to get around. Try planning their evacuation in a hurricane threat! The City rounds up lots of buses...For those that know, Key West is a different corner of Florida and frankly its the only corner I want to live in. Fort Myers didn't work for me and St Petersburg didn't either though its my second choice, a beach town with all the amenities and a few attempts at cosmopolitan living. Tampa, the old industrial city was not my scene and the East Coast of Florida is one long strip mall and they look at me funny when i wander within range. I don't fit in well among the fashion conscious. Any further north and the sunshine State freeezes every winter which is a total drag. So here I am, trapped on my little finger of islands poking out into the ocean, frost free and surrounded by fruits flakes and weirdos. Let's face it, there are some determinedly odd people on The Rock, not your outdated Florida stereotypes at all. This is a retired banker, Key West style:
The yellow spot on his head is a live parakeet ( I don't know why) and those are his bare feet, not flesh colored motorcycle boots. Aside from the determined efforts of some to be weird, Key West enjoys a layout designed by accident in the 1820's and maintained by the general lack of room to sprawl. Much of the architecture that is prized today would have been torn down in the 1960's had there been the money but by the time gay men infiltrated Key West (a busy Navy port) and started spending money, the old wooden houses were ripe for saving. And here they are, formerly Florida's wealthiest city, then a gay mecca, and now a resort town transforming itself into an enclave of wealth.
This is an eyebrow house so called because the upstairs windows are tucked under the extended eaves. The design failed to allow for hot air rising and the windows trapped the heat instead of dispersing it. Eyebrows are cute but not useful ( thank heavens for air conditioning!). Eyebrows are an archtectural curiosity nd well represented on our streets, preserved by an accident of time. 
This house shades its occupants with Bahama shutters that open outwards from the bottom. They are traditional but don't let in much light. Here's the ever popular bungalow style, one I am familiar with from my many years living in Santa Cruz, California where sitting on the porch would get you pneumonia in the fog and damp:
Key West's green and leafy streets are littered with alleys and lanes with sorts of eccentric names, Gruntbone, Free School, Love, Nassau and this one which isn't at all eccentric but Canfield was the name of the wealthiest family in Santa Cruz (Larry "Charles" Canfield owns the Boardwalk, a national landmark) and here is that same name recorded for posterity 3300 miles away in Key West. I smile when I pass by, a private joke; me thinking of santa cruz and enjoying my fog-free life in Key West.
The city's cemetery is right in the middle of town, to avoid bodies washing up on the beaches as they used to after hurricanes, when they were planted on the south side of the island. In the 19th century the cemetery was on the edges of town and the rest of the island was dedicated to farming. And very beautiful the cemetery is too, especially because it's hard to dig into rock so people get above ground resting places and as the living will have it, they get fancy plots to "live" in:
Of course the dead are neatly segregated as was the way, Jews here, Catholics there, here Cubans, there others, and the rich get mausoleums but the poor, who we are told shall be first in the next life, get boxes. And alongside the cemetery another flowery street this one named for Angela (whoever she was) and a local using the favored form of locomotion. He looks a bit wobbly but public drunkeness is a state of mind, he was actually walking uncharacteristically fast, as though on a mission.
Vegetation is an important part of Key West living no doubt because it grows so abundantly in a frost free environment:
Porch living is important in that frost free environment for people too and Key Westers like to enjoy indoor-outdoor living in a town that encourages walking and cycling and chatting with one's neighbors:
Not the sort of behavior encouraged in Boca Raton or other malled cities of Florida. Some porches are deliberately more weird than others. Some residents like to commune with gumball machines, and please don't ask why. "Why?" is not a polite question in Key West.
It is enough that it is, and it, Key West, is flourishing between hurricanes that tend to strip the plants of their foliage and the city of its greenery. Between stormy summers plants grow and we forget the nudity of summers stripped in the hurricanes of 2004 and 2005:
And there are still a few houses built of Dade pine which was the insect resistant, weather resistant wood used to build and re-build Miami until the tree was virtually wiped out. Nowadays if you want to see Dade pine you have to travel to the Florida panhandle. Dade pine is prized because the wood is as maintenance-free as vinyl siding and the ugly weathered look is "Florida traditional" so you should enjoy it when you get a chance to see it.
There are eyebrows and porches everywhere in town, Dade pine and beautiful gardens and none of them are on display for tourists necessarily. I took these pictures in the space of half an hour around White and Grinnell Streets between Olivia and Southard, off the tourist track and far from monuments and attractions and its all quite pretty.
Even on the corner of Truman and White across from the Chevron gas station on the way in to Old Town on the main drag there is this utilitarian building housing businesses and a yoga studio, yet it shows style and physical charm and sports a widow's walk on the roof harking back to the city's nautical heritage even though one is as far from the water as one can be on this small island:
So there it is far from the mauls of America and all their instant convenience, far from the Southernmost Point which is illustrated everywhere on the web, and the Hemingway Home and Audubon and all the rest of it that is so popular and draws anxious camera toting crowds. This Florida is different and no matter how much locals whinge that Key West is changing, and so it is, and for the worse (of course), it is still itself and always a joy to walk round. This is not Florida as most people know it. But it works for me.