The Boulevard

Photographing North Roosevelt Boulevard presents not a few challenges. There's tons going on along its two mile length and cramming it all into twenty pictures seems like an impossible job. Then again this isn't the most visually appealing part of Key West, but it seems to me it is still a story worth telling, perhaps it is especially worth telling because it is such a peripheral area of town. This is Key Plaza where Key West people go to shop, I mean this is the real locals shopping area.Can't get more real than K Mart, and in this picture we see the third most profitable K Mart in the country. Not surprising really because as we shall see, there ain't much in the way of competition. I read a plaintive comment in the Citizen's Voice a few months ago. "If they let us have a Wal Mart we wouldn't be so poor," went the comment. From the height of middle class mediocrity I could sniff on reading the plea as of course Wal Mart is all things bad in corporate America, but they do help make ends meet for many milllions of Americans. Not in Key West where the cold harsh reality is that things cost more here, not because we are a "long way away" but because we are isolated. And here's the competition, flying the flag, Sears Roebuck and Company:Searstown was an early development in the wilds of far Eastern Key West, built up in the salt ponds and mangroves, a 1960's outpost of shopping civility for an island that relied on Fausto's and Pantry Pride for groceries and then Sears stepped in to compete I suppose with downtown Kress: Nowadays Publix is located in Searstown, along with a six screen Regal Cinema and an Outback, a Champs and a whole bunch of stores both chains and locals. There's a Home Depot in Key West which was built in 2004 as I recall and that opened up a lot of shopping possibilities. Beyond Searstown is a region for a future essay, currently a line of chain hotels that will soon make way for a giant convention center(!). Megalopolis here we come... Meanwhile we have got used to Albertsons, next to K Mart:And then in the third big shopping plaza called Overseas Market we have Winn Dixie as the anchor supermarket. This chain used to advertise itself, years ago as "the beef people" on their old signs and for the longest time I thought Winn Dixie was a butcher's shop. I love the totally black sky at night, and no one in the parking lot except me and my trusty Bonneville which of course I have to sneak into a picture...I know Pier One, and Ross next door have given local shoppers a few more choices when it comes to furnishings and clothes. Around the corner from TGI Fridays there is a dark delivery area alongside the mangroves. I love poking my way round these spaces, sneaking a peek as it were behind the facade of the nice stores up front:And shining a light into the bushes, where Salt Run Creek flows, from the Riviera Canal out to the Gulf of Mexico to the north. Our residentially challenged locals hang out around here too, not so much for the shopping I believe, as much as for the peace and relative quiet:Until my Bonneville comes rumbling through at some ungodly hour. I saw no one while I chased the dirt road with the Triumph, doubtless they were all asleep like solid citizens, not drifters like me.

I had to smile when Heinz and Frenchie sent a note worrying about me riding around town in the middle of the night. Key West is a very safe place to live and travel around in. Random violence is almost unknown, and as long as you are sober and not looking to buy drugs you will be fine Prudence is always a good thing and following your instincts is wise too (when in doubt take a cab!) but I suppose I should say here that I know my way around and perhaps it would not be wise for an innocent tourist to poke around as I do in these pictures. If you do and you get the crap beaten out of you.. that's when you put your big girl's blouse on and order another drink while figuring out how to turn your experience into a proper Key Weird story...

Here's a spot no tourist will get to see unless they are ducking out of Stick and Stein, the sports bar at Key Plaza, just down from Albertsons and Office Max. And if they are skipping out on their tab they'd better know where to go to next because this is a long way from Duval Street:As I viewed this picture I thought to myself, "hmmm, Anywhere USA" and all I can say is that this really is Key West and not the back side of your local shopping maul. And just around the corner across from the back of K Mart lies this magnificent structure in all its cement glory:Looking at the Professional Building you'd think this would be the spot to take refuge in a hurricane. Well, it turns out Wilma did a number on this place in October 2005. The building is on stilts with parking in the lit up space underneath, but the roof yielded and the entire building flooded from the top down! It was a nightmare for the many offices in there, which lost all their records and their furniture, including my optician. The building was closed for ages while they gutted it and rebuilt it from the inside out.

Back to North Roosevelt Boulevard known simply as "The Boulevard" to locals. Sure my wife would like a Target and a Costco but she has to put up with K Mart and this, Smart and Final as was, and she does okay with occasional trips to Miami:The family owned Gordon Food Service bought this little warehouse and added it to its chain a few years ago. That was weird because apparently they don't sell alcohol, the family being religious in some manner and teetotal, and for a while they were dumping their stocks of wine and beer from the Smart and Final store at fire sale prices. A bit of a stampede in heathen Key West ensued. Nowadays we get our fizzy water here, but I believe restaurants appreciate the bulk supplies.

The Boulevard reasserts its fundamental nature of down at heel individuality the closer to Truman Avenue one gets. Truman used to be Division in the old days before president Truman started vacationing in Key West, and the Boulevard becomes Truman almost in front of the Police Station. There's the Yamaha motorcycle shop, a rather ragged building though they are showing a lot of inventory their windows these days:

Then you can have your burgers your way, just next door, past the Borders Express bookshop:Looks familiar doesn't it? This doesn't though, the "mobile" seafood vendor at Owens gas station:In the land of the perpetually underpaid and intoxicated there are several pawn shops that seem to do quite well, all over town, including here:The Boulevard is home to one of three overnight gas stations, this one has a car wash, the other two sit across from each other at the intersection of Truman and White Streets. I read a thread on the Adventure Rider forum about a Georgia kid who rode to Key West and backon his sports bike and he prudently filled his tank in Florida City because he didn't know if he could find gas in the Keys...Dude! This is the US you know! And this proves it!You might meet a cop here doing a business check at some unearthly hour, buying coffee or a soda. Not this one though, Officer Cardona is Puerto Rican and he prefers his cafe con leche to an Americano.

I know because he's on my shift and he has to ask my "permission" to take his lunch at Sandys Cafe. He he. The rule of thumb is don't piss off your dispatcher, but John works too hard to care about rules of thumb.

Closer to the police station we get to see the other car dealership ( which is to say not Niles GM/Nissan), and if you don't know where the station is we'll often say "next to Duncan Ford."

Shining like a beacon in the night. And that's it, one quick look at the Key West that tries to emulate Main Street USA. Like it or not. Which is my cue for a gratuitous picture of the Bonneville, across the street from Sears at the Blue Lagoon Motel, of which more later.
Magnifique!