I always enjoy riding my Bonneville out of downtown Key West along Olivia Street. It's both a scenic route and an easy way to escape the suffocation of pedestrians, pedicabs and touts on Duval Street. In winter it's narrow confines are more likely to be blocked by wandering snowbirds, but in summer the visitors don't seemed to have twigged what a useful street this is and they leave it to those that know it. Sublime:
The longer one lives in Key West the more one navigates by landmarks. Because I am compulsive I can name the back street access I use to get to the Police station where I work; that would be Leon Street. The easiest way to spot Leon on Flagler Avenue is by the big white wall that appears immediately after you pass the overhanging trees on Thompson Street. And so it is on Olivia. You will know to turn east off Whitehead Street when you spot the distinctive brick wall of the Hemingway House. Follow that red scooter!
The next block up is marked by Bogart's the Irish pub on Duval. This was slated for destruction a few years ago to be replaced by a gigantic entertainment complex. A neighborhood revolt ensued and miraculously Bogart's reopened the same as before, I'm told. You see Bogart's distinctive green awning and you know you are at Olivia.
It used to be that across from Bogart's there was a gallery and an Alfa Romeo decorated with shards of glass and pottery. Admittedly the car was a bit of a dusty mess but when the property owner suggested that the tenant move it to the dump there was an outcry, another sentimental piece of key West vanishing etc... etc... so I was quite surprised to see a crisp clean inconvenience store and a gym in the same spot yesterday:
Very clean, very modern, but who would have guessed the city needed one more place to buy water and chips. Another block east one comes to Simonton Street, a shady section with overhanging trees and a distinctive Dade pine house:
If one is rolling south on Simonton one also spots the muriel glued to the wall of Bobby's Monkey Bar a gay hangout eccentrically located not on the 700 block of Duval. Wilhelmina Harvey was an outspoken representative of the county at all levels of government here portrayed in Revolutionary pose in front of the old seven mile bridge accompanied by a few select locals of the era:
Harvey was a tireless self promoter, known as a "character" but a canny politician for all that, claiming many firsts- female member of the county commission, female county Mayor and she died in 2005 with the title of Mayor Emeritus attached to her name. There is a better likeness of her hanging in the Historical Museum in the Customs House.
After Simonton Street Olivia gets narrower if that's possible and more residential:
And speaking of residential there is the old fashioned Conch style of living with everything chaotically hanging out:
Or there is the modern middle class as exemplified by these Conch homes, both renovated with nice landscaping and trees and stuff but one is clearly superior to the other:
And the winner is number two. Indeed, the second home has off street parking, and that is something it is easy to be blase about until you can't find anywhere to put the thing. I know the snowbirds are back in town when people flood the police department switchboard with complaints all night long about "their" parking space on the street in front of their house (!) being occupied, or worse some bozo is blocking their driveway (instant tow! Don't do it! $200+!!). Next to off street parking I am a fan of mature trees:
Goofy mail boxes are not exactly my cup of tea, though I confess our box has modest decorative artwork on it. Not quite as outre as this:
Speaking of fish there are seven of them at the corner of Elizabeth Street and I like to eat there from time to time:
Why they named it Seven Fish I have no idea, but a restaurant by any other name might not be so appealing. Or do I have that quotation backwards? And if the struggle to get to Windsor Lane has quite worn out the urban traveler, do not despair there is another inconvenience store and grocery on the corner filled to the brim with food and drink:
And so one comes to the final stretch of Olivia Street which soon crosses Frances and then White Street before disappearing into the bowels of The Meadows, a neighborhood that got an essay all its own a couple of months ago. Between Windsor and Frances Streets Olivia becomes a 20mph lane with a tiny sidewalk on the cemetery side and a cramped parking lot on the side with the little houses:
Undistinguished but oh-so-useful Olivia Street. A street by any other name would not smell as sweet. Or something like that.
