A hot summer afternoon in April in New Town. I was much cheered by a call from a friend in Santa Cruz California a couple of days ago. The weather report? 45 degrees, rain, "it looks like winter." Cheyenne and I were huddling under the inadequate cover of a tree before venturing out under the sun on Eagle Avenue.
The house is shut up, the car is for sale. Hmm, a possible replacement for my oil burning kennel.
An occupied house, a car not for sale.
New town used to be open fields and there was a dairy around here in the days before Key West spread past Division Street, now known as Truman Avenue. Division used to divide the inhabited part of the island from the open space. Open, no longer. 
For Conchs of the day New Town development represented an opportunity to sell their tumbledown homes for ridiculous sums and build proper American homes on decent sized lots in what used to be fields.
Off sets are are a good deal wider than in Old Town.
It's starting to get hot if you happen to wear a fur coat out in public. 
But not so hot that one loses all interest in the outside world.
A delightful tree house in a very large ficus (baobab). (see comment below...)
Classic ranchette style, car port, open landscape, lots of off street parking, no tourists. People who visit and inhabit only Duval Street have no idea how non touristy the rest of the island is.
The real estate market in the Lower Keys is sending mixed signals. Realtors tell us the market is regaining strength -come on down!- but foreclosures seem to be increasing and as they come on the market prices are weak. 
An acquaintance was recently advised the real estate office where she works is cutting her pay by one third (!) and her share of recent sales commissions have not yet (!) been paid. Her response was to cut her own hours by two per day so she saves herself the cost of daycare. My wife was rather freaked out by that piece of news.
Dropping house prices enable sales but they don't feed the machinery of the local economy like the recently inflated prices used to. 
Around here a large swath of lawn is nothing to be amazed about in New Town. Space like this in Old Town makes the owner a millionaire, even today. 
I like wide streets, off street parking and large offsets. If I had to live in the city I'd be looking around here, far from the drunken crowds.
Happily I'm not yet forced to give up my mortgage. I'm sure Wells Fargo is delighted, I fed their last quarter's absurd profits so it's more bonuses for everyone at the bank. Lucky them.
The house is shut up, the car is for sale. Hmm, a possible replacement for my oil burning kennel.An occupied house, a car not for sale.New town used to be open fields and there was a dairy around here in the days before Key West spread past Division Street, now known as Truman Avenue. Division used to divide the inhabited part of the island from the open space. Open, no longer. 
For Conchs of the day New Town development represented an opportunity to sell their tumbledown homes for ridiculous sums and build proper American homes on decent sized lots in what used to be fields.Off sets are are a good deal wider than in Old Town.It's starting to get hot if you happen to wear a fur coat out in public. 
But not so hot that one loses all interest in the outside world.A delightful tree house in a very large ficus (baobab). (see comment below...)
Classic ranchette style, car port, open landscape, lots of off street parking, no tourists. People who visit and inhabit only Duval Street have no idea how non touristy the rest of the island is.The real estate market in the Lower Keys is sending mixed signals. Realtors tell us the market is regaining strength -come on down!- but foreclosures seem to be increasing and as they come on the market prices are weak. An acquaintance was recently advised the real estate office where she works is cutting her pay by one third (!) and her share of recent sales commissions have not yet (!) been paid. Her response was to cut her own hours by two per day so she saves herself the cost of daycare. My wife was rather freaked out by that piece of news.Dropping house prices enable sales but they don't feed the machinery of the local economy like the recently inflated prices used to. Around here a large swath of lawn is nothing to be amazed about in New Town. Space like this in Old Town makes the owner a millionaire, even today. I like wide streets, off street parking and large offsets. If I had to live in the city I'd be looking around here, far from the drunken crowds.
Happily I'm not yet forced to give up my mortgage. I'm sure Wells Fargo is delighted, I fed their last quarter's absurd profits so it's more bonuses for everyone at the bank. Lucky them. 
8 comments:
Thanks for the tour of New Town.
I've only been to Key West once, but I did take some time to wander "behind the scenes." Didn't see this part of it, though, so thanks for the tour!
I'm curious about the foreclosures. I saw a disproportionate number of these in South Ponte Vedra. Are these second homes? I'm trying to get my head around how the economic fallout plays in Florida relative to the real estate market. In NoCal, I noticed that the immigrant homeowever (mostly Mexican but also Vietnamese) who'd purchased high and with low downpayment was the first to run into trouble. For example, a friend who was a manicurist had a mortgage of 4K a month. There was always talk in the press about how the homebuyer had not understood the terms of the mortgage. I see less of that here.
I feel for the acquaintance whose hours are cut. The same has happened to my BF, who works for the city as an event coordinator and who wasn't making all that much to begin with.
Ficus and Baobab are not the same. You correctly identified this as a Ficus, which is closely related to a Banyan.
Baobabs are native to Madagascar, and often look like "upside-down" trees, as without their leaves, their branches look like roots. They're known for their trunks engorging after heavy rainfall.
Dear Conch,
What has happened to the "Café" post? I see your better than average photos and commentary in Google Reader, but when clicking the link to the actual post, I'm getting a "page not found" message.
Even though you disparage your Chardonnay enhanced technique, I find the effect quite nice.
Chuck
Mr Conchie:
I also noticed your "non-existant" cafe post a day ago, but nothing came up. It disappeared.
You are taunting us . . .
bob
Wet Coast Scootin
I was not on the chardonnay when I hit publish with the wrong date. Owing to the poor photography (I was less an observer and actually enjoying myself) I set it up for Sunday. I try to assemble a few posts ahead.
As for the baobab/ficus/banyan fiasco I meant banyan which is what they are often called around here (one ficus has an inn named after it- the banyan tree inn on whitehead). I am not a botanist so everything I mention relating to flora (and fauna) is dependant on corrections so thank you.
I have been pondering south florida foreclosures as well. I think in the keys some people stretched too far for primary homes while many bought second homes as an investment. However it's iddifuclt to tell whats going on as foreclosures are "just another sale" from the street.
I beleive gentrification of the keys will continue apace as the truly wealthy reserve the kesy tothemselves as a safe vacation spot in the sun and the marginals are edged out faster and faster as the standards of living plummet for all of us dependent on wages. The beauty of the keys is they make a superb gated community in the sun much closer than antibes or copacabana or rabat and they are much "safer" as they are not only isolated but US with all that that implies. A few us will be kept on to secure the fences when the rich are in the hamptons in the summer. some people think I am a pessimist.
(I meant to post my other comment here- oh well)
OMG! It's snowing!!!
Snowing? What's that?
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