City Hall

I enjoy being a non person in retirement, but I did get word from a friend at city hall of a talk being given on Social Security and how to manage that part of retirement. 

I like the city hall as converted from the Glynn Archer School (named for a school administrator of some renown) even though the $18 million spent on the conversion caused a ruckus in a city where criticism is a fine art. 

City Hall used to be in various locations downtown but this site on White Street strikes me as a perfect balance for a building designed to serve all city residents. It's on a main street on the edge of Old Town with lots of parking and easy access from all four corners of the city (when they aren't tearing up and repairing First and Bertha Streets, long overdue for repaving). 

A welding class at the school built the tiger and they stuck it in front of the school. A few years ago it was repaired and repainted and now it sits in front of city hall, the place where all flags cover all members of the famed and run down human family. Across the street conveniently lies the Weather Service, the people who monitor hurricane arrivals for the use of city emergency managers at city hall, now across the street.

Since my brief time in a wheelchair I tend to notice the ease and availability of handicapped ramps and facilities. Inspected and approved by the least among us and most photographed: the city's wild chickens, another protected group.

We live in a time when public spending is viewed as a thing of waste and ugliness in public spaces gets approved as a saving of money. Key West's public art program, copious use of bike racks, they are a start in a city struggling with its future looks. Urban planning is a minefield of expectations and public scorn. I admire the bravery of cyclists in Key West a city where narrow streets thick with parked cars push them into impatient traffic. I see bicycle riders, scooter riders and car drivers all texting and driving and wonder why there are aren't more wrecks. 

To create safer cycling with proper lanes in key West you'd have to make more one way streets. I can only imagine what a fiasco that would create were it even suggested. Just recently a cruise ship received special permission to dock in Key West to offload a dangerously ill passenger whose oxygen needs were complicated enough he could not be evacuated by helicopter.

It put me in mind of the fact that despite the absence of cruise ships the city moves forward apparently with a solid budget. The whole rationale that Key West would founder without cruise ship money seems not to be entirely true. We might even speculate the reef is doing a lot better with clear waters. Perhaps one day tourists will get to see a living reef full of color in sparkling waters. Maybe not.

There was another giant kerfuffle when neighbors objected to the solar array at the city hall parking lot. The usual doughnuts went into total societal meltdown but here the panels are, silently doing their job and the neighbors are about as affected as the construction of a tall schooling new town destroyed that scruffy neighborhood. Ah well, if you stay put you manufacture your drama where you can.

I prefer to find my drama on the road, unexpectedly, annoying as it may be, as humble as it may be, but mine own. 
 

Clean Up

City Hall is looking spic and span these days despite the chaos in the city. 

 White Street Pier and the Aids Memorial less so. It's going to take a while for the crews to get around to cleaning the beaches and Higgs Beach streets. I hope the tourists are patient. Perhaps they can go and stare at the pristine city hall...

In the neighborhoods where they fit, that is to say New Town, these monsters have been scooping up mounds of leaves and sawed up trees:

One guy monitors the grabbing at ground level and the other one sits in a bucket seat and operates the arm. Pretty slick.

 In old town you couldn't fit one of these trains so clean up there will take longer.

It's a matter of closing streets here and there, setting up detours and plucking the stuff and shoving it into a much smaller truck. It will take longer.

 There's plenty of foliage to remove:

 This lot came bagged from a hotel:

 And yet, deliberately tossing garbage on the sidewalks still ticks me off. I know it's just force of habit but still. Is this necessary?

Coffee Wars

My favorite Chinese restaurant has changed hands and a new arrival in town is operating Tong's Garden on Kennedy Drive. So far the only change is that the person answering the phone is now bright and cheerful which is a pleasant change. More importantly Cuban coffee on White Street is no longer dominated by Sandy's. The formerly 24-hour joint at Virginia Street is being challeneged by Key West's Best Coffee In Town.   

So I went and tried the best coffee in town and got myself a basic breakfast sandwich on Cuban bread which is how I test these places in town. And there are quite a few Cuban coffee places when you really start looking. Sandy's was the only one open 24 hours and under new ownership that has ended which in some way changes the perspective. I liked the coffee and the bacon egg and cheese sandwich from the Best Coffee In Town and they make no pretence of being open all night as they close at four. They are just a couple of blocks down the street, south from Sandy's and  make a worthy competetion. 

Unlike Sandy's the Best Coffee In Town has no seating so I walked across United Street and found myself an empty bench next to the new and newly occupied City Hall. The tiger is back in place at the corner of the street. It used to be the mascot for the school that was in this spot and a welding class built it. Now it has been refurbished and put back in place.  

This being the idiotic town it sometimes is there were -can you believe it? - complaints about the tiger being parked back in its spot infront of the new city hall, which itself has generated complaints too. The tiger it was said is too aggressive and not attractive and might frighten off visitors. I can't make this nonsense up. People actually wrote that kind of sentiment which I paraphrased from comments in the newspaper. 

Complaints about the new city hall centered around cost which at twenty million bucks doesn't seem too terriblky much in modern dollars for a modern office building centrally located with parking and all proper modern facilities. Mind you anything is too much money ina town devoted to complaining. 

I also found the grave of the former city employee after whom the building is named. She must have been quite the powerhouse, Josephine Parker as she also has a lane named for her off Angela Street betweenb Duval and Simonton...behind the former city hall where she worked which is now the Fire Station.

I like the new building. I like the qya it looks, the way it works and the details they added or kept from it's historic illustrious past. 

The Just 4 Kids voluntary after hours programn decorated power boxes around town some years ago and now this box shown below refers to a school that no longer exists...

Just half a block away is the Dairy Queen, that purveyor of fast food and soft serve icea cream that is not actually located in a tourist zone or on the Boulevard in New Town but is tucked away out of sight formerly serving the students from the school which no longer exists. Not a problem apparently:

On the subject of complaints I remmber when the Natuional Weather Service building was being rebuilt here across from City Hall and people started moaning about the red walls. It turns out it was some sort of undercoat paint and when the building was finished it was rather tastefully clad in wood. That shut the moaners up. But they do have to whine don't they?

 Here's a picture of Sandy's and the rather useful shaded outside seating:

White Street looked confused and busy the other day with it's new paving and even marked bike lanes. It may just take extra coffee to sort it all out and luckily there is planety for sale, and good stuff, on the street to cope with the demand. 

City Hall Nears Completion

City Hall on White Street is close to being finished and should be occupied by the end of the year.

It is a magnificent structure, a fully refurbished early 20th century school building turned into the offices for the city of Key West. Some residents had to complain of course, the cost close to $20 million bothered them which is pretty funny as the city is currently renting space at Havana Plaza to keep the city running. and that's not cheap. The fifty year old pre-computer city hall on Angela Street was wrecked by Hurricane Wilma in 2005 and has been turned into a parking lot with a proper fire station (and public restrooms!) on that street corner.

This place offers easy access from all corners of the city with no more clogging of the tourist centers of Old Town. It has tons of parking and it retains a connection to Key West's past. I am glad they turned Glynn Archer school into this. Including the masonic symbol cut into the gymnasium name plate. Odd but true:

More controversy was generated by the solar panels in the parking lot. The whiners argued they are ugly and violate the rules of building design for the historic district. I think it's about time the Keys went solar.

Besides I think the argument that the houses across United Street aren't spoiled by the solar panels.

Look and decide for yourself:

Conversely the huge old fashioned emergency generator, a giant lump, causes no comment at all. Nor do the huge cement poles for power lines and all the infrastructure we are used to seeing. Change freaks people out. 

I can't wait to see the interior of this building which was rebuilt from the ground up inside the original shell.

And the landscaping is already in use:

Across Town

I have no idea what they tell each other. I wonder if the trapped dog tells Rusty he is envious, though I suspect envy is a strictly human emotion. Maybe not.

With a four year old on the end of the leash walks around town can range far and wide and I was surprised to find myself admiring the new City Hall supposed to be ready for occupancy by the end of the month.

There has been of course a round of complaints about the construction. The city is trying to be modern and install solar panels but they chose to have them serve double duty as a car port roof sloped to the south, away from United Street. That wasn't good enough for the peanut gallery and all sorts of angry comments have made their way into the newspaper, about how ugy they are.

We walked across town in the cool of the morning after some rain and i wasn't in the mood for controversy. I am taking a week to walk Rusty in the mountains of Western North Carolina, a break for the two of us at my sister in law's in Asheville before coming back just in time for Goombay and the madness of Fantasy Fest. 

That's more like it.

Dilapidated grimy and oddly angled yet quite delightful.

The promise of the outdoor life; not that anyone is actually living it.

I questioned whether the tree or the house was for rent. In Key West space to sling a hammock could be rented so crazy is the housing market.

Where this sign came from I'm not sure:

One could say banana leaves is life...

...and the cemetery is death. But it's also history and a quiet place to meditate (if you aren't walking with a dog).