Dark Streets

I managed somehow to get to work early one recent morning and stopped on the way to take a few pictures of the serenity of the night. College Road is annexed to the city of Key West which uses it to house useful buildings including a school, a marina, a college, the SPCA, the bus facility, a hospital, a  rehab facility of no great repute (hence my own rehab in Miami) as well as the Jail and Sheriff's headquarters and a golf course with the original reason for the annexation: a housing development at the private golf course. None of that massive amount of useful activity shows at 5:20 in the morning. Nor, I dare say, should it.

I usually get up at 4:30 and take Rusty to "check the mail," a brief neighborhood walk to see what other dogs have been out and about in the twenty four hours preceding. I try to leave the house by 5:15 and generally fail spectacularly rushing down the stairs at I hope some time before 5:25, the absolute last minute not to look like a pill and arrive at work at exactly 6 am. The overnight shift as I know from long experience does not look cheerfully upon their morning relief if they show up technically on time but with none to spare.

It was a windy morning and I tried to catch the essence of the invisible air overhead. I'm not sure if it just looks smeared but anyway there was a fair bit of movement. It has been delightfully windy spring with lots of cool, not to say cold air blowing away insects and humidity. 

Moving on I took Flagler Avenue instead of the faster North Roosevelt as I wanted to save stopping and photographing the Boulevard another day. I had so much time in hand I could afford to hang around here and try to capture the night and the sense of emptiness in the middle of new Town.

These days looking at the roads I drive daily and have driven for two decades has an almost banal air to it, like those pictures one sees of daily life lived, except they are from a different era entirely. I have all too few pictures of my sixty years of daily banal living up to this point so in anticipation of things changing I have been trying to make a conscious effort to photograph the memories of daily life. Before the virus I was trying to capture the essence of my commute in pictures, trying to find a way to express the crowds, the traffic lights, the hold ups and the open roads without slipping into the obvious. It was much harder than I expected. These days these few pictures pretty much sum up my drive in to work. It is bizarre. 

Even at six o'clock in the evening when most people have gone home, the few that still have regular desk jobs, the road out of towns wide open. Even with the road work proceeding relentlessly slowly at the Triangle, the Cow Key Bridge as it is properly known, reflow quite smoothly through the winding traffic cones. How odd it is to find small pockets of advantage in the presence of this virus lock down. Empty streets that feel destined never to be filled again.

Sunset Marina

As part of my voyage of exploration on the little Jetson Bolt electric scooter from Costco I made my furthest point of exploration to be Sunset Marina on College Road.

Though these days it looks less like a marina and more like a housing complex:

When we decided to take jobs in Key West we moved off our anchor and took a slip here in Sunset Marina nearly 20 years ago. It looks much the same seen from here:

The office used to have a crane to launch small boats where the striped barricade is now: 

And this building behind the office was the only place where people lived in apartments, just three of them:

All these buildings are arecent innovation and when I went looking for a picture of the old parking lot I couldn't find my own so I cheated and found Google Street view from a few years back. From this:

To this (we are back to my own camera here!):

It  seems there are 15 building with parking underneath, as long as you coordinate with your neighbor. Their advertising offers two bedroom apartments  of 800 square feet at $2800  which may sound a lot but they offer all modern conveniences, not always the case in Key West and you can have a dog for a $350  deposit so I'm good with that! Happily I don't expect to need to live here but it's nice to know Rusty would be welcome.

This gate separates the marina property from the Sheriff's headquarters and jail and also the homeless shelter just to the right of the picture. The shelter closes in the morning so twice a day a stream of people unable to afford permanent housing passes by much to the discomfort of their housed neighbors nearby.

Here is where the apartments are:

And here the boats. Behind the boats are the Sunset Condos whose residents are carefully locked in by their own gate and they too object to the homeless of the Overnight Shelter. 

Don't be poor in Key West; no one will love you.

The Easter Seals

As part of my test of the Jetson electric scooter from Costco I rode out to College Road on Stock Island where I haven't been recently. I cam across a construction site.

This open space used to house the Easter Seals and now is apparently schuelded to be rebuilt as housing.

They say there will be 104  affordable housing units on the land which sounds pretty good ina  town with a huge housing shortage. However no one ever seems to define what the term"affordable" really means. Usually it ends up looking like 250-300 thousand dollars to buy or $2200 a month to renta  two bedroom which is not always that affordable for many bar and hotel workers. 

When in doubt I turn to Wikipedia and as I have no idea who the Easter Seals are (or were in this case) this is what I found:

Easterseals (formerly known as Easter Seals founded in 1919 as the National Society for Crippled Children)^[2] is an American 501(c)3 nonprofit providing disability services, with additional support areas serving veterans and military families, seniors, and caregivers.

Easterseals addresses the needs of individuals and families throughout the lifespan – from inclusive child care to respite care – in order to help people "reach for their full potential."^[3]

Easterseals meets the standards of the National Health Council and the Better Business Bureau/Wise Giving Alliance.

The name "Easter Seals" derived from an earlier fundraising program: beginning in 1934, colorful adhesive seals, the size of postage stamps, were sold around Easter; purchasers stuck these on mailed envelopes to demonstrate their support for the organization. Because of the program’s success, the organization changed its name from "the National Society for Crippled Children" to "Easter Seals." They have since changed their name to "Easterseals."

I took the picture above of their building just over a year ago but nowadays they apparently have relocated o North Roosevelt Boulevard so the work continues even as construction takes place on College Road.

The northern half of Stock Island was annexed to the city of Key West and the arc of College Road is home to many services critical to the city's operation. The original impulse to annex the land was to build housing and a gold course here but College Road is home to the Florida Keys Community College soon to be renamed by the state legislature, also the hospital, Gerald Adams School, the SPCA and the city transit bus depot newly uilt where the old garbage transfer station and waste burning plant used to live.

There is the homeless shelter, a marina, condominiums and the Sheriff's headquarters and jails for adults and juveniles. So it is no surprise to see buses and ambulances traveling the street.

And soon between the botanical gardens and the gold course, next to the water pumping station we should see 104 units of housing.

Golf Course Community

Great good fortune came to some thanks to the city's decision to annex north Stock Island for the greater good of all concerned. The exact date of the annexation is nowhere to be found online but the Florida Keys Community College on College Road was founded in 1965 and the buildings opened in 1968. This was just after a 1964 referendum called to incorporate Stock Island as a city failed by 47 votes to 36. One has to assume that sometime thereafter Key West took over the northern part and agreed to put the community college there.

On the eastern end of the arc that is College Road on north Stock Island lies the gated residential community at the golf course. The entrance off College Road gives access to the golf club if you turn right immediately as you turn off College Road while straight ahead is the guard house which I photographed from inside the community (above).

The golf course streets are built by the same developer who built Truman Annex, the other gated community in Key West and the similarities are obvious. There are community rules apparently and one friend of mine who lives in here says even here there can be disputes over parking spaces. 

The advantages of life here includes easy access to golf if that is of interest, there are no bums and no outsiders as the gate is guarded all day and all night. To get in to visit a friend I had to give her name, her address and have my license plate photographed. It's the kind of peace and quiet you won't find in Old Town Key West, which is one bridge and 15 minutes away depending on traffic.

Golf courses raise their own environmental issues with use of water pesticides and all that. On the other hand in a bunch of islands where grass is as rare as hair on a bald man's head the neatly trimmed links makes for a pleasant view:

And the trees in the distance are a thick sound barrier to Highway One traffic just beyond them.

On the other hand you are living in a  tightly regulated, neat community which is not always appreciated by the more anarchic elements still left living in odd corners of Key West, the gentrification city. Humor is present too, though:

The homes themselves are mostly attached town homes though I am told there are a few free standing units. Prices are around half a million dollars, more or less and interior space is restricted. By mainland standards these are decidedly not McMansions. 

By Key West standards however they are extremely functional.  They offer all modern conveniences  including modest yards, parking, weatherproof construction and central air. Nothing to boast about in modern North America but in Key West where roofs don't always align with walls and windows often don't close properly this is first rate living. As long as you can cope with being a car drive away from easy drinking in Old Town while always being overseen in your habits by the community rules...

It's either a Norman Rockwell or a Stepford Wives picket fence community:

Spaces are small, typical of Key West, but they lack for nothing and especially for a person or couple who plan to travel away regularly the security and ease of use is a giant plus. 

So there's another way to have a Key West address that is actually in the city...

The Golf Course is hardly noticeable on the north side of US One as you drive east across Stock Island. The cyclist was in Monroe County where I took this picture on the south side of the highway., while the trees are in Key West:

College Road

I haven't paid much attention to College Road in a while and when I decided to turn off US 1 on Stock Island and take a turn I stopped in a few spots to check out what's changed and what hasn't.

The city incorporated the north half of Stock Island to facilitate the creation of the golf course and associated gated community so this odd semi-circular street called Colege Road gets a municipal sidewalk. In the photo above the Vespa is parked at the northernmost corner of the city of Key West - not that this spot gets a monument or even a city limit sign!

Coming into the city you will know when you have arrived at College Road when you see the big illuminated theater sign advertising concerts (even after they have happened) and musical performances at the city's biggest and plushest theater venue. Not on Duval either.

Don't bother turning in at the Golf Course unless you know someone who lives there or you have an easy line in bullshit. There is a gate guard and they will ask your destination. It's all built in the "Key West Style" by the developer of the Truman Annex which is open to visitors.

One reason to ride College Road is for the gentle curves, which taken at the limit of 25 whole miles an hour does nothing to give one the feel of riding a series of apexes.

College Road is handy for a small town surrounded by tidal waters. You can put a golf course here, extra housing, and why not, an emergency room? They don't have all the specialists one might want but they do have helicopter service for folks who need treatment in Miami. The cost of the private carrier is $50,000 per flight give or take as like all medical services offers no sensible estimated billing. The publicly funded Trauma Star plays back up to the private flight as city leaders are in thrall to the service that bankrupts citizens. Residents fly free on Trauma Star which makes the city's refusal to allow the county service bizarre and ruinous.

I realized as I took a very quick turn around Florida Keys Community that I should come back and take a long overdue look at the changes and the art at the place where I used to go to class.

I like the architecture, though there are rather too many tall blank walls mixed in with the elevated walkways and quirky porches hidden on campus. They even have a dormitory on campus now to ease the cost of housing in this over priced community.

Up the road again, past the elementary school we come to what is supposed to become a trash transfer station. Currently clean and modern and not yet open. This used to be a brilliant waste-to-energy plant producing lots of electricity for the city from garbage. It wore out and instead of building a new modern clean plant they scrapped it to haul trash two hundred miles (really!) to the Pompano Beach landfill. Another brilliant local ecological decision.

There's the Sheriff's headquarters, the jail, the homeless shelter and even a marina with condos...then there's the animal pound, Cheyenne's home for three weeks. Mosquito Control has offices here for now and there's the Botanical Gardens as well.

Busy place College Road, and then we are back at the lights, these are on the west end of the road at Highway One.

Turn right for Key West.

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