The Hills Of Julia Street

I have thought that perhaps a climb to the top of the lighthouse might possibly be one way to announce to myself the firm conviction that I can walk properly again, but a quick search in the blue box at the top left of this page reminded me it hasn't been three years since I climbed the spiral staircase.  Lighthouse Visit. So I took a picture from Truman Avenue to remind myself to consider another visit. How do you like Key West's total disinterest in preserving an historic skyline from the blight of wires?

Some days I take my lunch break downtown and I walk on my re-built pelvis and I take pictures with my camera and I wonder if I shall see anything worth photographing and something usually springs before my lense. Old Town is described as the largest collection of wooden buildings located in an American city. I think. Something like that. And I get to wander around it as often as I like. The city was incorporated in 1828 and in those days the lighthouse was close to the water until storms undermined it and they moved it inland. The seas have been nibbling at the Keys forever it seems.

These signposts are springing up anywhere and everywhere and I don't find them to be particularly attractive. Pointing to Lublin in Poland is a stand out destination in a  city where the Poles are mostly workers and not tourists. People keep wondering where the workers will come from to service the increasingly wealthy leisure class that is buying property in Key West. There's an answer: staff rooms hot bunking in the garrets and eaves of hotels.

The classic Conch Cottage worth a million bucks to someone I am sure and it's neighbor...

...exposing it's skeleton for all to see. Is this worth a million? 

The refreshing of Old Town is a phenomenon that carries with it a certain cheerful optimism as the high, high tides this year produce predictable flooding in streets up and down the Keys.  Even though we pretend it isn't happening sea level rise is progressing nicely and apparently unstoppably - LINK.  I wonder if these late comers or their inheritors will expect a government bail out for buying in a flood plain?

We have ignored the problem and denied the problem and now we nervously joke about he problem. I fear the next stage will be anger but perhaps that will produce a sea change in our rather cavalier attitude that sea level rise is not our problem. There is an overflow parking lot ext to the police station where I was warned not to park on the east side as at high tide it goes under water by as much as a foot. On night shift we had enough parking and to spare for the few of us in the building overnight but by day the administrative ranks swell and latecomers park  off site.  

When I was a youngster Important People predicted all kinds of nonsense by the turn of the century like flying cars and eternal life and all that stuff. What we actually got was more of the same and the Internet which no one predicted. Now we are told flooding is coming and no one really seems to believe them. And I for one usually don't  a  quick calculation every time they predict. By 2050 I will be 92 and I'm pretty sure I will be long since dead. In the ordinary course of things you might shed a tear or two but under the circumstances and having no offspring to worry about I am prepared to sit back and let others with a stake in the future do their bit. 

I have developed my own theory about hurricanes and this year has once again borne me out. It seems like the pattern of their paths follows a route determined by the jet stream in early summer and just about every storm follows a similar path. If you are in that pah you are doomed (viz: Puerto Rico in 2017) but if like this year they go north early we are okay. North Carolina got smashed of course and Bermuda got hit and they are in line for more rain and wind but the fact we haven't been hit yet is no indicator of future storms is it? 

I was pondering these intangibles while ambling over the rise on Julia Street approaching Duval. It is no steep hill but in a flood it's one of those places where people in Key West wished they lived as brown nasty waters swirl up. If you have lived here through a  few floods,  and Wilma in 2005 when I was a wet-behind-the-ears 911 call taker was a doozy, you know where the dry spots tend to be. 

Looking downhill at Duval Street:

It is very interesting living at Zero Feet above Sea Level in a  time of climate change.

"Climate change took the biggest jump this year of I believe any risk that I can remember, seeing it jump from 7 percent up to 22 percent," said, Max Rudolph, fellow of the Society of Actuaries and author of the report.

Rudolph added that it's becoming harder for risk managers to avoid thinking about climate change. He pointed to major hurricanes in 2017 and the longer, more intense wildfire seasons we're seeing in the west.

"My personal opinion is that this is a case of the risk managers catching up to the actual risk that is out there," he explained.

To The Lighthouse

The city of Key West got its charter in 1828 but three years before that it got it's first lighthouse on the beach on the southeastern corner of the island.  20 years later a hurricane wiped out the lighthouse and the new one was built inland at the current location on Whitehead Street at Truman. It has been said that it is odd to put a lighthouse well inland but safety was paramount besides which in the 1840s the city itself wasn't that lit up at night so the light would have been clearly visible. You can still see it at sea made visible by revolving even though it is no longer an official navigation light. In the midst of a brightly lit city the flashing lighthouse light still stands out for those that are looking for it.

 From Wikipedia:
 The first Key West lighthouse was a 65-foot (20 m) tower completed in 1825. It had 15 lamps in 15-inch (380 mm) reflectors. The first keeper, Michael Mabrity, died in 1832, and his widow, Barbara, became the lighthouse keeper, serving for 32 years. The Great Havana Hurricane of 1846 destroyed the lighthouse; the USS Morris, which was wrecked during the storm, reported "a white sand beach covers the spot where Key West Lighthouse stood". Barbara Mabrity survived, but fourteen people who had sought refuge in the lighthouse tower died, including seven members of her family. (The same hurricane destroyed the Sand Key Lighthouse, eight miles (13 km) away, killing six people, including the keeper, Rebecca Flaherty, another widow of a previous keeper.) Barbara Mabrity continued to serve as keeper of the Key West Light until the early 1860s, when she was fired at age 82 for making statements against the Union (Key West remained under Union control throughout the Civil War).

I last checked out the lighthouse in distant 2008 so I was glad on the recent visit to Key West by my sister in law to show her the sights including this one. She was fascinated by the Seward Johnson statues that crops up around town: 

The lighthouse keepers light is a cool air conditioned museum dedicated to the life lived in 19th century Key West.

I took the picture of the spiral staircase in 2008 and nothing much has changed. I was much fitter this visit and bounded to the top in reasonable shape squeezing past the down bound visitors. Coming down is a bit more tricky as the steps are quite vertical and the unpleasant sensation of falling straight down can only be avoided by stepping with ridiculous attention to detail and daintiness.

The view has been enhanced by the removal of protective wires that used to be installed around the viewing platform.

 It used to look like this,and not very aesthetic:

Nowadays the views are unobstructed and my Lumix FZ300 telephoto made for a chance to get some pictures:

The camera has a fixed lense that copes from 25 to 600mm allowing for wide angled shots to quite powerful telephoto pictures. It's also compact and dust proof and rain proof. For a one and a half pound burden I get a camera that does all I want and fills in the shortcomings of the phone lense, which even on the iPhone 6 model is quite a remarkable camera considering it is "just" a smart phone. The twin spires of the Minor Catholic Basilica of  St Mary's on Truman Avenue:

 The Hemingway House is always a souvenir photo opportunity to take home:

Key West Harbor looking west to the Lakes, a shallow bowl of sea water surrounded by mangrove islands:

 The view south (Cuba is still not visible!)

That is Sand Key light, a tower about seven miles southwest of Key West and marks the entrance to the channel into the harbor between the reefs for smaller boats.
From Wikipedia:
As both lighthouses serving Key West had been destroyed in the 1846 hurricane, a ship, the Honey, was acquired and outfitted as a lightship to serve as the Sand Key Light until new lighthouses could be built. Due to efforts to reorganize the Lighthouse Board, Congress was slow to appropriate funds for the new lighthouses. The new tower for the Key West Light was completed in 1848. It was 50 feet (15 m) tall with 13 lamps in 21-inch (530 mm) reflectors, and stood on ground about 15 feet (4.6 m) above sea level. In 1858 the light received a third order Fresnel lens. In 1873 the lantern was replaced (it had been damaged by a hurricane in 1866), adding three feet to the height of the tower. The growth of trees and taller buildings in Key West began to obscure the light, and in 1894 the tower was raised twenty feet, placing the light about 100 feet (30 m) above sea level.

 This contraption if original would have been used to lift freight to the top of the tower:

 From this height the homes below look like dolls houses:

After we struggled back down the tight spiral stair case we paid a visit to the Lighthouse Keeper's home on the property:

A worthwhile tour of a property that offers great views and insight into historical living.

From The Archives: To The Lighthouse 2008

Last Thursday was National Lighthouse Day so to mark the day I resurrected this elderly essay from 2008. The Key West Lighthouse  revisited:

Lighthouse

An hour to burn of a Spring afternoon so why not check out the lighthouse on Whitehead Street?
The first thing people remark on about the lighthouse is how far it lies from the beach. There is method to the madness because the original wooden structure was washed off the beach in 1847 so they then decided to build the brick one a little bit inland. And here it is at the corner of Whitehead and Truman in the middle of Old Town. The tower is supposedly somewhere near 90 feet tall and the light inside still works, powered by a solar panel, but it is a tourist attraction these days:Its a ten dollar admission fee (10%off for local ID) and with that you get a chance to go shopping for gee-gaws You get to peer at the old Fresnel lense that sits inside the admissions building looking very glassy and fierce:
The lighthouse museum complex is quite the little compound, a grassy, tree-covered complex of buildings which includes an 1887 lighthouse keeper's house:Its a wooden home with luscious honey colored tongue and groove paneling all round inside:There's the usual audio-visual presentation along with a ton of knick-knacks from the period, including clothing, household items and the like to illustrate the life and times of 19th century residents. The dark interior contrasts nicely with the sunburned exterior:There are 88 steps to the viewing balcony at the top of he lighthouse, and it comes as something of a surprise to me that the place is wide open and anyone can stumble all the way up to the top. There is a sign advising children under 16 need an adult in tow, which isn't a prospect I would relish, what with all those steps winding their way up the tower, keeping up with a youthful bundle of energy:
The copper hose next to the stairway was installed when the light converted from kerosene to acetylene which must have seemed like an improvement to all concerned. I took the steps by storm, and happily didn't meet anyone half way up. There is no room to pass, it would be an intimate affair and these people are tourists so they have no clue how to alleviate social discomfort with small talk in awkward situations...But in the fullness of time one reaches the top and there one finds a fresh breeze and safety wires strung everywhere:

I lucked out on the day I chose to climb the tower as there was a fresh westerly breeze blowing and the air was cool and invigorating. It was on the west side where one can see the lump of La Concha Hotel rising about the little houses of the city. I took a picture of a cute Conch cottage......a church (with La Concha bigger in the background)......and this amusing guesthouse that used to be a gay hang out and when I was a boat Captain I used to recommend families visit the lighthouse forgetting there were scads of naked old men all over this building and its pool. Oh dear, but these days its gone straight so the excitement is gone.
There is a fair bit of greenery all around the city even after the heavy hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005 wiped out a number of trees, but there are spots that show a lot less trees:And in the distance always the beautiful blue waters around the city. Back on Earth after a harrowing enough descent even without meeting anyone down below, there was shade to enjoy in the grounds:And a little traffic watching on Whitehead Street:

This week the city is celebrating Conch Republic days, a lighthearted end-of-winter celebration that in some measure remembers the wilder days in Key West when wrecking was a legitimate way to make a fortune. The lighthouses pretty much put paid to that as they helped keep ships off the rocks. As a sailor, I still appreciate the role of lighthouses in helping find one's way at sea though a lot of people think GPS has put paid to the usefulness of lighthouses. And so the world turns.

Stephen Julius's Indian

I was taking pictures of this piece of machinery on Eisenhower Drive when a passer by, a non motorcyclist asked if I liked it. She was just being polite because she didn't wait for an answer but started fussing over my dog instead.


It's hard to say of I like the reborn Indian brand recently sold to the Canadian Polaris/Bombardier/Victory conglomerate. Indian went out of business in 1953 and came back to life decades later in Gilroy California and that failed after a while.


I was at school years ago with a child who has become a venture capitalist in adulthood reviving failed corporate "brands" and then after building it up selling it. His name trumpeted in the motorcycling press is Stephen Julius and if you have $35,000 to spare on a bone shaker you too can have one of these over priced pieces of nostalgia.


It's a pretty piece of work but the magazines report it shakes like a cement mixer and gets rather tiring.


But it is pretty. My Bonneville a nostalgia trip but at $8,000 my bike is decidedly a better value.


It is pretty though isn't it? I can't get away from it.


For those not amused by motorcycles, the philistines, here is a picture of my dog, resting from her labors.


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