I'm not sure why but Richard A Heyman is only tentatively memorialized as America's first openly gay mayor. I suppose it's possible there was some other person someplace else across the fruited plain who was out of the closet and elected mayor prior to 1983, but no one has stepped forward to make the claim so it seems safe enough to award the title to Heyman, then a resident at Whalton Lane, off the 900 block of Duval, a place that nowadays is an unremarkable alley:
Heyman served in the days before the Internet became popular so there isn't much information about him. From what I can gather Heyman was an affable guy, well liked enough to knock a Conch off the pedestal for the top job, which must have been a shock to the not-yet-ready-for-gay-prime time crowd in the city. It seems quite a crowd gathered at Heyman's home for the announcement of his candidacy, but his home has been relabeled in line with uniform street numbering in the city. I cannot be sure but I think Number 1 Whalton Lane should have been around here: 
Though in the proper tradition of American political notables and their legends it might have been more suitable for Heyman to have lived in this picturesque garden shed, Key West's answer to the log cabin of political myth making: 
I asked an acquaintance of mine who lived in Key West during Heyman's second term as mayor (1987-89) and she had no clue where Whalton Lane might be, so as is the way in a city that is in a constant state of ferment, struggling with change, the lane these days is just another picturesque back alley ducking out of the chaos of Duval Street:
With a resident alley cat of course, wary of the camera as all divas should be:
Whalton Lane reminds me of that poet with a wintry and tenuous connection to Key West, Robert Frost whose poem "Mending Wall" is often misquoted as a way to justify building fences in places where the poet worries more about giving offence than keeping out imaginary cows. Whalton Lane, historic seat of openness to change has become all fenced in:
Personally I wouldn't mind a fence around my suburban lot, and residents of the city will tell you that without fences heaven knows who will take up residence on your porch, because Key West is filled with people seeking a place to sleep it off every night. But I think of Frost's poem making gentle fun of the fearful:
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
And that which looks at first glance like an antidote to fencing neighbors in, is actually a genuflection to another Key West claimed literary icon:
Well, yes much better to name oneself after a man of literary action, a bull runner, a drinker and a serial spouse. Poor old Richard Heyman can hardly compete can he? All we've got to remember him by is the sewage treatment plant on Fleming Key, photographed here from high atop the Parking Garage, as Fleming is now a super secret Navy base and inaccessible to simple history buffs like you and me:
I was forgetting because Heyman died in the 1990's of AIDS related pneumonia there is one other place he is remembered, other than his extremely valuable if unglamorous devotion to clean sewage. That is at the Aids Memorial at White Street Pier, from whose website I found this photo of his inscription:
I wonder if the kid I spotted moving his belongings into the lane has any notion that America's first gay mayor lived here, campaigned from here and celebrated his win here. I didn't interrupt him to ask and perhaps he would have surprised me had I had the nerve.
Whalton Lane is marked as far as I could see, not by a plaque to Heyman but by crass commercialism, a sandal shop gets a nice big oval, temporarily enhanced by the presence of a green Triumph Bonneville: 
There is currently a movie making the rounds with lots of Oscar buzz, "Milk" celebrating the life and marking the assassination of Harvey Milk elected to the City and County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors at the same time as Heyman was elected to the Key West City Commission. I've heard rumors that there may one day be a documentary made about Richard Heyman but for now Sean Penn takes the title role in the Milk biography, coming soon to the Tropic Cinema:
And as the lives of these two pioneers come briefly into view it is an odd notion to me that gays can't come out of the closet after all this time, except in small pockets of the country, like Key West and San Francisco's Castro district among others. I tried to convince my young gay colleague at work that he might want to see the movie to learn how it used to be, but he shrugged: "Its about old people," he said, reminding me that history is a much undervalued subject in America.
And that which looks at first glance like an antidote to fencing neighbors in, is actually a genuflection to another Key West claimed literary icon:Well, yes much better to name oneself after a man of literary action, a bull runner, a drinker and a serial spouse. Poor old Richard Heyman can hardly compete can he? All we've got to remember him by is the sewage treatment plant on Fleming Key, photographed here from high atop the Parking Garage, as Fleming is now a super secret Navy base and inaccessible to simple history buffs like you and me:I was forgetting because Heyman died in the 1990's of AIDS related pneumonia there is one other place he is remembered, other than his extremely valuable if unglamorous devotion to clean sewage. That is at the Aids Memorial at White Street Pier, from whose website I found this photo of his inscription:I wonder if the kid I spotted moving his belongings into the lane has any notion that America's first gay mayor lived here, campaigned from here and celebrated his win here. I didn't interrupt him to ask and perhaps he would have surprised me had I had the nerve.Whalton Lane is marked as far as I could see, not by a plaque to Heyman but by crass commercialism, a sandal shop gets a nice big oval, temporarily enhanced by the presence of a green Triumph Bonneville: There is currently a movie making the rounds with lots of Oscar buzz, "Milk" celebrating the life and marking the assassination of Harvey Milk elected to the City and County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors at the same time as Heyman was elected to the Key West City Commission. I've heard rumors that there may one day be a documentary made about Richard Heyman but for now Sean Penn takes the title role in the Milk biography, coming soon to the Tropic Cinema:And as the lives of these two pioneers come briefly into view it is an odd notion to me that gays can't come out of the closet after all this time, except in small pockets of the country, like Key West and San Francisco's Castro district among others. I tried to convince my young gay colleague at work that he might want to see the movie to learn how it used to be, but he shrugged: "Its about old people," he said, reminding me that history is a much undervalued subject in America.
Then there is Dan Bateman a much respected (with reason) motorcycle riding instructor. His skills were called into question by this tree thing so he had to take on the Great Christmas Tree Challenge, and being the competitive soul he is, he had to one up Steve of Scooter in the Sticks. So he did:
A night time walk around the old West Martello Tower; this I should have done for my birthday last Halloween...Though looking through the front gate, and pointing the camera that way shows something that resembles those gardens of old Savannah made famous in the movies: 
Key West has two of the eight Martello Towers built in the United States in imitation of a fortress designed by the British in the 19th century. Though they were originally designed as coastal defences Key West's western brick tower is now used for more pacific purposes:
The East Martello Tower is next to the airport and is in much better shape. It houses a museum (that merits it's own essay of course) and offers rooftop views across the Straits of Florida- though you still can't see godless communists in Havana from there! The West Martello Tower is fairly decrepit owing to the presence nearby of Fort Zachary Taylor. 
It seems bored artillerymen in the fort used the West Martello for target practice, hence it's state of chic disrepair. The garden club makes the most of it:
Those arches are on the street side of the tower, and they are sometimes used as shelter by "local subjects," however there were no little bundles of joy snoring underneath the arches the morning I was out walking around. The West Martello is actually part of Higgs Beach, the Monroe County Park located on the south side of Key West:
The waters against the seawall are pretty shallow but there is plenty of sand so this is a real beach. The tower also overlooks the water, and the White Street Pier:
And next to the tower they built a monument to the African Slaves, rescued from a slave ship by the US Navy and more or less abandoned on the beach in Key West until they sent to Liberia to start a new life.
In researching the towers I did find out a bit about the history of Martello Towers in general, of which I saw a few along the coast of England when I was a child . It seems that during the British invasion of Corsica at the end of the 18th century a British Naval officer liked the look of the round Genoese Tower defending Point Mortella in Corsica. So when he brought the idea back to Britain for use as a coastal defence he unhappily managed to misspell the name, hence Martello, which it so happens in Italian (the native language of Corsica) means hammer. And when the US military saw Martello Towers constructed in Canada they got the idea to do the same on the US East and Gulf Coasts. I see some of the Martello's architectural roots incorporated into the Key West police station too:
Very symbolic I'm sure.
For the better known areas I have written essays on the tourist attractions at Blue Hole and the Watson Trail and their pine trees, and just recently I took the Bonneville to an open space I discovered. This time I chose to ride my bicycle around some backstreets that had come to my attention on one of my other visits...
For some people this idyll is only available for part of the year. I was moved to guess this signpost indicated a snowbird from Michigan might be in residence.The street address of 29173 indicates the Post office puts this home in the lower portion of Mile Marker 29 on Highway One:
I lived many years in California where the concept of "snow bird" was not really known though some people made a habit of hitting up Mexico for longer winter vacations as they close din on retirement years. However this East Coast and Midwestern habit of shuffling back and forth with the seasons seems weird to me. Especially as many Mid Western states boast summers more humid and less bearable than summers in the Keys, a time of year when water sports become comfortable in 82 degree waters....
My boat is on it's trailer this time of year with 70 degree waters, which are too cold for swimming in my estimation. Yet, this is still where people want to be in winter and one can hardly blame them. This is January in the back streets of Big Pine Key:
It was quite delightful cruising the streets in the dry crisp winter air on my bicycle and no surprise I wasn't alone. This guy whizzed by on his splendid recumbent, took a turn whizzed back and seemed to be having as much fun as I was, doing nothing much in particular, just enjoying a day off:
Everyone has a boat on these canals though I'm not sure how much use they all get. At this particular seawall I saw a fine example of summer fun, a slide:
Or how about a nice al fresco workshop where you could do your pottering around in the shade, safe from the weak winter sun?
With all the bad news about home prices around the country you'd think that even here, in this slivers of land still attached to the US prices would be slumping. And so they are in a few spots, but mostly what seems to be happening is that houses for sale, and there are lots of them, aren't selling. Some foreclosures have reached the market and a very few homes are on offer for quite a bit less than we are used to seeing. However mostly people seem to be convinced they can sell their home sin paradise for the ridiculously high prices of years past. Some brave souls are still spending money to do up their homes, an encouraging thing to see:
But bucolic Big Pine is a place where people like their space, they like the absence of busy city facilities and out here they are more than an hour by car from Key West, and probably forty minutes from Marathon in the other direction. This is off the beaten path:
And to be happy out here one doesn't really need a McMansion, people have had their fish camps on Big Pine canals for decades,and some of them have survived the endless round of construction and change going on around them: 
It's a long, long way to Duval Street from here.