Small town America is loaded with repositories of local arcana and culture, and Key West has it's own Museum of Art and History too, and of course I think its the best small town museum around. Certainly its in a splendid building, an all-brick genuine US Custom House, designed with snowfall in mind and built to a standard specification.
The Art and History Museum has several permanent exhibits on offer and rotates several of its rooms for visiting shows. Seward Johnson a sculptor backed by the Johnson and Johnson family fortune has been a favorite for some time. He likes to make mind bending sculptures rendering three dimensional that which we consider familiar in the world of Art. American Gothic, the grumpy farmer, his pitchfork and his daughter is an icon. So naturally the sculptor needs to mess with people's heads:
They are enormous, the statues:
But Johnson also has some more life sized statues for people to play with, possibly familiar from art class:
The Art and History Museum has its own display chronicling its long era of neglect but the place has been brought back from near destruction and has become a lovely Victorian to wander around in, unusual in Key West, brick and wood and everything:
It's ten bucks to get in, with a whole ten percent discount for local ID, better than nothing I suppose, and there he is, at it again, Seward Johnson:
It looks like nothing more than a copy of the Mona Lisa, the enigmatic smile and all, but walking along side the picture it becomes apparent this sculpture has its own story to tell. Playing on the obscure origin of this painting Johnson made a sculpture following the theory that La Gioconda (as she is known in Italy) was actually a version of the artist's male lover and "her" legs have been sculpted to reflect that notion:
Elsewhere in the room we have women with pearl earrings and skirts flying, all familiar images rendered in three dimensions. Last year Johnson had an exhibit of impressionist art in similar style and it had quite an unexpected effect on me walking among the life sized diners I'd seen for years and taken for granted in two dimensions.
The History part of the museum is preoccupied with one incident in particular, the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898. The battleship blew up in spectacular fashion and the US took this as a sign of Spanish hostile intentions and promptly went to the assistance of Cuban rebels, ending up in possession of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines.
Speculation is that possibly the coal in the Maine's bunkers got wet and produced explosive gases, as coal will, and the less gullible take it upon themselves to suggest the US may have been responsible for the explosion that took the lives of US sailors. Rather in the manner of people nowadays who suggest the US government was behind the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Be that as it may the killed and injured were transported to Key West, the dead buried in a plot of land famous in photographs of the city cemetery, the injured cared for at the Navy hospital. The museum got a bunch of artifacts after it was all over:
The other big deal in Key West history was the arrival of Ernest Hemingway and there is a fair bit of him in here:
Killing fish, slaying babes...
...drinking, traveling and killing more animals. Fighting in World War One, as well:
He wrote a few books in Key West and one about Key West, he drank with Sloppy Joe Russell, at Captain Tony's, and was fairly miserable at home by all accounts. In the above photograph there are souvenirs of his time in Italy and a picture of his first and (they say) only love. All terribly romantic but from what I can figure he fled Key West when the highway arrived and spent many years at his favorite home which was in Cuba, Finca Vigia ("Lookout Farm") which from what I have heard has been perfectly preserved by the general fossilization that has taken place in Cuba over the past 50 years.Nearer to our own times the museum honors the Cuban American artist Mario Sanchez who died a couple of years ago. Sanchez had time on his hands (he lived into his 90's) and he taught himself to whittle planks of wood. It is astonishing stuff, street scenes of Key West in his childhood:
And he got his own portrait painted too, by Paul Collins:
His intaglios are much prized these days and he made quite a name for himself. I happen to know reproductions are on sale on Duval and I think its about time my wife got me one for my birthday.
The originals that are on show at the Museum tend to leap out at you:
The Museum celebrates the history of wrecking and Porter's anti-piracy squadron, which cleared out all pirates in less than a decade after the city was founded (much to the discomfort I'm sure of all the irritating pirate lovers who want to make out the keys were all about pirates). Porter didn't think much of Key West and left as soon as the job was done. But wrecking was quite the business for decades:
And it was legitimate too. It made fortunes for it's practitioners, and brought a level of sophistication to Key West which was decorated by ship's cargoes from all over the world. Then came the lighthouses and that put paid to much of that. The museum has a couple of large maps of 19th century Key West on display. This one show Fort Zachary Taylor as a separate island, before the harbor was filled in around it:
And he got his own portrait painted too, by Paul Collins:His intaglios are much prized these days and he made quite a name for himself. I happen to know reproductions are on sale on Duval and I think its about time my wife got me one for my birthday.The originals that are on show at the Museum tend to leap out at you:The Museum celebrates the history of wrecking and Porter's anti-piracy squadron, which cleared out all pirates in less than a decade after the city was founded (much to the discomfort I'm sure of all the irritating pirate lovers who want to make out the keys were all about pirates). Porter didn't think much of Key West and left as soon as the job was done. But wrecking was quite the business for decades:And it was legitimate too. It made fortunes for it's practitioners, and brought a level of sophistication to Key West which was decorated by ship's cargoes from all over the world. Then came the lighthouses and that put paid to much of that. The museum has a couple of large maps of 19th century Key West on display. This one show Fort Zachary Taylor as a separate island, before the harbor was filled in around it:
Alongside that is a rather corny but cool diorama for Key West's waterfront at the same period.
Key West really was isolated back then, and its population of 12,000 stayed pretty steady over the years. Nowadays we have double the numbers but we also have double the area as the city has spread over the whole island. What was scrub lands is now New Town. History appeals to me because it gives depth and meaning to the present. It gives me perspective when people moan about modern day changes. And there are news paper reports about the arrival of the railroad that express the fears and reluctance of many about how the island would be irrevocably changed. I ask people now about the notion that perhaps we should cut the bridge link and they look horrified. Change isn't always good but sometimes it has its good points! A case in point: the police department recently lost its chief to an unpleasant scandal. In the bad old days they apparently voted for chief, according to a reproduction of the old San Carlos Theater at the museum:
And it gets better. We have a row of photographs documenting past police chiefs on the wall outside the chief's office in the police station. And there he is, Cleveland Niles in 1926:
"Your most honest..." ? No worse than today at least.
And to close the obligatory alligator photo:
There was a man who lived on Key Largo who collected junk and turned it into Art. Stanley Papio got into trouble with his neighbors for bringing down thequality of the neighborhood. Where they saw junkin front of his house, he saw Art. He has a few pieces now on display at this museum and also the East Martello Tower the other venue for art and history in Key West. Or he used to. I'll have to go to the Martello Tower and check. Luckily I like small town museums.
I have resolved a mystery, and herewith the answer to a question that has plagued me for a while. I found the answer in two different places almost simultaneously and I was not actually seeking the answer-it just popped out at me. My favorite Keys guidebook is by Joy Williams, a dense mixture of history anecdote and information, all offered with a rather dry acerbic wit. In it she mentions that canals were dug in the Lower Keys as a form of mosquito control. Aha! I thought and when I went for a walk on Big Pine, at the Watson Trail I found confirmation:
And a view of Duval Street to boot. Janna asked for me to say hello to Riccardo so I did and took his picture, all of which left him a bit nonplussed. Actually it left both us I suspect, wondering about the power of the Internet.
He put up with my camera good naturedly, and sorted out my change. And so, there you have that too. One of my preferred downtown lunches still thriving. A while ago I wrote an essay about places I miss and I mentioned in passing that I regretted the closure of Martha's and Benihana's on South Roosevelt. Well imagine my surprise when the Citizen reported that the owner has given up the idea of building (unwanted condos) and Benihana's is coming back as soon as he can get the staff sorted out. Maybe something to replace Martha's later as well. I shall have to treat my wife to Japanese theater-as-dinner because she remembers it fondly with her parents from years ago. Nothing in Key West is permanent. Ever.
Who couldn't love that crazy 1950's neon sign, something that I think would be most appropriate on the Genuine Florida blog. The sign got knocked down by Wilma and it lay on the side of the road apparently abandoned. But lo and behold it got resurrected and its back in all its glory. So much so it deserves a second look:
If I were a visitor to Key West (and my wife let me choose where to stay) I'd try this place for at least a night, and when the Gilligan's Island theme had worn threadbare I'd move on to La Concha and pretend it was 1946 again. I don't think the Blue Lagoon benefits in the decor department from the gazillion rental jet skis, but there it is, commerce is king.
No not really, it was just an elderly Vespa, doing double duty as a poster board for a local charter boat:
If I were a kid I'd have desired this more than anything, not least because 40 years ago mopeds were a lot cruder than this little rocket. I put my camera away and wasn't I surprised when a man looking to be in his 40's hopped on the little race bike and bopped off down Whitehead Street.
The sun was going down rapidly last week when I was on Big Pine Key after checking out the Blue Hole, so instead of going home to my empty house I kept riding through the subdivision. It was a perfect evening, warm not buggy and relatively still deep in the middle of the largest island in the Lower Keys. The only cruddy thing about the evening was the way the camera can't quite capture the richness of the colors as the sun sinks to horizon.
I have discovered in this place another open space with no particular purpose except just being. Yet in this case we have what appears to be construction interruptus or just a very large swimming pool with absolutely no facilities:
Another of these impenetrable Keys mysteries. But this time I adjusted the camera's attention and got it to focus on the sky and got a rather grand result as the sun sank lower:
It was getting too dark to photograph anything and I'd have to come back another day for a more in depth exploration of this area. The headlight made a warm orange glow on the road in front of me as I burbled back to civilization, Big Pine Key's shopping center where neon and fluorescent lighting invited me to shop, and perhaps rent a video....
...on my roundabout way home. 
Robert Duvall's line about "the smell of napalm in the morning" from Apocalypse Now comes to my mind when I pass a working boatyard. I love the smell of drying fiberglass resin, the mixture of dust and copper bottom paint hanging in the air. I like the chaos and the sense of new things rising out of the old and worn. I like boatyards because I know boatyards from many years experience. Ask any boater and they will tell you hauling out is the most stressful part of ownership, watching one's precious hull swaying around in the slings, out of its element. I remember it well, to quote that other movie chestnut, sung by Maurice Chevalier.
Spencer's Boatyard lives in a corner of Garrison Bight Marina and it's a left over from a more industrial time in Key West. These days there are three haul out facilities left in the Lower Keys, Spencer's and two on Stock Island. How it is that Spencer's has survived into the 21st century in a town that is remaking its image so rapidly, is a mystery to me. But here it is apparently thriving:
Thriving is a word I use advisedly though one can never be sure, but the yard seemed full of work even though the facilities are not "polished"
This yellow boat I've seen swinging to a mooring just off the docks at Spencer's and out of the water its lines as attractive as when the boat is floating, and that's a rare attribute:
The smooth lines of the shear offset the angular lines of a nearby Swedish built Vega 27, a small sailboat notorious for making long journeys. It doesn't look like much but its an amazing machine, and this one has to be at least 30 years old:
One thing about hauling your boat out is when you get to paint that toxic copper bottom paint on the hull to discourage growth the result is instant good looks. I mention this because I am giving my skiff a coat of paint this week in hopes of going swimming next week and I look for the same result. Instant, creamy smooth, improvement:
The yard is right off Palm Avenue, the street that bisects Garrison Bight marina with a bridge through the middle. Spencer's is on the north side of the bridge but is blocked from the open water by 50-foot wires at the entrance to Garrison Bight so big sailboats can't get in. But there are big honking motorboats in here awaiting attention:
And tell me this massive prop won't be a glowing bronze work of art when it gets cleaned off and fresh green bottom paint is applied to the fiberglass bottom of this beauty:
To one side of the yard you will find the Key West Sailing Club which is not the Key West Yacht Club (that's the expensive one!):
No this is decidedly not the expensive one. When I lived in the city I was a member for something ridiculous like $10 a month, and I could take out any of their 17-19 foot sailboats for a spin. That was one advantage of living in the city, nowadays I like to be at home and drive my motor boat, which is the advantage of having a dock at your house:
And this is also the end of the yard that holds the facilities. The thing is, when someone who lives on their boat hauls out they need to continue to live on the boat- it is their home. Which means they need to do their ablutions in the yard. These facilities were more than usually...rustic:
In our years sailing together my wife suffered some pretty gruesome shower blocks but I think this might have been a bit much even for her.
And though it may look like chaos to you, to some intrepid boater, in the midst of all the stuff lies a critical component for the very project he is working on in his cabin. So out he pops like a prairie dog, pops down the ladder, grabs the thing, nods to the stranger while exchanging a pleasantry about the weather, and finally pops back out of sight:
Indeed checking aloft one can hear the halyards clanking against a nearby mast (a halyard is the rope one uses to raise and lower a sail), a sure sign the wind is picking up:
And check out those clouds! This had all the makings of a classic summer squall, the wind got fresher and cooler and small waves starting building across the enclosed waters of the Garrison Bight Lagoon:
And the clouds raced across the sky and the waves raced across the water pushing weeds and trash into the seawall at the yard:
Half of me wanted to be snugging down my boat, and then sitting in the cabin listening to rain pelting down on the deck. There's no feeling quite so snug as a decent anchorage or a secure berth when bad weather hits. The rational half of me wanted to get the hell away on the motorcycle before the big fat wet cold raindrops hit from the clouds. The dog wanted me gone too:
I got to Mile Marker 9 before I had to stop and put on my waterproofs for the rest of the ride home. And that too is a snug feeling, tucked inside a waterproof cocoon with big heavy slugs of rain splattering down around you and your motorcycle. Different strokes, same good feeling.