The East Martello Tower on South Roosevelt doubles as a museum as well as an historical monument, and it does both very nicely on a sunny winter afternoon:
The pile in front is my Bonneville hiding a pile of ship's anchors and chains thrown around for nautical effect. The interior of the museum is also a pile of absolutely fascinating artifacts of Key West's history, arranged in the corridor that makes up the wall of the fort:
There is a fee to get in, but all I noticed was that with the local's discount I paid five bucks so I'm guessing an out of town visitor might pay $6. It's well worth it, as the museum has been spruced up quite a bit since last I was there a few years ago. Fred the cat patrols the front desk area and gift shop:
The first stop was a diorama of the lighthouse with some of it's history but as I've already written about that delightful point of interest I limited myself to recording this gruesome instrument of torture, which previously I had only ever seen in the movies:
No museum worth it's salt in Key West will skip the desperate love affair that Karl Tanzler enjoyed with a young Cuban woman:
The German X-Ray technician employed at the naval hospital looked paternal enough but he conceived a most vivid love for the young Cuban woman called Elena depicted while alive just above Tanzler's shoulder. He promoted himself to Count Von Cosell and lived in a hut on the beach, whence he repaired with the unfortunate young Elena and played the pipe organ to celebrate their love. The only glitch was she had died of tuberculosis and he had been forced to dig up her body and repair the ravages of the grave as best he could. This ghastly parody of love went on for about seven years and when he was finally busted it was the 1940s and there are people alive today who remember Elena's waxy remains on display in the city:
That story never fails to give me the creeps and Ben Harrison's biography Undying Love spares no gruesome details. East Martello is also host to another of Key west's weirder characters, known simply as Robert the Doll. It is traditional to respectfully ask permission of the doll prior to taking a photograph, and you'd better believe I did.
The story goes that a servant in the Otto family gave the son and heir Gene this doll in 1896, and because the Otto's treated their servants so badly the servant put a voodoo hex on the doll which became Gene's constant companion. The adult Gene set Robert in a room overlooking Eaton Street and such was the doll's reputation people were afraid to walk past it. Even today there is a wall at the Martello Tower dedicated to letters from people thanking the doll and apologizing to the doll asking for their bad luck to be lifted:
In the interests of my own good fortune I have no comment. There are others who had bad luck but of the meteorological kind, namely Cuban rafters. There is one such machine,if it can be called that, in the corridor of the East Martello, dating back to the 1960s. It was basically a collection of saplings bound together, found with three ID cards, and the fate of their owners remains unknown:
The sign behind the raft says, Could the last person to leave Cuba turn out the light... Before the US decided to embargo Cuba there was a long history of exchange, both cultural and economic between Key West and Havana. That exchange was typified by the cigar industry which settled in Key West for a while before moving north to the wide open spaces of Tampa and Ybor City. The Key West era is marked in the museum:
The first international flight left from Key West in 1913, and took two hours to reach Havana 90miles (150 kilometers) to the south. Cuban Domingo Rosillo was at the controls of his featherweight monoplane: 
Augustine Parla, another Cuban aviator was the second person to make the flight a while later. Pan Am started mail flights between the two cities in 1927.
The pile in front is my Bonneville hiding a pile of ship's anchors and chains thrown around for nautical effect. The interior of the museum is also a pile of absolutely fascinating artifacts of Key West's history, arranged in the corridor that makes up the wall of the fort:There is a fee to get in, but all I noticed was that with the local's discount I paid five bucks so I'm guessing an out of town visitor might pay $6. It's well worth it, as the museum has been spruced up quite a bit since last I was there a few years ago. Fred the cat patrols the front desk area and gift shop:The first stop was a diorama of the lighthouse with some of it's history but as I've already written about that delightful point of interest I limited myself to recording this gruesome instrument of torture, which previously I had only ever seen in the movies:No museum worth it's salt in Key West will skip the desperate love affair that Karl Tanzler enjoyed with a young Cuban woman:The German X-Ray technician employed at the naval hospital looked paternal enough but he conceived a most vivid love for the young Cuban woman called Elena depicted while alive just above Tanzler's shoulder. He promoted himself to Count Von Cosell and lived in a hut on the beach, whence he repaired with the unfortunate young Elena and played the pipe organ to celebrate their love. The only glitch was she had died of tuberculosis and he had been forced to dig up her body and repair the ravages of the grave as best he could. This ghastly parody of love went on for about seven years and when he was finally busted it was the 1940s and there are people alive today who remember Elena's waxy remains on display in the city:That story never fails to give me the creeps and Ben Harrison's biography Undying Love spares no gruesome details. East Martello is also host to another of Key west's weirder characters, known simply as Robert the Doll. It is traditional to respectfully ask permission of the doll prior to taking a photograph, and you'd better believe I did.The story goes that a servant in the Otto family gave the son and heir Gene this doll in 1896, and because the Otto's treated their servants so badly the servant put a voodoo hex on the doll which became Gene's constant companion. The adult Gene set Robert in a room overlooking Eaton Street and such was the doll's reputation people were afraid to walk past it. Even today there is a wall at the Martello Tower dedicated to letters from people thanking the doll and apologizing to the doll asking for their bad luck to be lifted:In the interests of my own good fortune I have no comment. There are others who had bad luck but of the meteorological kind, namely Cuban rafters. There is one such machine,if it can be called that, in the corridor of the East Martello, dating back to the 1960s. It was basically a collection of saplings bound together, found with three ID cards, and the fate of their owners remains unknown:The sign behind the raft says, Could the last person to leave Cuba turn out the light... Before the US decided to embargo Cuba there was a long history of exchange, both cultural and economic between Key West and Havana. That exchange was typified by the cigar industry which settled in Key West for a while before moving north to the wide open spaces of Tampa and Ybor City. The Key West era is marked in the museum:The first international flight left from Key West in 1913, and took two hours to reach Havana 90miles (150 kilometers) to the south. Cuban Domingo Rosillo was at the controls of his featherweight monoplane: Augustine Parla, another Cuban aviator was the second person to make the flight a while later. Pan Am started mail flights between the two cities in 1927. The Martello Tower also offers park like ambiance inside the walls, and makes for a pleasant place to sit outside and avoid the cool north winds of winter:
And aside from all those splendid lawns there is a viewing platform at the top of the central tower, reached by climbing three narrow flights of an iron spiral staircase. From the top one gets a view across the Straits of Florida.
A pleasant afternoon at the Martello Tower.
And aside from all those splendid lawns there is a viewing platform at the top of the central tower, reached by climbing three narrow flights of an iron spiral staircase. From the top one gets a view across the Straits of Florida.A pleasant afternoon at the Martello Tower.
Rest Beach is one of my preferred spots for a quick break because it's right there, it's got parking next to Atlantic Boulevard, it has beachfront seating in the form of rather insalubrious tiki huts and from the comfort of the hard wooden benches one can sit and ponder the meaning of life:
The nice thing is that there is also stuff to see out on the water, in winter sailboats are traveling Hawk Channel to and from Marathon, cyclists and walkers are enjoying the White Street Pier and the sun sparkles on the water giving it a festive tinsel-like sheen.
I feel the need to remind people who don't know, that magnificent beaches are not part of what makes the Keys attractive. Unlike mainland Florida which is a gigantic sandpit that produces incredible arcs of beach, the Keys are more like the Bahamas, lumps of hard limestone rock that don't produce much in the way of sandy beaches. But what there is people do try to enjoy:
My wife and I very much enjoy spending our summer afternoons,when she gets home from work and before I leave for my night job, going swimming. Because I live 25 miles out of town I get to keep our little 14 foot skiff on the canal behind our house and its a matter of no effort at all to get out into Newfound Harbor, a wide expanse of protected water, drop the anchor and go for a refreshing swim. However I have to admit I am not fond of swimming in waters cooler than 80 degrees (27C), so the boat comes out of the water in late October usually and goes back in around mid April. Visitors to the islands are less fussy and they go swimming even in February, and some of them manage to get some sunburn on their delicate northern epidermis:
Not everyone is so informal. I spotted one gent, nattily dressed, out for an afternoon constitutional, quietly resting at the tiki hut nearest the condos by the beach:
That's the great pleasure of the beach, and Key West in general, the whole philosophy of come as you are. I am not really a great fan of beach vacations, all that suntan oiled indolence, the uncomfortable posture for reading, the sand in the crevices, the immobility. However the beach is the place where you can wear a cardigan, or a diaper; the beach is the great leveller:
And one has to reflect that I took these pictures on an average afternoon in February, amidst reports of snow ice rain and cold almost everywhere north of here. I can sense winter is crawling towards a gradual close, but in conditions like these winter is no real hardship, even if it is too cold for a swim.
I like having the opportunity to ride to work the "long way" round the island, taking South Roosevelt, stopping at Rest Beach on Atlantic Boulevard, and perhaps getting a cafe con leche at Sandys on White Street before reporting for work at the Police Station. It's good to take the time to enjoy the sun, smell the sea air and watch the water for a while. 
It has some pretensions to history, though of the more dilapidated type:
Modern Conchs, and newcomers enjoy living in modern homes too, with all the modern conveniences, including scooters on the porch if they feel like it:
And chickens in the front yard:
The lane itself isn't very big, comprising as it does two right angled arms which pass between Key West Bank on Whitehead Street and Crabby Dicks on Duval Street. Looking out towards Whitehead Street and Robert Gabriel public housing:
Looking halfway up the lane ( against the one way traffic flow):
And out towards Angela Street:
Samaritan Lane is more of a series of interconnected parking lots in some respects, including the big lot behind Crabby Dicks, which is some unremarkable bar and restaurant serving tourists on Duval:
And then there is the big old apartment complex at the turn, with convenient covered parking underneath:
Even in this unpromising lane there are the signs of Key West architecture on view, including the multi level staircase:
The endless "No Trespassing" signs:
And the bane of all vehicular traffic in Old Town, the lack of parking:
And a nice peek of the magnificent A.M.E. Zion Church on Whitehead Street, a fine juxtaposition to the bulk of Crabby Dicks on the other side of the lane:
Samaritan Lane may not be much to write home about but the residents appeared quite house proud the early morning I was there (filled with fish from nearby Dennis Cafe):
Another one down, many dozen more lanes to go.
There was a time when Dennis Cafe was a name that attracted all sorts of people to the breakfast counter on the corner of United Street near the southernmost side of the island. In those days it was called Dennis Pharmacy because the squat little building with the Coppertone ad on top housed an old fashioned chemist's with an old fashioned diner attached. Nowadays it's a bank, which used to be Marine Bank but which sold out to an out of town concern that goes by the delightfully distinctive bland moniker (as bland as it's logo) of Centennial Bank:
The old diner lived off it's reputation as a breakfast hang out for the rich and famous of a bygone era and the walls had photos and autographs to prove it. I ate there from time to time (and failed to take any pictures!) but it wasn't on my route around town and I wasn't particularly upset when the institution closed. Some people penned awful laments to the paper about the passing of an era, etc... which is odd because the news that the pharmacy was to re-open in the decidedly unromantic Professional Building in New Town wasn't greeted with any great fanfare:
The formerly unified pharmacy/diner operation split and the restaurant opened, again with no fanfare in Bahama Village across the street from another institution, Floyd's Barber Shop on the Three Hundred Block of Petronia Street:
Finding myself at a loose end downtown early one morning I followed my wife's advice to try somewhere new and at 8:05am promptly walked into the new Dennis cafe for a quick breakfast. 35 minutes later, long after I had placed my order my breakfast arrived, a plate of grouper and grilled onions, a cup of grits covered with molten American cheese, two eggs and a slice of Cuban toast:
This substantial breakfast stuck to my ribs all day, of that there was no doubt, but a bill of $17:15 rather put the kibosh on any plans I might have had for a return visit. This slow simple meal set me back one clean crisp twenty dollar bill for a breakfast that used to epitomise poverty in old Key West. "Grunts and grits"was the daily menu during the last depression, a grunt being a small, tasty, but bony fish caught around the island and grits being cornmeal ground up very fine and boiled in water. Nourishing but bland. Grits is good they say, because in the South grits is singular and only damned Yankees say grits are good.
In it's old location Dennis Pharmacy was a community center and there was lots of hustle and bustle around the old diner counter with the rushing dinner ladies hurrying back and forth. Nowadays there is still a counter in the new Dennis Cafe, but the pace is more languid:
There are paradoxically many less expensive items on the breakfast menu, all the usual meat and eggs and potato choices one expects from a cafe, and the bright blue exterior marks the Key West institution:
Dennis Cafe is just up the road from Blue Heaven on Petronia Street.
I was called to serve as a juror in Monroe County one recent Monday, and a most enlightening experience it was too. I had never served previously owing to a lack of this or that in my life, citizenship, stability ("out sailing" leaves the mails far behind), but my civic duty caught up to me finally. I was last called just as Hurricane Ike was barrelling down on the Keys and the Justice system shut down for a week excusing all potential jurors. I felt deprived as I have always wanted to observe up close the lynch pin of Anglo Saxon justice, the jury of one's peers.
I missed the public tour of the Freeman Justice Center when it opened last year so this was also my opportunity to see the inside of the building that replaces the venerable and rather tatty building that currently sits between the Freeman Center and Whitehead Street. There was of course some controversy about the structure, an arcane debate over what sort of exrterior decoration was suitable for a building that represents stability and dignity in town and the end result, the more expensive result looks quite good, even from the rear on Thomas Street: 
However, like Gilbert and Sullivan's Lord High Executioner I have a little list, and in the event we get a revolution and a people's tribunal I would put, in descending order, architects, bankers and lawyers on my little list. The Freeman Center reinforces my prejudice not least because the architect forget to create a security area so the 250 jurors lined up around the block, and stood in the sun while the head of the line did the usual ridiculous removal of all dignity along with belts, buckles and water bottles. I don't think they took down one potential juror as a threat as we stood and waited and waited and waited. Then when we got past security we had to squish in the lobby like sardines waiting for the elevator and we couldn't take the stairs because there aren't any! To walk to the upper levels the stairway is outside the building which is beyond the security apparatus...Then one of the two elevators wasn't working in the brand new building which just made the whole approach to jury duty one more painful sardine experience.
We went through the process of whittling people in front of Judge Taylor and as I sat in the room I heard a bunch of great excuses about why people should be excused their civic duty. The loudest laugh was reserved for the man who stood up and said he cooked lunch for the homeless and they wouldn't get lunch if he was in court. He didn't get excused. I sat and waited and read my novel and was wondering if I would ever get selected. In the event I was in the middle of the second group of twenty selected for a battery trial to be heard before Judge Miller. The second round of the selection process was heard downstairs before my main man Tegan Slaton who was seated after winning the recent election by two votes (mine and my wife's). His opponent is suing for a new go round and votes are being scrutinized in court so he may or may not stay in his $150,000 judicial seat. 
I did not get selected of course. My wife (the former public defender) thinks the prosecution eliminated me as being too smart, I think the Judge eliminated me for being a wiseass (I was a bit wordy on my answers, not a surprise I suppose). It couldn't possibly have been the defense worried about my place of employment. And suddenly I was free to go and sit in the sun.
I find it tedious that everyone wants to get out of jury duty. I understand that losing money is a drag and God knows getting up at 7:30am to the sound of an alarm is tough for someone on my schedule, but without jurors there would a very unpleasant legal system to deal with. A friend of mine in Italy is sitting on the murder trial of the century in the city of Perugia. A young American from Seattle, stuying in Umbria, stands accused of murdering a fellow student from Great Britain in a blooody sex triangle which has titillated the press to distraction. Irene is described a "popular judge" which in Civil Law (known to some as Napoleonic Law) is the equivalent of a juror in the Anglo Saxon system. However she is one of six civilians working with one judge to figure out the truth in her tangled web of sex and lies and death. The system we live under is a much better separated system of justice in my opinion, with lawyers to prosecute and defend, juries to decide, judges to sentence. In Civil Law all parties work together to figure out what really happened so the adversarial pursuit of legal loopholes as happens in the US doesn't taint the truth. In fact I would rather be defended by an advocate than sold down the river by a bunch of legal geniuses working together to figure out what they think really happened. So I feel an obligation not to whine when called for jury duty. I stand ready to do my bit, for fifteen dollars a day. Erk. And no one is exempt.
No one is exempt: unless they are hard of hearing, self employed charter boat captains suffering through the worst season in living memory, don't speak much English, have a condition that doesn't allow them to concentrate, are pregnant, or it turns out happen to work in the Police Department. I was hoping I might get selected on this round because none of the trials was scheduled to last more than a day and the next round I was told, included a potentially month long trial, an event that would try the patience of the most civic minded jury applicant. This is the original Monroe County Courthouse, typical of Southern solidity:
I have since discovered that the big hitting trial is supposed to be Key West's most recent murder, an event that occurred two years ago, I feel safe in assuming that's one long assed jury event I could not possibly be called to serve on as I was working when the murder was discovered.
I think from here on out I shall enjoy the Freeman Justice Center in passing like the tourist above, but not I hope like this: 
Perhaps I should expand the Lord High Executioner's list of people who should be removed as societal annoyances: