Searstown

When Searstown came into existence in the 1960's it was a huge innovation for the little fishing village at the end of the highway. The land here was fill created to help the railroad cross from Cow Key Channel to Trumbo Point where the ferries waited to take passengers to Havana. It's hard to imagine but New Town after World War Two was a bucolic open space with fields and dairy cows criss crossed by little white gravel lanes and the occasional home. This photo I found of Flagler's Casa Marina Hotel, the "other" railroad destination in Key West, at keyshistory.org a fascinating site well worth checking out:Almost since it's inception in the early 19th century, Key West had been a city of twelve or thirteen thousand inhabitants clustered around the harbor on the western edge of the island. Then development came, with a vengeance and the shopping mall appeared, heralding the creation of New Town and boosting the population across the whole island to around 25,000. Ah yes, Publix, where shopping is a pleasure..."You have a Publix here?" was the indignant question from a friend visiting from mainland Florida, as though the intrusion of sophisticated grocery store chains was beyond Key West's ken even in the 21st century. I shrugged. Yup, and we have drive-through ("thru") fast food too, and some people get their food by driving thru:Visit Key West, wander no further east than Simonton Street from your Duval Street mega hotel, perhaps if you are daring, take a bike ride to White Street but let Sears remain outside your consciousness. The tawdry reality of ordinary people doing ordinary shopping will wreck the pirate stories told and retold at the bars downtown:Searstown is one of three big (relatively big) shopping centers which also include Key Plaza (KMart, possibly going out of business, Radio Shack Office Max and Blockbuster among national chains) and Overseas Market (Winn Dixie, Ross, Pier One, TGI Friday's) all lined up along the Boulevard (North Roosevelt). I suppose Key West would be more charming without them but really choices are limited enough this far from anywhere it would be a shame to force them out, and locals, Conchs most especially, people who hate driving up the Keys, would I have no doubt rise up in arms. There's a six screen mainstream theater at the Regal, another facility geared to youngsters who have "nothing to do in Key West":Some people really like deliveries from China Garden West (for those too exhausted to drive three miles from Simonton Street there is another China Garden at Fleming Street and a third on Big Pine Key, 30 miles north). Every Publix in Florida boasts a Chinese restaurant next door in every plaza I've ever seen. Key West is no exception: I am surprised how much I enjoy the occasional meal at Outback, efficient service, quiet televisions (which I hate in bars and restaurants and waiting rooms) and decent prices. I could pay four times as much at a fancy place downtown but I have a living to earn. Conchs love their sports so it's no surprise there is a chain sports equipment store, another facility for kids who have "nothing to do" in Key West:I've never been inside Champs but I do visit Conch Scoops, the coffee shop next door to Outback and Quiznos in this end of the shopping center. My wife and I frequently get a cafe con leche before I go to work and she drives home. Yvonne's family has lived here for generations and she knows how to make a Conch con leche which I can only have when my wife's not around as it involves sweetened condensed milk...Sears has an auto repair facility......and a garden center as wellAnd the City buses as well as the Lower Keys Shuttle buses to Marathon stop in front of Publix:I look out across the expanse of this development and wonder what the scattered few residents of these fields would think if they could come back and take a look themselves a hundred years later.It's easy to grumble about development but one has to consider too the fact that we get to live longer and in many ways with greater ease than previously. Perhaps I am getting more sensitive to the issue as I grow older myself, but I see a difference between these shopping plazas and the creation of million dollar condos. Like it or not Searstown provides services for people who live here.

Florida is known world wide as the place where people go to die and even though the Keys used to boast a population much younger than the state average the gap is closing. It has to, it's too expensive to raise a family in the islands and the population of children is dropping. Not to say that seniors in Key West dodder quite as much as elsewhere in God's waiting room:As the world economy shrinks I wonder what the Key West population will look like in the years to come, perhaps more wealthy visitors and retirees with a smaller population of civil servants to wait on them hand and foot... and I wonder what sort of job prospects there will be for the youngsters, who love their mainland fashions and their electronic devices.Searstown has the necessaries resembling those of the mainland, the peninsula where home values have plummeted and people are reportedly leaving in droves. We have fast food:Alternative "banks":Which businesses are part of a little strip mall inside the Searstown Mall called Peacock Plaza:But here in the Keys things only appear to resemble elsewhere because some things are done in a particular way. I occasionally read the Internet scooter forums where people new to riding marvel at their vehicles' abilities to carry a load. They post excited photographs showing how they make useful work horses out of their exotic Italian rides. In Key West a scooter is a daily ride, no muss no fuss for riders of all ages:In another month the snowbirds will retreat and take their money with them to hot sticky cities across the north, and we will be left to fill the spaces left behind. Parking will magically reappear, the complaints column in the paper will stop reporting on issues of crowding and will revert to more interesting political sniping and from the parks many of the seasonal homeless will also depart in the other, less noticed migration:And for those away and thinking about Key West they can watch Goldie Hawn's Criss Cross and see if they can spot this location:In the movie Hawn takes off her clothes there, but I'm advised this is in real life just another place to go drinking. Perhaps it's emblematic of the Keys, the islands are what you want them to be, whether real or not.

Roberts Lane

I parked the Bonneville in a motorcycle spot on Frances Street planning to stroll over to Nassau Lane to take some pictures. Imagine my surprise when it occurred to me I had already done that, and in fact using the "search" function at the top of the page I found the essay posted last December 18th 2008. Well bugger, I thought. This blog really has been going on too long. It was with some trepidation I went to Roberts Lane for a back up plan and honestly I couldn't remember for the life of me if I had taken pictures there or only thought about it. So I took some more. Fortunately the same "search"function revealed no previous entries by this name so here we are, off Frances Street between Southard and Angela, a stone's throw from the cemetery. Indeed Google Maps shows Roberts almost connecting with Catholic Lane, though in fact they don't seem to join without crossing private property...I could hear sounds of construction coming from the house though I was discouraged from approaching as I overheard a most unusual conversation, as I stood on tip toe, out of sight) I hoped!). One male voice said: " I don't see why they'd come after me.I never killed anyone." Which is quite devastating as the opening gambit in any conversation when followed up by the next statement to his companion in physical labor: "It wasn't like I killed anyone,"he went on: "I was just the book keeper to the mob." Which had me interested. It didn't seem like he was in the witness protection program, though why would he be laboring instead of living off his ill gotten gains? Maybe rebuilding a home on Roberts Lane is deep cover? Like the sailors in HMS Pinafore I with caution feeling, softly stole away...to enjoy some of the architectural gems of this tiny lane:It is traditional in Key west to paint the eaves over the porches in this or similar shade of blue. supposedly it keeps away insects, and more esoterically, spirits as well.I am a big fan, as are insurance companies, of metal roofs which provide the strongest hurricane protection and I particularly enjoy the old style metal roof, almost scalloped looking like this:Roberts Lane is also filled with Art which gave my wander an added fillip:Roberts Lane has a little intrigue of it's own in J Wills Burke's book Streets of Key West where he discusses a Roberts Lane off Caroline Street. From what I can gather that would be the alley way alongside Los Cubanitos Marine hardware store which never had a name as far as I knew but on Google maps it shows as Roberto Lane which may be what Burke is referring to in some geographic cosmic mix up. Or not.Burke's Roberts referred to any one of three historical figures, a "colored Sheriff" or a "colored businessman" weirdly enough a friend of Stephen Mallory, Secretary of the Confederate Navy. Ina any event the lane is here and not there nowadays. Very pretty it is too, off Frances Street:And there on Frances runs the dreaded Conch Train blathering its endless repetitive spiel at 5 miles per hour (8km/h):One needs the Conch Train as a reminder that this is Key West, not Paradise.

Key West Approaches

There has been a ton of traffic on Highway One day after day, as the young hordes roll into town and very annoying it is too. They crawl along enjoying the view form the seat of their parents' mini vans and as soon as the Bonneville starts to zip by they pile on the speed because, God knows, they aren't going to stand for a worker bee trying to get to work on time....Grr I sez to myself, six more weeks and then at last all these intruders (and their money) will be gone and the Overseas highway will become magically uncluttered. Which is a terrible attitude so I thought taking some pictures might help. here is the Bonneville heading into town at 1:30a.m. for a late shift on Wednesday:

Highway One looking east towards Boca Chica is mostly empty at that hour which is why I enjoy working short shifts occasionally. It's a trip flying down the empty road, a cool breeze and only the light of the headlamp to break up the darkness. The full moon made it even more spectacular last week. The last couple of miles into Stock Island the highway is illuminated which spoils the effect a bit. This is the easternmost turn onto College Road with the big Tennessee Williams Theater illuminated billboard:This spot is where the city of Key West actually has it's outer limits. North Stock Island was annexed by the city to make way for a golf course and related gated housing development and the northernmost lane of Highway One is in the city of Key West (as is College Road). The other three lanes and the median strip are in Monroe County. Which means that if this runner were to get heat stroke he would be attended by a city ambulance. If he were across the street (where there is no bike path) it would be a county ambulance. Very confusing and completely uninteresting I'm sure. Just one of those oddities that strike the mind of a dispatcher. The Burger King is in the county, as is the big empty lot next to it. The lot was to have been developed by the indefatigable Spottswoods who felt the community needed yet another strip mall hereabouts. The damaged economy saved us the excrescence, the lot is for sale happily:So what could that bright white light be that beckons from across the street?Is probably not the liquor store, the place where you come for alcohol if you are desperate of a Sunday morning before lunch (!?) and can't wait for the city liquor counters to open up, when the Blue Laws relent at noon and permit such reckless behavior:No, the bright white light is in fact our favorite chicken place, available on Stock Island of course:And if you need gas 24 hours you can check out the Chevron at Mile Marker 5 more or less, awkward to get into if you are headed into Key West (where the other Chevron at White Street is also open all night as is the Citgo). This is the Chevron at the intersection of MacDonald Avenue: The approach to the Cow Key Bridge, the only bridge into the city proper, is a series of light industrial businesses, mechanics and the like, lining the southern side of the highway. It's not pretty but it is useful:Not forgetting the all important Harley Davidson rental shop at Hurricane Hole Marina:And with your rented Harley you too could join the hordes of lookalike cruisers parading up and down the Overseas Highway: I am forced to concede that cruisers make sense, for those with extra tough tailbones, in a state noted for it's flatness and straightness but I sure would like to see a little more variety on the streets of key West... And then, back on the road, we come to the bridge itself at Mile Marker Four, the place where the city really starts:The last four miles of the Overseas Highway down to Fleming and Whitehead Streets are in the city and this is the formal notice of the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning if you are going the other way...With an important reminder from your friends at Key West PD:Should you choose to ignore the advice there is free board and lodging available at the Stock Island Hilton where they throw in a free body cavity search with registration. On the other hand should you find yourself needing to settle down in delightful Key West there us at least one bank with money to spare:I was rather surprised to see the banner looking so cheerful on the way out of town, but there it is. Some banks apparently aren't in distress; we should all be so lucky.