Grinnell Pocket Park

They call them pocket parks, little corners of the city that are transformed into public spaces. I wrote an essay last year about a few of them including this one...

http://conchscooter.blogspot.com/2008/05/unconsidered-trifles.html

...and I decided to come back to see what was what.
Clearly they have or have had their issues. Noise is always an issue in a small town compressed as tight as this one and not everyone thinks of that when they decide to take up "island time" for themselves, full time. In the time this park has been here they have done the usual tarting up thing with labels, now dilapidated:
This piece of public art is dedicated to a member of a family that made a brief name for themselves as art gallery owners in town during the boom years. Art for the people they offered until they could no longer, and retreated to Miami and it's wealthier market. And now there is a monument to anyone that remembers the Charest-Weinberg name in modest little Key West: Cheyenne liked the concept of pocket parks:
She was oblivious to the cemetery across Angela Street:

I sniffed a good deal less than my dog, but I did observe all the tidy little beds they have lined with bricks. I see them as an attempt to bring order where none need prevail:The monument failed to intrigue Cheyenne though she gave it a quick look. It was gray day, promising rain and a cold front that was soon to fill the Keys with cold air. It felt like decay was all around.I liked the park a lot better in it's early stages when there were some bushes ands scrappy grass and a bunch of plastic chairs put out by people who actually used the new urban space. This pocket park used to be an electrical sub station that buzzed and hummed with electricity all day and all night. I thought it was a great improvement to see it emptied of electrical transformers. But now I wonder who uses this open space with no accommodations? No one shows up even, to harvest the fruit!
We were intruders in an unused space, it felt like. Perhaps this place pullulates with people when I am tucked up at work or at home, miles away.
Perhaps they come out and water, and rake, and hoe and......fill the bird bath:Perhaps not. perhaps it just stays empty for the occasional visitor and his dog. They come, they stroll, they look unsuccessfully for somewhere to sit, and finding none they move on.

Fogarty At First

First Street with George Allen public housing across the street. Key West has quite a bit of public housing in this rather bland 1960s style scattered around town. It rather horrifies me in summer when I see open windows and no air conditioning. And across First Street lies Fogarty, heading east.
This street got badly flooded by Hurricane Wilma in 2005, and the high waters were a reminder why people originally kept Key West in what is now Old Town, the drier portion of the city closer to the original waterfront. This house looks like it has been closed for a while:

One saw in New Orleans the outer suburbs going underwater that same year as the levees broke, but their version of Old Town, the French Quarter and most of Faubourg Marigny stayed high and dry. There was often more sense in the habits of previous generations that we like to give them credit for. Which is an ungrammatical way of saying our ancestors were smart from bitter experience. For whatever reason people on this block of Fogarty seem to overflowing with stuff:
Though some people like to keep doors of some sort on their stuff in the car port: While others find the room to park a trailer off the street (on-street trailer parking is illegal in Key West) effectively creating a useful storage space:Hurricane shutters this time of year usually indicate snow birds though I thought several homes with them up appeared to be lived in. It seems rather dark and depressing to me, especially as metal shutters tend to bang and rattle in the slightest breeze, giving one the feeling one lives in an empty coffee can. i take mine down as soon as the danger has passed.
Cheyenne, oblivious to my ruminations, found Fogarty Street quite worth her while, seen here nearing Second Street.
Adirondack chairs set our ready for the cool of winter which has been slow coming this December: Wildlife I spotted from across the street stayed put quite a long time while eying the Labrador's oblivious antics. I'm guessing this is a mourning dove, which is a long shot thanks to my innate inability to identify flora or fauna with any hope of accuracy.A trim little home which I would be tempted to label as "sky blue" in color except obviously it is nothing like the blue sky in question:

A made up mailbox. I was tempted to put the flag up to get it out of the way but I'd probably forget to put it down and then the letter carrier would assume there was mail to be picked up and so...My favorite Keys colors, green greenery, white clouds, blue sky: Not a snow flake in sight though this palm was making quite a show of itself on Second Street. Houses surrounded by vegetation always appeal to me, which may be one reason I am so fond of my little tree house on Ramrod Key. This one does a nice job of camouflaging itself: The Bahama shutters leaning out from the house in the back ground are classic Keys style, as is the eminently practical bicycle in the foreground. A proper daily rider with basket for luggage.
I don't care much for the hoopla of Christmas with the shopping craziness and concomitant stress but I do enjoy the outdoor decorations integrated into the landscaping: This rooster and a few chickens were fenced into a yard like pets. I prefer Labradors myself.

I hoe this was intended humorously, because that was how I took it:

And here endeth the brief tour of Fogarty between 1st and 2nd Streets. Classic Key West New Town.

Wandering Triumph

( BBC Picture)

When I took my pictures yesterday morning the weather forecasters were threatening deep snow everywhere along the mid Atlantic states. No such luck down here. It was windy though.I left my wife at home working on her computer with Cheyenne's big brown eyes following me out the door. I had a date with the Bonneville.
I am looking forward to the beginning of January when things are supposed to get back to normal; things like commuting, working and snatching time to be with my wife. All this time off and holiday stuff confuses me. Of course having been off with shingles didn't help much either and i wanted to see how sitting on the motorcycle felt after all this time.

It felt cold was how it felt. The wind was honking out of the north and the giant flag at the Ohio Key campground was proof of that:

This is the time of year this place starts to fill up with snowbirds who drive their $250,000 RVs and park here for the winter. Instead they are advertising vacancies for the first time, that I've seen. You too could rent an annual space.
And it seems they even allow dogs. Cool. It was rather cool and windy but I wasn't the only motorcycle out on the Overseas Highway.

With winds gusting to thirty miles an hour it wasn't surprising to see more speed freaks out on the flat waters, sail boarding this time:It was fun being out on the Trumpet once again. My shingles are still itching like crazy but I want to get back to normal and riding the Bonneville will be normal again soon I hope. I love this view from the middle of the bridge between Big Pine and No Name Keys. The slight rise in the middle of the bridge gives a perspective one doesn't often get in these flat islands. I stopped in the middle of the bridge with no traffic in sight and snapped a few pictures.

This stilt under the stilt house caught my eye. I thought the paint was nice but the tile mosaic gave it something a lot more interesting.
And not too far away I found a boat dumped on the edge of the roadway, just like that. Nice no?
I got home, ran up the stairs and my wife greeted me with the words: " Your dog..."when the emphasis is on the your it's clearly a transgression. Cheyenne confirmed my suspicion by nuzzling me desperately as I learned how "my" dog had tried to steal my wife's peanut butter sandwich. That'll teach me to take a moment to go ride the Bonneville in the sun and wind!