A Winter Of Discontent

This guy was a dead ringer for the headmaster of my first boarding school, a man with a short temper and a long walking stick which hurt quite a bit when applied vigorously to the buttocks of small boys. His alter ego did no such thing and tranquilly read his newspaper. Which is surprising as things have been not so tranquil in the Southernmost City.

No one seems terribly excited by the arrival of a large new national pharmacy chain where Key West's eccentric Fast Buck Freddie's used to do business. It's across the street from another such store by Walgreens at the Strand Cinema building. Plus it's bracketed by two more CVS stores, one on Truman five blocks south and one five blocks north at 12 Duval soon to be replaced by a CVS "mega store" on Duval at Front Street. It seems reasonable enough to me to wonder why anyone would want to make a visit all the way here to shop at five and dimes that litter street corners in suburban developments across the country.

Yet this is the future and not one civic leader in Key West has any kind of alternative vision to offer. Plans were bruited a few years ago to try a pedestrian zone on a couple of blocks of this part of Duval but the merchants outside the zone feared it would be so wildly popular they would lose customers. So instead of expanding the concept our civic leaders killed the whole idea.

City planners have been fighting a rearguard action against the new food craze sweeping the nation and the Food Channel, but their drive to shut down food trucks don't seem to have done much so far. Of course its not at all clear at the moment what interesting inexpensive food they have managed to keep out of the city but the White Street Station and Yebo's renamed Cayo have both survived attempts to shut them down. Now there is a new hybrid offering on Southard Street between Duval Street and the Green Parrot Bar. Fritas Cuban Burgers claims to have brought genuine modern Cuban street food to Key West in this shady spot, but the food truck is actually the kitchen and the food service is carried out in the solid structure next door. Whatever the nature of the "truck" which apparently this isn't, the food is getting rave reviews online.

Somehow the city has managed to organize a new city hall after years of debate and aggravated name calling. Old City Hall on Green Street is the ornate palazzo where the commission meets, while the work of the city staff is carried out in distant new town at Habana Plaza, the temporary city hall which was created after Hurricane Wilma in 2005 drenched the actual city hall on Angela Street. That structure and all its mold has finally been demolished and the firefighters associated with it have moved into a fine new building which is supposed to end up surrounded by a parking lot to serve the mid section of Duval Street, a black away.

New City Hall will end up on White Street at the former Glynn Archer School which is either a 20 million dollar boondoggle or an inspired and inspiring location (I belong in the latter camp). I like Glynn Archer as I have mentioned previously because not only is the building imposing as  a municipal headquarters should  be, but also because it is centrally located, the property has tons of room for parking and easy  access from all quarters. On the other hand it will cost soemthing close to twenty million.  

The state of mind that was the Conch Republic seems to have vanished off the street, the blue building that housed the "Office of the Secretary General" is now a yellow consignment store. The web presence is still there but I don't know what that means.

Another of those fleeting landmarks in this city of evanescent traditions has also been replaced by banality. Don't get me wrong: palm reading is nto my thing but "unique gifts" and henna tattoos is a horrible way to replace the dead palm reader. He was, perhaps not unique, but he was a tad bit different. 

I enjoyed Clark Gable Slept Here a 70 minute farce mocking the pretensions and facades of Hollywood; nothing revolutionary just a few good laughs and a momentary naked penis flaunted on stage. I am glad for the theater we have on offer in Key West each winter. The best thing I see on Duval actually.

I saw this tourist sign below and I forbore from asking the harried ticket saleswoman whether the house or the tickets were discounted. I don't think she was in the mood for a  discussion about the proper placement of modifiers in a billboard. Cheyenne was bored by my amusement. Good dog.

Cold it has been around here but how glorious itis when the sun comes out and the sky is blue. 

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More Night Walk

Yesterday I posted the meditative night pictures I took while walking Cheyenne Thursday night/Friday morning. Like this shot of the Beau Geste Fort Zinderneuf Church on Fleming. It has cream colored walls and crenelated towers and it looks just like the scale model fort I had as kid to go with my French Foreign Legionnaire model soldiers.

I think back to my childhood and it seems like it belongs to some other human. Me half a century ago on the carpet winning the white man's war of subjugation in Africa. Weird.

The restored chain motels on the main road into Key West have not yet been opened for business but the new resort near the Key West  water front is open and all lit up in the middle of the night. 

I shouldn't be as amazed as I am but I remember this place as a wooded lot, actually a trailer park surrounded by greenery and RVs  parked in the middle of town. 

Perhaps I romanticize Jabour's but it seemed a better use of the land. Even at the time I was astonished it was viable and allowed to exist in a town dedicated to generating top dollar. The Marker, even with its support of public art seems nothing more than another big architectural yawn "in the Key West style." They have stuff like this at Disney World.

It's not easy being green but Kermit manages it quite well, making a flourishing enterprise from the business of making Key Lime products. You should try walking past the store in the middle of the night and on the Greene Street side there is a TV blaring some sort of interview show which recorded an interview with the indefatigable Kermit in Korean or Japanese or something. 

Green Street at half past two. Lovely, human-free as I like it best.

People abandon shoes like they are suddenly radio active all over Key West all the time. Perhaps its the benign climate or something combined with excessive alcohol intake.

I was looking at Old City Hall when I noticed a rather large scooter toppled on it's side. My first instinct was to lift it up but then common sense prevailed in our messed up world. I wasn't sure I could lift it and perhaps I might damage it and it wasn't going to fall any further, so...I left it, a horizontal shadow in the dark.

The Bull- unoccupied.

Radio Shack is abandoning Duval in the drive to reorganize the badly managed company. The top people screw up and the little people lose their jobs. The stores in Key Plaza and on Big Pine stay open.

This sign will be gone soon. It will be one less chain store on Duval, looking on the brighter side but who knows what will replace it, another bland unexceptional chain store no doubt.

There is a little parking on Duval Street frequently occupied by...one doesn't want to think too hard about that. A dreamer, a wanderer at the end of the road, no visible means of support, not the kind of person to encourage the chain store business on Duval, but not exactly a social asset for the winter months either. 

And then away from Duval and the lights and the smell of spilled beer soon to be swept up by the early morning city work force, and back to the gloomy, shady meditative back streets of Old Town Key West.

Much better.

Key West Night

I found myself in the middle of Key West after a few hours of overtime and there was my dog, awake and perky in the car thanks to the cold weather outside and she was ready to walk, notwithstanding the unearthly hour of two in the morning.

Though cold Cheyenne kept a surprisingly brisk pace for a 14 year old Labrador. In between striding like she owned the town she stopped and sniffed and I got to snatch a few moments here and there to take a picture. I find Key West terribly evocative at night. 

There's no one around except from time to time a scooter, a cyclist or a taxi rush by, breaking the darkness for a moment, then silence returns and the shapes settle back into their half lit shadows. I love this stuff, it looks like nowhere else within two thousand miles, maybe further.

It's not just the absence of snow or other winter surprises. It's the restoration in the half light of the true nature of the 19th century buildings that populate this miraculously preserved square mile or two of old anachronistic buildings, as much lived in today as they were when built.

I've done my share of  living in old houses and for me the pleasure lies in looking at them, not struggling to maintain them and their foibles. I'm glad there are people that want to take care of these money pits.

Cheyenne needed  watching because she got so wrapped up in the night smells that intersections meant not very much to her and I preferred to snag her with my hand than shout and crack the silence barking at my dog.

I did that once and she jumped as though stung but the noise was too much. I like to let her off leash when I can as she seems to be less driven to walk in a straight line, taking her time, circling, pausing and getting more out of the walk when she is untethered. 

Of course I can't let her roam like that during the day but in the dead of night...plus I get to take pictures without the wobble induced by the leash tied to a perky dog. She's actually very patient with me when I pause to take pictures and when she's off leash she stops every now and again and checks over her shoulder to make sure we know where each other is. She's a very easy dog to walk.

The back of the library looked good. In  fact the back of the library lit up at night put me in mind of classic so-called Cape Dutch architecture, the style preferred by Boer landowners and illustrated by Wikipedia:

Cape Dutch above, Key West library below, the oldest library in Florida:

The inside of the library looked perfect for some midnight reading, no disturbances.

And then reality intruded on Fleming Street. Flashing lights, emergency services. all the stuff I had left behind an hour ago. Time to go home.

Key West Views

Visitors to Key West love to check out the street chickens; I love to check out the bicycle tours. Unlike the chickens I see the pleasure in taking a bike tour of this town. But they still look funny to me, obediently peeling off and chasing after the mother duck flapping down Whitehead Street. "And over here we see a royal poinciana with fierce orange flowers....and over there the Hemingway House..." and obediently heads swivel.

And then there are the disorganized tours by family and friends who cruise around on bicycles, which I figure is a mode of transport reserved solely for vacations and time off. I wonder what the men leading the family parade (its always the men) would say if you gently suggested they ride to work.

I was goofing off looking at weird shit like these terracotta roosters with Cheyenne wandering and following her nose and some dude came stomping by and glared at me as he had to half side step my distracted dog. I was slightly surprised, but I suppose I shouldn't have been, he didn't trip over her leash, he didn't step into the street, and Cheyenne didn't stick her nose in his crotch so perhaps that was what miffed him. But the funny part was he was a middle aged dude dressed like a school kid trying to look fashionable or something.

Key West is a small town so the fact I wasn't so terribly surprised to come across the same stern walker a few blocks later still marching along looking like some grumpy juvenile who'd lost his team and couldn't find them. I hope I didn't wreck his entire vacation by not paying attention to his high visibility neediness, but I rather fear I might have.

I find it comforting people show up on the sidewalks as they are, not seeking color coordination or fashion as their guides. I feel I stick out a whole lot less in my perennial state of deshabille when my sidewalk neighbor looks like he got dressed in the dark. And the dude in the background is not on a bike tour. He's using a cellphone on his way to work.

Cheyenne wanted a rest so she parked herself on the courthouse lawn and I watched the world go by. I think I lost my mind for a while because this pink building that I've seen half a hundred times suddenly inspired me to take a picture. It looked somehow, I don't know evocative. Old, perhaps, lived in...

Well perhaps not as a pink building. How about a sepia tone?

Or better yet, how about giving it a peephole camera obscura look? I thought that looked how I wanted it to look. Modern phone cameras are amazing. I happily wiled away a few minutes fiddling around with the editing function in my HTC Android. I turned Southard Street into an unmemorable house in..Northern France?

The jury will forever be out on whether or not this peculiar contrivance passed muster in her doggy mind. Perhaps there was just the remnants of a long lost sandwich wedged somewhere in all the spray painted mess. It hjeld her interest as long as my senseless act of photography had held mine...

I guess it hasn't rained much in a while because Cheyenne has been enjoying proper clean water from dog bowls, both at home and afield. This one at Casa 325 went over a treat. Even as they cleaned the pathway with more fresh clean water. I was listening to a story on the radio about salt water intrusion in South Florida which is getting worse as sea levels rise, even small amounts. Despite the massive rain we get on the mainland (where the aquifers are located) salt water is penetrating the porous rock and displacing the fresh water which floats on top of the salt. Pumps are being moved inland away from the coastal salt water damage, but I can't begin to imagine how this environmental problem will be explained to the determinedly closed minded local souls who think air water and gasoline are a divine right: no further effort needed on their part, thank you.

One day maybe we will all be walking, not running or riding street cars...

From the Florida State Archives this picture of a street car with Old City Hall on Green Street visible behind it. This is how people got around downtown a hundred years ago, even though there were cars that could drive on a rough track all the way to No Name Key where the ferry transported them to Marathon.

And the Flagler Station, a memorial on Caroline Street to a railroad track that washed away never to be replaced and yet today, with all the crowding and angst among drivers on Highway One seems like it might be the best introduction to a string of islands that could very well be connected by rail once again.

In a town that can't figure out recycling, recreating a rail line, perhaps a monorail as has been proposed with no great conviction, seems far out of intellectual reach. It's possible I suppose that salt water intrusion will make it all moot. Not many people in Miami are mentally equipped to live off cistern water supplied by the rain. I've done it, and I think quite a few people down here might be able to get their heads around that.

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