Cruising around the southern half of Stock Island I was put in mind of an incident more than 20 years ago when I lived in Santa Cruz, California. It happened that health officials decided to shut down a farm worker's camp located along the Pajaro River Valley. The Monterey County Authorities decided the housing was so substandard the workers were at risk, and I believe the owner may have spent some time behind bars as a result on their investigation. That incident sparked a massive debate among humanitarians of all stripes arguing over whether it was preferrable to allow the field workers to remain housed in the camp while they completed the season, or to throw them and their families out into an overcrowded housing market. The authorities were firm; the camp structures were dangerous and uninhabitable. The farm workers took to cardboard boxes and bushes along the river levee. A hell of a solution.
There are better and worse examples of housing on Stock Island but this place houses many of the lower paid people who keep Key West's economy functioning. During the recent development boom in south Florida Stock Island was bought up in large chunks by people with elaborate plans for the future and some of those plans are starting to see the light of day.
Fancy new boat slips are first up and former shrimp docks are being razed to make way for the fresh new water playgrounds. The shrimp boats have moved across the water to Safe Harbor and their future there seems assured by a local who has set up a permanent home for them. However this section of Shrimp Road has been bulldozed and cleaned up in preparation reportedly for a hotel and upscale appurtenances, while a few small workshops are still holding onto their places in the sun. This one was featured in a recent Citizen article:
And this boat building yard seems to be doing well. Their multihulls are well known in the world of sailing:
Behind Multihull Technologies lies the last haul out facility which has not yet announced plans to close and be transformed into luxury waterfront housing. I used to know it as the 3-D boatyard, and it's still moving boats around in the slings we boaters know and dread:
All skippers hate seeing their cherished vessels dragged around the yard like a bag of cement but these Travelifts are critical for the future of boating in Key West. If you can't lift boats out of the water from time to time you can't do basic maintenance. The Travelift costs better than a quarter million dollars an investment that needs a long future to pay itself off. Boating, traditionally of the commercial sort, but more recently pleasure boating, has kept Stock island in the marine business for a very long time:
Originally this was the island where Key West kept its livestock, and in servicing the needs of what was Florida's largest city Stock Island adopted its role of satellite to its more famous and more polished neighbor to the south. Now it appears to be growing into its own upscale destination, for good or ill. Peninsular Boatyard used to offer haul outs, marine services, a shop and liveaboard slips as well as a dinghy dock for people living out at anchor, in a dusty working class environment. The plan is for these monstrous new tin sheds to house the runabouts of the new class of Stock Island resident projected to take an interest in this freshly minted community:
Granted, the state of dilapidation on Stock Island makes it hard to defend the status quo:
But no one said commercial fishing has to be tidy. It's a disorganized way to make a living, sudden wealth with a good catch, back breaking labor relieved by plentiful alcohol, and its adherents aren't required to have strong formal educations. All of which combines to produce an industry that exists in a state of mostly benign chaos:
Fishermen, if they have to be lumped together, could be defined as old fashioned rugged individualists, self reliant businessmen of the old school who would rather spend time of their choosing, making traps and sorting nets in the discomfort of a boatyard rather than taking orders from a chain of command in a more organized workplace:
Then there are the stores on Stock Island that keep this tenuous lifestyle supplied. On Highway One there is a Burger King, a liquor store, a minimart, a dollar store, a gas station, a Mexican restaurant and so forth. Here's Highway One looking north from my magnificent Bonneville:
But deeper into this world of trailers, boatyards and fish traps there's a Tom Thumb convenience store right there on the main drag that offers Stock Islanders a place to get the ncessaries and to hang out:
For some a flat surface is all that's needed to pass the time of day...not unlike how things go in Key West, except that around here tourists are less numerous.
I am quite fond of Hogfish on Front Street, a bar and restaurant that serves a mean basket of fish and chips, in the open air environment that we all love and enjoy on a brisk sunny, winter day in the Keys. Good luck finding Front Street, a road which leads to the old power generating station that Keys Energy keeps on stand-by in case the main powerline from the mainland fails. The Stock Island power station could keep Key West in electricty for a couple of weeks if needed. Hogfish keeps the hungry traveler in fish and beer as the need arises:
The Rusty Anchor is another good one, nondescript from the exterior but with a long history of serving up plates of seafood on 5th and Shrimp Road. These aren't fancy eateries but suppliers of honest grub to the workers looking for their noontime break. My favorite breakfast joint is an unassuming Cuban place serving an inexpensive plate of eggs, bacon and grits with a steaming cup of
con leche right here:
The view from El Mocho of Maloney Avenue is what it is, certainly not waterfront vistas but the food is what counts and for the daily regulars bellied up to the counter this place is a source of the real daily news.
At my table I sop up my grits with cuban toast and soak up the ambiance. Tomorrow who knows what might be occupying this spot?
Across the street lies the fire station,
charged with protecting all these homes and businesses, scattered around south Stock Island. It seems a lot of ask of this tiny fire station and plans have been mooted to modernize the facility. Where the money will come from with the county's current state of insolvency doesn't bear wondering about. County employees have been laid off, more than two dozen so far, next year the budget crisis will undoubtedly deepen as Amendment One kicks in. A State prosecutor quit the other day because his salary didn't qualify him for a loan he needed to buy an apartment. The State Attorney's office in the Keys has the highest turnover rate in the state- 40 percent in 2007. I saw this vehicle outside this trailer and I don't put it beyond the bounds of possibility that a Deputy Sheriff lives in a trailer on Stock Island. This is affordable housing for all kinds of workers. 
We are in crisis in the lower Keys and the impending redevelopment of Stock Island trailer parks seems likely to make the crisis worse. When you see travel trailers made into permanent housing you know the need for somewhere to live is well beyond platitudes.
One curiosity that I find somewhat ironic is that a mobile home, even of the permanently immobile sort, is rated as a registered vehicle in the state of Florida and all these homes have little vehicle registration stickers on them, like this one under the mailbox:
I didn't have to look far for the signature piece of furniture I am finding in all neighborhoods I photograph in the Keys:
Away from the waterfront and all its marinas and commercial shrimping there lies a neighborhood of homes off Cross Street called "Lincoln Gardens" in the official lingo but known locally as "The Avenues." Its a wild mixture of trailers and homes, old and new:
This two year old modular home on stilts is for sale, all one thousand square feet of it, for $368,000 according to the brochure. It has 3 bedrooms, two baths and bugger all in the way of landscaping. 
Nearby there is a row of two story housing that has been built for sale as affordable and I have no idea what their selling price is. Units deeded affordable generally go for possibly $200,000 for 1 bedrooms and around $250,000 for two bedrooms to qualified county residents. The Conch style homes are next to Bernstein Park, which is an open space landmark in this part of the island.
Across from the park is the old dog track now transformed into several blocks of affordable rentals, built by Ed Swift part owner of Historic Tours of America. Swift comes in for a lot of criticsm not least thanks to his street-clogging Conch Trains, but he has put his money where his mouth is. These places look pretty good for $700 a month for a one bedroom:
Let's face it he could do more and Meridien West is supposed to be matched I believe at some future date by another 100 units labeled Meridien East, a suitable replacement for a long defunct drive in theater.
These are the times that try men's souls and as I wonder how long I will be able to hold on to my little tree house, our leaders, to their eternal shame, haven't yet sorted out a collective Plan A to replace worker homes which are being reborn as playgrounds for the rich. God knows where it will all end.
February is a splendid time of year for people who live Up North to check their address books and figure out who they know Down South. My wife's sister, a physician, introduced me to the proper definition of an introvert; that would be a person who recharges their emotional battery with a period of solitude. My wife the extrovert charges hers' with periods of intense sociability. So she is currently charged and I am depleted (but recovering manfully).
When Bruce and Celia descended on us recently, an attempt to escape the "dry heat" of mid winter in New Mexico, we spent an enjoyable time with them as they revisited this area, in which they had lived previously. This past weekend my wife's cousins from Chicago stopped by as part of a Florida tour, and they were new to Key West. Bob had been down decades ago, dragged by his father on a family vacation but Lyn had never been at all, so their visit gave me an opportunity to see Key West through fresh eyes, always a pleasure.
I learned a lot about Bob and Lyn this trip, and though I knew a trip to the Botanical Garden was on the cards (report to follow!) I had no idea they would be entranced by butterflies. And it just so happens Key West has a Butterfly Conservatory on Duval Street.
I have been there before in the 1300 block of Duval, and its an easy place to visit with plenty of parking in back. The conservatory was the brainchild of a man who came to Key West obsessed by the insects and to feed his passion he built the greenhouse on Duval Street just a few years ago. Its never easy to figure which businesses are going to flourish in the Keys but this one seems to be doing well, certainly I'd never have figured that to be the case. There was a healthy line to buy the $10 tickets:
The conservatory itself is a greenhouse attached to the back of a human house and the front portion of the building offers an extensive range of all things butterfly: clothing, jewelry, knicks knacks, toys and cards and I don't know what. A man has to feed his butterfly habit I suppose, but if it isn't a bookstore or a motorcycle dealer I'm a terrible shopper and all this insect stuff left me perplexed. The best part was The Rules, as announced by a cheerleader type in the knick knack store. It turns out one of the rules is that you can't photograph the junque as some of the artwork is copyrighted but one can snap the flutterbies though as long as you don't touch them.
Getting in and out of the atmospherically delicate conservatory is no mean feat. There are double doors and I understand it is a Federal Offense to release butterflies into the outside world. And as unlikely as it might seem it turns out there is some possibility of live actual danger from visiting the greenhouse, so as you can see above we were duly warned. After all that we arrived in the enchanted forest.
I also discovered that butterflies are bloody difficult to photograph. The above picture should have illustrated a positive cloud of the things fluttering about but somehow they are invisible to the camera's lense. Not that you would have known judging by the strenuous efforts of every single visitor to record their magic moments:
Cousin Bob is a pretty intense amateur with a camera and he drags an absolute suitcase ("lead lined" he jokes, not far from the truth) of lenses and other apparatus around behind him. He got into the butterfly thing like butterflies on...honeydew melon:
Which I found rather creepy actually. They sit on the fruit probing it with their snouts and their wings pulsing like vampires sucking up blood. Bob was ecstatic and he sat and smiled like a schoolboy in an adult theater, a mixture of bliss and overwhelm alternating on his features.
I felt like a successful tour guide as I watched him follow the colors as they floated around his delighted face. I could have done without the piped music but the place had an unreal serenity to it, and I'm betting I had a goofy expression on my face too. No butterflies landed on us to bring us luck as they say, but we watched them as they ignored us:
I had to leave after a fair bit of hanging around. I had to work that night and the serenity thing was making my eyes droop. It was an excellent outing and I am going to do it again, often, with visitors or not. The conservatory also offers a bench outside the front door to allow for some people watching if you prefer humans to insects. Or if you are a tour guide bored by innumerable visits to see the butterflies. Hard to immagine but here he is:
I know nothing about lepidoptera but I sure enjoyed the conservatory. 
I don't go out to bars much, unless dragged by a friend, but I couldn't help noticing how many people were thronging the sidewalk with little black boxes poked in their ears. What did people do before there were cell phones? Bad enough that people drive with them on all the time, but you can't even hang out in a bar without yakking on them too? 
I just liked the looked of the sidewalk outside, a warm night in February, what a luxury. 
For all that its slightly fuzzy I too am a tourist and my motorcycle is there to prove it! 
And just across Fleming from the county building lies the symbol of Federal munificence, the Post Office which was looking particularly toothsome that night.
I find the main post office very evocative, built of brick and looking permanent in its majesty with a huge parking lot and yet it is welcoming too with its long portico and open access to the P O Boxes. I love ducking into the walkway on rainy summer afternoons and watching the water pound the feeble lawn in front of the building.
I like the symbolism of the gate across the city street, the reflectors, the whole "Keep Out!" message reminds me of Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin where I stood in 1981 on my first trip around the world. 
I struggle to differentiate the fake "Conch Houses" inside the Annex from the soulless Stalinist blocks of apartments you can see in East Berlin just beyond the Allied Check Point. West Berlin was a vibrant crazy place, much more so than Key West today, and it too was an island, though surrounded by dour do-gooders of the most oppressive sort. East Berlin was ghastly. I just feel bad for the limp retirees who mope around the Annex, and simply want to ignore Key West's middle class naughtiness; they would do better to let down the barricades, just as the East Germans eventually did.
One of their (living) neighbors on Windsor Lane made the effort to illuminate their flourishing palm:
And across the street is Poor House Lane which leads to Bill Butler Park nestled deep in this residential neighborhood It takes on a mysterious, unwarranted gloom in the middle of the night.
Sloppy Joe's is ambling along and there aren't the huge lumpen crowds on Duval's sidewalks I was hoping to photograph. It always amazes me how people imagine Hemingway ever would have been caught dead, drinking in this sloppy neon studded music bar. I think Sloppy Joe Russell would be astonished how his name has taken off! The two of them must be laughing like drains in the Great Beyond.
The San Carlos stands all but ignored, day and night, on the 500 block of Duval. This theater is generally credited with being the place where a speech by Jose Marti set fire to the Cuban revolution that ultimately saw Spain abandon its Cuban colony. And yet today the restored theater stands as a monument to the exile Cuban community's total inability to think of anything to do with this historic building. It could be a fabulous museum relating the story of generations of Cuban migrants to South Florida. Instead its pretty much ignored.
What a tremendous waste; another reason I have little time for the Miami Mafia as Fidel Castro calls them. 
That was when Kelly and Nick pedalled up and we started a long discussion about motorcycles and Triumphs and Harleys and their relative merits and Kelly had to drool over the Triumph. Silly man he has his own splendid H-D Road King to gloat over.