When we arrived at Fort Jefferson for our camping trip we got our briefing on the boat from this dude in the hat and then we were let loose on the camp site. After that we pretty much saw no one else in uniform except a rather friendly dude who came by to check on our fee paying techniques, and he got hung up in an extended conversation with Carol, one of two old timers in our party, so the rest of us didn't get to speak with him much. But there are people living in the fort year round, that I know. They have hidey holes in the walls:
And some of them have little balconies overlooking the western sunset, which is, I might add, a spectacular view:
I believe the fort's commandant's house now houses the superintendent inside the parade ground:
And they have all manner of mod-cons (modern conveniences) thanks to satellite technology:
Though electrons need their own passageways even in old buildings:
And let's not forget the value of old-fangled infernal combustion. There are huge generators rumbling day and night,keeping the lights on whether you want them or not, and as their exhausts grind away near the campground I could see lots of advantages to going with renewable energy:
But I am told there is a certain difference of opinion amongst the old time hardliners who like their hydrocarbons burned the old fashioned way. So at night, when the fort is officially closed:
The generators hum and the lights keep burning:
Including the old lighthouse, now reduced to the second-rate status of a modest "harbor light," atop the fort:
And also, rather spectrally, one can see dim lights shining from within the fort when all good souls are tucked up in bed, except for star gazers and drinkers in the campground, and apparently insomniacs inside the fort:
As I understand it there are eight national park personnel on duty at the fort including law enforcement rangers. We saw three of them rounding up a group of young people on the moat wall. I was up to my eyes in salt water at the time but later someone found out they had been spotted picking up pieces of glass bottles from a beach and they got themselves a $300 fine and a trip back to their boat on the ranger's launch.
The little museum next to the (air conditioned! Thank you generators...) gift shop shows the fort's own collection of these things and they don't want people walking off with them. For the most part life at the fort is very free and unencumbered for visitors, you seem to have the place pretty much to yourself, especially if you are camping or staying on a boat which is how you get pets to the fort as pets aren't allowed on the ferry. Unless your Dad is the captain and your name is Salty, then you get to ride out on the Yankee Freedom and play with your teddy bear:
Like they do at any other park, personnel at the fort guard their privacy:
Aside from the residential areas there are very few parts of the fort that are off limits and those that are, should be observed for safety reasons.This place is pretty much wide open and to keep it that way the elementary common sense safety rules need to be followed:
Then there are signs that have been carefully stenciled to keep order, day use here, campers
there:
And there are things like Bird Key and adjoining Long Key where the sooty terns and brown noddies nest in the summer.
Bird Key was joined to Garden Key, the island where the fort is located, but storms blew out the sandy land bridge. Nevertheless people like to get close to the birds.
The rule is look but don't land. And on the subject of landing. Cubans show up here from time to time in their "chugs," which are home built boats used to escape from Cuba. Loggerhead Key with the main lighthouse on it is three miles west of the fort and that is the last US soil until you reach Brownsville or New Orleans or points in between and it does happen that migrants land in these islands. They leave their boats behind to prove it.
The rule is if the Cubans set foot on dry land they get to stay in the US so they work hard at making the crossing in anything that floats. Untold numbers die because the Gulf Stream is a hazardous body of water. Speaking as someone who has sailed across it a dozen times in well found boats it can get extremely difficult in any kind of contrary wind. How they cope riding crap like this is hard to know:
The supply boat which runs between Key West and the fort takes the migrants back to the city for processing. It's all done with boats at Fort Jefferson, including the work of the contractors who are currently restoring portions of the fort with all their construction supplies and orange netting and hard hats and tinker toy tractors and trailers:
In some respects it's like a space station, relying for life support on what they bring and keep with them. And the systems designed to support eight have to support these extra bodies as well as they get their work done. But aside from work there is recreation after a fashion:
And there are a few less driven occupants of the 16 acre island who just hang out and watch the rush pass them by:
But for those of us here for a few precious hours or days there is a need to visit the inevitable concession stand there to pick up a few baubles:
A monogrammed cap for me, turtle earrings for the wife and postcards with a special park service stamp to mail around the world later. Then there is some cool air available while watching the brief,rather commercial movie about the park...
...and check out some of the found treasures, the unconsidered trifles found lying around the fort:
And then. as we strolled back to the ferry on our last afternoon crossing the moat:
I watched the hordes moving purposefully across the day use area, that patch of scrub grass that falls silent after the ferries leave sat 2:45pm, and I wonder how they keep order and peace at the fort, without a presence, without barking orders, and by dint simply of the desire of the people to be there and enjoy their space. One wishes we could carry that sentiment home with us in a bottle, or on an ear ring.
The Southard Street Gate never did materialise at the entrance to Truman Annex, after the Navy threatened the Truman Annex master Property Owner's Association with a lawsuit if they put up a gate. Work stopped and the holes were promptly filled in. The guardhouse is staffed at night (visible in the distance in the picture above) but it remains unoccupied during the day when traffic can travel freely to and from the waterfront. So freely indeed, not many cars would notice Thomas street off to the north, towards the new courthouse:
And why would a passer by turn onto Thomas in this direction?
The sign on top is a terminological inexactitude as the street is now open at both ends. For a while the road was closed at Fleming thanks to the construction of the new courthouse, The Freeman Justice Center, but that's done and Thomas Street is a handy way to avoid the interminable light at Southard and Whitehead (in front of the Green Parrot). This section of Thomas Street is all county business or government of one sort apparently:
Nasty fences, no signs and buildings painted battle ship gray, all terribly ominous:
Thomas Street in the opposite direction, heading south from Southard Street is a little more slack, perhaps more human:
Behind the county buildings, wedged into a small space next to the boundary of Truman Annex there is parking for all those beavering county employees:
Which if it weren't so out-of-the-way might make this a useful place to park after hours now that the Post Office has got so hard core about their lot next door. This place is a desert on a Friday evening:
It's not totally deserted:
The parking lot is divided by a leaf filled dusty median strip which is traversed by a cute little wooden footbridge. I have no idea who put it there nor why:
There's another such bridge at the pedestrian entrance to Thomas Street, with more fences and the county clock tower in the background:
The impenetrable fences are everywhere down here keeping people out of the county property:
The Freeman Justice center mercifully isn't so girded and stands imposing at the end of the street:
It bears the symbols of the Conch Republic, ready to assume the mantle of the headquarters of any future breakaway republic:
I spotted a couple of lost tourists, consulting their oracles marching past the endless building as though not sure where they might end up, reading the map, discussing and walking.
I think they were Europeans and I felt once again that perhaps I should have stepped in to offer unsolicited directions. Instead I took a picture of Truman Annex at Fleming:
Or looking towards Whitehead on Fleming:
As you can see: wide open to traffic in all directions after months of construction.
Cascading foliage faintly resembles the blacks and whites of the movie made from the work of Tennessee Williams. The Rose Tattoo was set in an Italian-American community of the coast of the Gulf Of Mexico, though the film was shot a block away on Duncan Street, in the house next door to the playwright's. Which was convenient for Tennessee Williams as he got to hang out with Anna Magnani, though being a poof he had no idea what to do with that strapping example of Italian womanhood, except talk to her. The house her character lived in could have been any one of these 21st century residences:
And though the film was shot decades ago when Burt Lancaster was young and strapping, these houses are still here sheltering families in that part of town Realtors are pleased to call "Mid Town" which lies between White and First Streets.
At three o'clock in the morning this street is actually quite quiet, and in passing all I could hear were two people muttering on a porch at the end of Eliza Street. Catherine Street was silent, until one of the inmates started hacking up a lung with a persistent cough. Then the street fell silent again, no cats, no lonely dogs, no cars, just me crunching my way past the periphery of people's lives:
Then I heard someone talking LOUDLY on a cell phone. I was busy focusing a shot and by the time I was alerted to his arrival I understood it to be a young black man on a bicycle. He was entirely picturesque as he pedaled, hands free and talking on his phone he wore a baseball cap thrown back and sideways on his abundant curls and he pedaled slowly but firmly, in no great hurry to get where he was going. But for all that, I could barely frame him in the camera:
I got an artistic shot instead, all faded and shimmering. Oh well, I do prefer them like this crisp and concise:
I think the dark and light effect of the street lamps gives these narrows roads a rather sinister effect when photographed but it really isn't like that in real life. Walking Key West at night gives you the opportunity to stare, rudely at other people's lives:
And ponder the pride of place the convinces a Key West resident that bumper sticker defacing a gas cap expresses a valid emotion:
Large pick up trucks and Sport useless vehicles dwarf the little houses they park alongside:
Though the matter of price keeps things in perspective. This little red house on Catherine Street, well appointed and equipped with a swimming pool has been given a name by it's current owner, la casa roja, "the red house"and if you want it you'll have to fork over one point three million recessionary dollars for it.
The Citizen ran a story last Sunday telling of the high rate of availability on Duval Street with many marginal businesses failing to make after the snowbirds head north and winter tourism is replaced by the fits-and-starts of summer festivals. Apparently commercial real estate that isn't immediately profitable isn't so interesting at the moment.
Looking west, towards downtown and White Street:
And lacking a picture of my Triumph which, at the time was securely parked at the police station, I found this Harley on Eliza Street. This was three hours before I threw the Triumph down the road on my way home:
And so back to the station, to the frigid air conditioning of the radio room and out of the muggy silent night of Catherine street.