There is a large open space on Big Pine Key, and it's not really all that open. That's because every Saturday during the winter people operate stalls here selling dust catchers, foods, plants, clothes, sunglasses and all sorts of stuff. It's quite the place to be of a Saturday morning in the Lower Keys:
This is the place to be find all that stuff you think you need and lug it back to the car in one of the many packed parking lots that surround the selling ground in the middle. My wife loves this dude who sells vegetable plants that seem to be properly adapted to Florida's climate.
His flourished last year where Home Depot's plants were rather hit or miss. He comes down Friday night, sets up, sleeps under the stars as he puts it, and has all his stock sold well before noon on Staurday. But there is a ton of stuff to be found at the flea market. I took these pictures as we wandered yesterday:
I wanted to tell this woman to keep her hands off the pink ones, but then I remembered my own rubber shoes are at home doing fine for the time being. Perhaps her husband needed a pair. 
My wife took me home to a nourishing curried chicken salad. I'm sure these were quite horrid:
More plants. We got Cuban oregano here and normal basil. 
Cars were jammed in on all sides around the selling area.
In between the selling frenzy on weekends it looks somewhat desolate:
And, in some respects rather forbidding. The place is owned by a rather repulsive reverend I had the misfortune to meet once. He claims the rights to the roadway around here and has put up signs to that effect.
Before jack riepe gets on my case about being a low life socialist, let me just say private property is a fine and noble thing, and one has the right to barricade one's private roads. My questions about this place come in two parts. One: Is this really a private road?
And if it is, in the second place, is this sufficient to close it?
And, in some respects rather forbidding. The place is owned by a rather repulsive reverend I had the misfortune to meet once. He claims the rights to the roadway around here and has put up signs to that effect.
Before jack riepe gets on my case about being a low life socialist, let me just say private property is a fine and noble thing, and one has the right to barricade one's private roads. My questions about this place come in two parts. One: Is this really a private road?
And if it is, in the second place, is this sufficient to close it?
I don't want to get tragic here but if some dude (like me) comes by here on a bicycle or a scooter or even on a Triumph Bonneville could he (or she) not run the risk of decapitation? And think about what it looks like at night:
The flea market is not well lit at night and these so called "private roads" connect public roads, places where people have every right to travel, and if I were to tell you intoxicated people sometimes ride bicycles on Big Pine Key would you be surprised? Someone not aware of the "reverend's" penchant for closing roads with pieces of string might easily run into these dangers.
The flea market is not well lit at night and these so called "private roads" connect public roads, places where people have every right to travel, and if I were to tell you intoxicated people sometimes ride bicycles on Big Pine Key would you be surprised? Someone not aware of the "reverend's" penchant for closing roads with pieces of string might easily run into these dangers.
There had been talk that the Flea Market might get sold to a retail developer, my wife hoped Target might move in (she's only half joking!) and I wouldn't mind a Whole Foods just because I'm a yuppie. But back in the real world (where I don't much like flea markets anyway, though people sell excellent plants here) I wonder about this ability to just say "This road is mine!" and get away with it.
If this really is private a proper gate needs to be installed if the owner wants to close it off. Guillotining trespassers just seems a little much, even for a reverend.
...finding itself so close to this lot:
Which is not only an attractive brick pile, it is also a landmark on William Street:
Pinder Lane is close by the church just off Fleming Street which is marked by the Island House for Men on the corner of William and Fleming:
And there, between these two landmarks, is a modest gap in the picket fences and greenery:
It's a pretty little alley as we shall see, but a realtor's sign brings a harsh note of reality to the alley. A complex of homes down this lane is being offered for $3.3 million. Even now.
It's still free to park the Bonneville a moment and take a stroll:
Old fashioned louvered windows, always my favorites:
Pinder Lane is the home of tropical greenery as one would expect in such a wealth- generating place:
It had just finished showering when I arrived:
J Burke Wills suggests this lane perhaps was named for William Pinder a member of the city council in 1911 and descendant of a hail-fellow-well-met Pinder who rejoiced in the name of Sylvanus and was nicknamed "King of Wreckers" for his abilities in that field.
And a final look back at William Street...
Life is just a series of ironies, so I figured I'll have to come back when the banner has been taken down.
The 1100 block of White is a busy place, with busy business taking up almost all the block. Matheessen's is a reincarnation of a diner that was popular in Key West with the previous generation of Conchs ("konks"= native Key Westers). They have three locations in Key West two outlets on Duval, a candy store and a grill, andthier flagship diner here on White Street:
We had a hamburger in dispatch a couple of weeks ago on a colleague's insistence and it was really quite good. They also deliver:
Of course I was attracted to the pristine Vespa 150 ET4 parked in front of this building. The new 1680 talk radio station that calls itself KONK am broadcasts from here, as well as online. Which is just as well as this is a true community station and the signal does not transmit very far at all. I've always felt Key West needed it's own community radio station and perhaps this will last long enough to become that voice:
It put me in mind of my own decade working in radio; I hope they are having as much fun as I had. Next door to KONK am was Maribel's beauty parlor, but more interesting to me was the campaign poster still flying bravely, right across the street from Jimmy Weekly's own business, Fausto's Food Palace. Lest he forget these people threw their support behind him...
That would be Fausto's grocery store across the street:
Back on the other side of the street is Mo's Restaurant which has quite a following. It started out as a French-Canadian place, but they sold up and left. Now, continuing the Gallic connection it is run as a Haitian restaurant:
And across the street one can see the Mo's truck parked as it's own form of on street advertising. The Canadian Maple Leaf symbol is hard to miss:
I'm told Mo's French Onion soup is outstanding. Close by I found a minuscule store closed but available to rent for $875, a space perhaps ten feet wide and twice as deep. It looked small to me:
Next door the antique shop called In One Era makes the most of it's space by filling every nook and cranny with an astonishing collection of dust catchers:
And across the street here we see the severely efficient yellow block of a building that used to house a place called Island Bagels. I seem to recall them as quite good but not cheap and rather unfriendly. Perhaps my opinion was catching because they were replaced by this gym which seems to do a lot of business:
Further south on the east side of White there is a landmark in local real estate:
For twenty grand this store offers integrated electronics, alarms, computing and I don't know what all. Terribly modern I'm sure:
I just thought the kid with his out-sized Fantasy Fest beads looked happy. Silly me, he's probably worried about the Federal deficit too.