Speed, Rage and Prudence

It was innocent enough from my perspective. I left home with plenty of time to get to work for the start of my ten o'clock overtime shift. The night was slightly cool and as I rode up the street to Highway One I was thinking that my mesh armored jacket was just right to keep the cooler October air off my skin. A month ago it felt suffocatingly hot to wear so it's safe to say that even down here nights are cooling off a little even if days aren't. Cool is a relative term you understand when considered from the perspective of one who is seeing snow falls already this Fall.

Pink Bike at La Concha Hotel, Duval Street.

Traffic was moderately heavy as I nudged the Bonneville onto Highway One, took my moment and leaned into the traffic lane, heading left, toward Key West 27 miles away. It was going to be a long twenty seven miles I realized when the headlights behind me suddenly lurched forward and closed on me filling my mirrors with light. I sped up thinking I had misjudged his speed and not wanting to block him. I got up to an indicated 75 miles an hour (in a 45) with the hulking Escalade-type SUV towering over my tail light and quickly pulled into the turn-out lane at Mako Drive on Ramrod Key. The SUV drove by. On the downslope of the Niles Channel Bridge the SUothot stuck behind a dawdler admiring the nighttime view over the waters from the top of the forty-foot bridge. It's a passing zone on the downslope into Summerland Key but the impatient SUV didn't pass, so I passed both and then the SUV pulled out and started tailing me again. I pulled into the gas station on Summerland and let the fiasco pass me by. Shit, I thought to myself, Fantasy Fest is here already.

Monroe County Courthouse: Mile Marker Zero.

The irony of this stupid act of road rage was that I was actually in no hurry. I had been into town earlier yesterday to pay a visit to the courthouse to pay my $131 plus ten bucks in fees, a gentle reminder of my recent nine mile an hour transgression and it was a lovely evening and I had no plans to rush. Yes, I was riding a motorcycle but no, I am not a boy racer, ready to challenge a Miami kid driving his father's expensive SUV (Florida registration RMF3T). All I wanted to do was enjoy the night air, the almost empty highway and my pulling out of a side street was mis-construed as a life-or-death challenge. But this is that time of year. People from Up North are flocking to town his year to enjoy taking their clothes off and getting drunk in what used to be a bit of harmless Halloween revelry in an off season empty little town. Now the newspaper says 80,000 people have come to this town of 23,000 and every single one of them has decided its open season on Key West residents and the Conch Republic. Luckily they bring lots of cash, because cash is the real passport to this Republic's "state of mind."

The Former Strand Cinema,Y 527 Duval Street.

This weekend will be Goombay featuring a sort-of Caribbean festival in Bahama Village with lots of food music and people wandering about on Petronia Street. And already Public Works has started lining Duval Street with the barricades needed for these festivals, not forgetting the Meeting of the Minds after Fantasy Fest. Check the search function on the top page of this blog and "Goombay" will return a couple of essays I've written about it. My first taste of fried alligator (it's all in the batter, so why not stick to chicken?) and an excellent curried goat stew last year every bit as good as that which I've had in the British West Indies over the years.

I grumble about Fantasy Fest perhaps because it is a foretaste of the traffic chaos to come this winter with North Roosevelt all torn up to hell and back. Perhaps I grumble because I can, because I have seen enough Fantasy Fests to last a lifetime, or perhaps I grumble because I feel as though I ought to enjoy this silly exhibitionism and public playfulness. There are just some things that ought to be kept private in my opinion, speaking as one who takes no joy in wearing a costume. The state of my gonads is one and the shape of your folds of flesh is another. But good taste goes out the window these next two weeks, as do manners more than usually so, and apparently also good driving and patience. These buggers had better bring a lot of money with them, is all I have to say about that.

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Sandy's Café

To the great relief of night workers all over the city of Key West Sandy's has reopened after a month of renovations which were supposed to last ten days. It looks nice and bright and shiny.

Nothing much has changed fundamentally from the customer's perspective, except that the interior has been refurbished, the equipment is clean and the lights, at one in the morning seemed brighter than I managed to remember them.

Apparently there were problems with the laundry building attached to the café and it was a case of the more you do the more you need to do. Now the shop is ready to last another thousand years, give or take.

There are lots of Cuban coffee shops all over town, from the tiny and totally Conchy shop in Habana Plaza on Flagler where old Cuban men go to gather, to tourist havens like Ana's on Simonton. How they all make money, Kim's Kuban, Little Jon's, Five Brothers, Conch Scoops, Cuban Coffee Queen and so forth, I have no idea.

Sandy's is operated a by a crew of Mexicans, not Cubans, who play Banda music in deference to their heritage and offer several Mexican dishes on the extensive menu. But that isn't their biggest selling point.

I limited myself to a small café con leche with a cheese bread, the classic Cuban snack as I wanted to celebrate the opening of this vital institution, the only Cuban outlet open 24 hours. And that's what makes them special. Show up on White Street, a block south of the gas station on Truman, which itself sells excellent Dion's fried chicken, and here you are, an oasis of light on a dark street, here seen looking south toward White Street Pier.

This is a gathering place for night shift cops between calls when they take a meal break, or stop by to pick up coffee. It's been hell for them such that they decided to club together on night shift and buy coffee and bring a coffee pot into work...one of their number is a Cuban Conch and he was assigned brewing duties. It was, they admitted no substitute for the real thing.

My midnight feast of melted American cheese (white cheese bread made with Swiss is not authentic, though don't tell my wife as she hates American cheese) on Cuban bread, made with lard, a d hot pressed flat is what a body needs. I'm not Cuban so I only take one sugar in my coffee but Conchs will take three or five. Strong people. On the subject some people like to ask for their con leches dark, but that's not for me. I like my "liquid candy bar" to give the caffeine the proper mild taste.

The overnight institution is back and we are all very happy about that. If you are on vacation and not calorie counting go for the fried fish sandwich which is to die for when they are on their game. Take your coffee and sandwich to Rest Beach and look out at the ocean as you enjoy local cuisine, in proper Key West style.

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One More Fiery Sunrise

These cool breezy conditions keep producing clear wintery skies and consequently some interesting sunrises breaking through the racing clouds.

Cheyenne loves her early morning walks on these dry cool mornings and as a result I have seen more skies like this than I might otherwise feel the need to.

Even so I can't resist the temptation to snap a picture or two for the record. Great stuff.

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Blimp Road

I have been enjoying the weather lately, a prolonged period of cooling north breezes similar to a prolonged early cold front. Cheyenne has expressed her joy by demanding long walks early each day after I get home. So instead of retiring to bed I will find myself out and about watching the sun come up.

I tried walking Cheyenne in the Spain Boulevard subdivision on Cudjoe Key but the dog doesn't seem to enjoy it for we reason. I love the sandy lanes wedged between hedges of palms, houses tucked almost out of sight behind huge lots, horse stables and mangroves. So in an inspired moment I took her to the north tip of the long straight line called Blimp Road.

The balloon known as Fat Albert, the aerial platform used to check the Straits of Florida for intruders, gives its name the the three mile section of dead straight road pointing north from Highway One. The blimp is tethered to a piece of land that is owned by the Air Force curiously enough, the only Air Force Base in the Keys. We are told it costs you $16 million a year to fly the balloon called Fat Albert on the sort-of secret base. I knew a guy who retired from a life of piloting the blimp from its ground station and I tried to find out more but his lips were sealed. A pity because as jobs go driving a blimp seems among the more esoteric even if not terribly interesting.

The refreshing winds have not only driven away mosquitoes, a pleasant change in itself, but they have also whipped up white caps in the channels and created the sort of crisp white sunlight that is typical of Florida in winter. Small dogs in heavy fur coats enjoy it very much, I'm told.

As I drove north from Spain Boulevard I saw a man swinging his arms vigorously as he strode along, passed by the stream of early morning vehicles driving out to the Air Force base and I stopped alongside him to offer a ride. He smiled and pulled his ear plugs out - he was exercising, silly me. He caught up to Cheyenne and I water's edge and pulled a one-eighty and marched back the three miles onwards the highway.

Aside from all the cars streaming into the Blimp Base and the early county workers opening the dump, Cheyenne and I were the lone dog walkers. But alone we were not, entirely, at the end of Blimp Road.

In winter the turn around space will be full of the vehicles abandoned by kayakers and canoeists and bored snowbirds will sit in their parked cars admiring the view across the channel. For now it is empty and unused except for the occasional happy Labrador.

 

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Key West Roofs

So how big is one of the current crop of average sized cruise ships? Why this big, compared to little old Key West. All we have to do is widen the harbor channel to get bigger ones in.

I was in the Key West Diary helicopter, also known as the roof of the Park and Ride garage, taking pictures and it seemed like Key West was looking good under a burst of rare, rain free sunshine so I baked a little on that roof and took pictures.

I think the shot above shows the Galleon resort, the gray box on the right, which GarytheTourist calls home from home.

And here's Christmas Tree Island on the horizon. Looks pretty doesn't it? Wish you were here...

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Don't Put Your Bar On The Stage Mrs. Worthington

Let me make a wild guess and I will state that given a choice between the West Marine hardware store, the Coffee Plantation coffee shop and Schooner Wharf Bar, the one most people in, and enamored of, Key West would least like to see disappear is the last, Evalena Worthington's bar. What these businesses have in common is that they surround the former Jabours trailer park property where almost one hundred new hotel rooms are supposed to be built soon.

The hotel project has run into some opposition and a group of neighbors has got behind a local retired attorney who is leading the charge against the development. Or more accurately is demanding transparency from the city planners and is asking why exactly does the hotel project require seven variances from the zoning for the property. When it was Jabours it was a palm filled gravel nook that filled with travel trailers and RVs in winter at a time when Key West land was worth less than it was at the height of the property boom. The Jabours family got out just in time and the land was cleared for a proposed housing project.

The property boom ended too soon for the first group of developers who built one model home, right across from Schooner Wharf and promptly went bust. There it sits a monument to failed hopes and dreams.

The idea was to build a bunch of these Conch style homes and immediately the debate became one of how to protect Schooner Wharf. Live music, bars and residential neighborhoods don't mix traditionally speaking, and there was the fear, expressed loudly and at some length that this new residential cluster was going to create problems for the already existing Schooner Wharf, which lies just across the street from the property to be developed. This is the side of the model home facing Lazy Way Lane:

So across the narrow lane lies the bar, the famous "last little piece of Old Key West," a slogan that makes genuine old timers smile wryly and point out that Schooner Wharf has 'only' been around since 1987 which doesn't give the place bragging rights. The happy tourists imbibing the funky atmosphere might beg to disagree. Opponents of the development seem to hope the love for the bar might weigh in on their side. What if the new hotel proposal puts the future of the beloved Schooner Wharf front and center in this neighborhood drama? What if Schooner Wharf's very existence is threatened?

Let me say I am not a devotee of Schooner Wharf, but that doesen't mean much as I'm not a bar fly in general and though I do drink alcohol I'm not much for "making friends" on barstools. I am in a minority in this town. Yeah I know, the question is: how can sitting on my verandah at home with a cheap gin and tonic beat this? Jack Riepe is my brother by another mother and father, so where he and his kin find refuge in a bar I find noise and confusion and expensive drinks.

Nowadays the bar has a construction crew working on the end of the building that burned in a fire. They are hard at it with their supplies stored on the empty lot, the part we future hotel customers are not allowed to trespass on. "No Trespassing " scream the signs at passers by.

So I was quite surprised to hear that in fighting the lawsuit the neighbors are hoping to preserve more than just the zoning limitations imposed by the city. With seven variances requested by the developer the lawsuit seeks to question the number of rooms, nearly one hundred and the number of parking spaces, less than 25 never mind where the employees will park, and that's probably not in the dozens of assigned bicycle spaces...

So with the battle of the variances about to get underway, if the developers get their variances and win their lawsuits etc...there is a chance that things are going to change radically in this neighborhood we are hinted, and as though to add fuel to the fire the rumor mill is churning and the suggestion from the opponents of the development is that perhaps the waterfront area around the we hotel will also undergo a radical transformation in the wake of the new proposed construction.

Lazy Way Lane, that quintessential Key West oddity paralleling the waterfront may disappear they say and along with it the little stores that make a living under the palms. I'm no shopper so that I wouldn't miss them even though I enjoy the odd little street and it's vibrant colors. So maybe I would miss it, so this development might be an issue. You never know.

The rumor mill also suggests the owner of the Coffee Plantation is ready to move on and wecan expect to see the little Caroline Street business bulldozed to make for the hotel. Geographically I suppose that makes sense. Guess what, I don't eat pastries nor do I drink rich drinks a puritanical drive to live better into my imminent old age. But I do like businesses that aren't chains. I have no idea if the coffee shop may vanish into the maws of a new hotel, but on the off chance, maybe the hotel isn't such a good idea.

And let it be noted, West Marine the boat hardware store has already announced a move to new digs up the street still on Caroline but away from its current location, which means the proposed hotel development could fit a few parking spaces here, if the land went into the development next door.

The most surprising suggestion I heard was that Schooner wharf might be ready to move on also into that void of businesses that once were in Key West. The sort of disappearing act carried out by the Cuban Club, the Huki Lau and Fast Buck Freddie's. That would be a coup for Pritam Singh's hotel. In one fell swoop all noise objections blow away, neighbor issues fade and the hotel gets ahold of some delicious waterfront property, making it a true rival to Conch Harbor up the street.

In a recent editorial the Worthingtons noted they helped lay the ground work for the modern Key Wet Bight waterfront and they entered willingly into a partnership with the city to create the modern boardwalk with its businesses, many leased by the city. They also noted their original plans called for private ownership outright of property still owned by Key West. There is no doubt this kind of waterfront would make any developer salivate.

So the question then becomes, what is likely to happen when the hotel gets built. I assume the lawsuit will be a bump, not a block in the path. Will it really spell gentrification doom for this corner of "old Key West" whatever that is? For me it's hard to imagine that the vibrant colors not only of Lazy Way Lane but the whole waterfront will be swept away in some sort of Parrot Key Resort opulence. But there again one looks at Duval Street and is surprised by the number of chain stores and sandwich shops that are moving out locally grown businesses. That's been an inexorable change over the last fifty years since local developers started the business of saving a decaying downtown core. Success breeds change. Mutatis mutandis and therefore the necessary changes having been made we move on into our brave new world. I know that in the world in which we live this is no great thing, and certainly I worry more about the report in zero hedge that our Democrat-led government is making plans to put thirty thousand drones in the skies over our country to kept us either safe or surveiled (you choose), and the ugliness over a development fight in a small southern town doesn't mean much. Except perhaps it does. Facts are stubborn things, John Adams the lawyer said at the famous revolutionary trial when he successfully defended the indefensible. So nowadays when we have more information at our fingertips than ever (switch pages here and read the South China Morning Post, for instance. Don't care about Hong Kong? Your loss...they are on the Internet for all to see) we seem to rely more than ever on rumor innuendo and fear. As much as ever might be the better way to put it - here be dragons still on the empty quarters of our maps, in this the 21st century. Our political leaders get elected on innuendo and fear so no surprise that the method trickles down into every aspect of our modern lives.

Schooner Wharf on that timeline would have another twenty five years of representing the last little piece of old Key West, but there again with the new wing rebuilt and that lovely waterfront going begging a developer could conceivably make an offer a bar owner could find hard to refuse. I hope no one is noticing the pivotal role Schooner Wharf plays in the rumor mill that is the changing world of the Southernmost City.

 

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