Strange Doings In Key West

Last week was National Telecommunicator Week and our bosses let us work in street clothes. Our uniform requirements aren't too stringent, a polo shirt with a police logo on it (which makes standing in line at the convenience store on your way to, or from work a little awkward) non cargo pants and closed toe shoes. However last week saw shorts, plaid shirts, tie dyes and sweat pants, not all at once, but I have to say I enjoyed the momentary informality, even though uniforms make life simple in the long run. No bad sartorial choices can be made when in uniform.

I don't feel the daily stress of answering 911 calls or trying to hold radio conversations with muffled police radios, with officers in crowds, or radio microphones joggling on lapels while the officer has a dozen different things on his/her mind in the middle of the street. At the end of a long week though all I want to do is sleep, which suggests to me that I do tend to get a bit wound up. The three of us last Saturday morning were ready to be catapaulted from the room to enjoy a weekend off. Shannon had read somewhere that too much sitting down will kill you so periodically she makes us get up, Nick and I, which was how I caught her standing and typing while I waited for her words to reach my computer so I could dispatch the officers. Happy Telecommunicator Week! It was nice to be remembered but life, and it's failures, go on even in Key West.

"Key West Nine One One. What's the address of your emergency?" In emergency response, Key West is as modern as anywhere and I'm going to guess our callers are grateful we are up to speed.

Tonight the city commission meets at six at Old City Hall and will supposedly put its final seal of approval on a noise ordinance that some Old Town residents say will be a life saver, while others say it will kill jobs. Gentrification they say is killing Key West.

Imagine my surprise when I came across this newspaper article from 25 years ago, same exact issues, same people, same fears:

The News-Journal - Google News Archive Search

The same Pritam Singh mentioned is raising this 98 room hotel on Caroline Street and it's construction will have a few knock-on effects for gentrification. The city is planning to beautify Caroline Street to complement the hotel and merchants say bike paths and planters will cover their storefronts and reduce the flow of customers into their stores. Fear is pervasive in Key West as change ripples through the city.

This discussion, Key West with One Regret is a thoughtful nostalgic and wistful look back at the author's arrival in Key West and evolution through the changes of the last few decades. He laments the changes then offers his services as a realtor to help along the process he regrets. It's a measure of Key West's resilience that things change, amid much lamentation and yet those that lament loudest profit most from the changes even as Key West manages to hold onto enough charm to draw in more visitors and more money. Gentrification simply means new people will come to Key West and make new memories. Some of them will come to the mud pit that is currently the hotel being built and make memories of their own. I suspect this structure will put the future of the Schooner Wharf next door in some doubt, as a bar with loud music doesn't mix well with an upscale resort. The waterfront property would be good for the hotel though...and I doubt I am the first to have figured that out!

For some time now gentrification has been equated with a smaller gay community, as suggested in 2005 in the New York Times article Is Key West Going Straight?

It is undoubtedly true that Key West is less gay than it was a while ago. I believe part of that is due to high costs of living pushing away the next generation, gay and straight. Which means mainland gay destinations are going to attract people who would have previously thought of coming to Key West. I think that Key West's attraction as a gay destination has shriveled even as gay acceptance has flourished across the US. I mean, Key West is hardly unique anymore in a country which has largely moved past gay rights as being "special privileges." Those that feel that way are hold-outs on the wrong side of history, so being gay is no longer unusual or special in most of the US. Key West needs to find a new shtick.

The struggle to maintain Key West's elusive character is constant. From two years ago, by a reporter who came to town only briefly and then left, this story about charter captains pleading for the waterfront to keep its special Key West flavor. Fishermen: Don't gentrify the Bight | KeysNews.com. Yet the irony here is that thirty years ago the Key West harbor was filled with smelly commercial shrimp boats that were edged out by amateur sailors and charter captains catering to rich amateur anglers...who now are the red blooded essence fighting gentrification!

Voltaire Books and the Secret Garden are both gone now but this magazine article on the literary scene strikes a familiar note, money is displacing culture. American Scene: Key West - Articles | Travel + Leisure. But is it? John dos Passos anyone? The poet Frost or Bishop? Anyone read any of them lately? Ann Beattie the novelist high on your list of summer reading? The fact is literature, publishing, reading and writing are all in a massive state of flux. Measuring the worth of a place by its literary output seems an unlikely measure to me. Besides if you look closely at the people who lived in Key West and wrote, they came, they stayed briefly and moved on. Hemingway loved Cuba, his spiritual home was Finca Vigia not Whitehead Street. Besides Key West is still home to aspiring painters and artists, just that we don't know them as famous yet.

I think what happens is that time passes and that's that. I go back to Santa CruzCalifornia from time to time, the place where I came to grips with adulthood and learned to live as an fault on my own two feet. I go back now and I find it hard to believe the kids there now are having as much fun exploring their young lives as I did exploring my life in 1982. But they are! I've outgrown Santa Cruz because it isn't the place it was when I was in my 20s. It isn't the place I remember. And in the same way Key West, not pregnant with memories is suitable now as the place to grow old, if I can hold on as it out-gentrifies me. Before the advent of the internet Key West really was a back water and it wasn't what I wanted. I'm clear on that.

The fact is everywhere is changing. It's hard to believe but Miami was a backwater, and a cocaine fueled one at that in 1982. Key West somehow manages go stay literate, vital, funky and out of the mainstream and even if it isn't what it was thirty years ago, it's still a great place to live. I had a good life elsewhere, in a literary artistic gay friendly community on the West Coast so I don't feel like I wasted my youth in an unhappy place, and the great benefit of having friends in Key West, sailing here from time to time, yet not staying is that I could choose my moment when it was right for me to stay. It's what Hemingway did, Dos Passos did, what Bishop did, what Tennessee Williams did, and what you and I will do in the fullness of time. We have but one life and it must be lived, in Key West or not. And, if the city commission cracks down tonight on the noise ordinance there will be plenty of angry clucking but I'm going to guess nothing much will change. At heart it never really does in the Southernmost City.

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Big Coppitt Cemetery

I think I should like to be buried here. If I didn't want my ashes scattered at sea, that is. Here's why:

BIG COPPITT KEY: For storied Keys graveyard, new life and owner - Top Stories - MiamiHerald.com

The Key West cemetery is a repository of history and is well known as a tourist destination, much to the annoyance of family members of those buried in that public space. Big Coppitt by contrast is serene, wide open and free of hassle.

Key West Diary: Key West Cemetery 2013

These plots have stories to tell of less well known characters than in Key West, perhaps but the cemetery is well worth the walk for the serenity and the scenery.

I put Cheyenne in the car for a drive through as most cemeteries don't much appreciate dogs. Wasn't I surprised to see this sign in the middle of the field?

Aside from a headstone in the Weekly family name the only other one I recognized was this one, of the well known artist whose work was recently on display at the Customs House.

 I found this picture online of the two of them planning their final resting place! Brilliant.

Key West is considering spending a quarter million or more on a new sexton's house. Here in Big Coppitt the quarters are more modest.

They make their own headstones here which I found quite fascinating and when I wandered by I actually met the sexton but she declined to be photographed so you will have to imagine a cheerful woman surprised by my interest in her cemetery. I might not mind being buried here. Not at all.

KEY WEST- FL The final destination for a life well lived.

It's easy to find, simply turn north off Highway One at Bobalu's Restaurant in Big Coppitt. And take your dog, it's a great walk.

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Jet Noise

It was nothing particular in mind that I took Cheyenne to Boca Chica beach for a walk. The mornings have been getting hot as soon as the sun comes up and small furry Labradors aren't huge fans of summer's heat, even if it arrives in April. A shady stroll at what passes for a beach in the Florida a Keys was just the ticket.

I was surprised to see construction work underway on the Navy side of the Boca Chica Naval Air Station perimeter.

The base has picked up a lot of training since Vieques closed to the US military, and year round mild weather helps training schedules especially when the base is surrounded by open water...They teach pilots from all over the world hoe to take off and land from aircraft carriers here. Apparently they need more runway or something:

To me this is the Straits of Florida, to the Navy it's open space where no one will complain if planes fly out here and break the sound barrier with a crack like the herald of doom.

Hurricanes have washed out the old state highway that ran along the waterfront here and the county has closed off the worn out pavement reserving it for walkers and cyclists. Cheyenne isn't terribly keen on making the long waterfront walk these days but I miss the exploration.

Key West Diary: Boca Chica Beach is the story of a long walk with a new dog eager to see everything. She ages gracefully!

Jets were doing their thing while we were there, zooming up with a ground shaking roar and a roll of thunder loud enough to feel like the four horsemen of the apocalypse were paying a visit. The newspaper had an article on these things and when I got home I discovered they are F-5N Tiger II aircraft of Composite Zfighter Squadron III. The thrust of the newspaper article is that training will be picking up through the end of June and these "composite" flyers will be playing the enemy as visitors learn how to kill them.

The issue of jet noise is one of those local thorns that get people around here all worked up. Boca Chica has been a major naval base since World War Two yet people who choose to live nearby are surprised by the noise created by powerful jet fighters screaming around the skies. When one of these planes come in to land or take off the noise will drown out conversations, radio, TV and music in the homes nearby and because they are practicing take off and landing techniques from a pretend aircraft carrier the activity goes on quite a bit during daylight hours when visitors are at the base. Which is why I won't consider living between Key Haven and Shark Key to avoid this issue. Other people choose to live under the flight path then complain about the noise.

Being as how this is a military base there is a lot more than common sense in play here, as always among fallible humans. Supporters of the military take the position that to oppose "jet noise" is to be somehow unpatriotic and they call jet noise the "sound of freedom" in the typical hyperbolic fashion of people who aren't too fond of explaining why they believe what they think. I view the recent Supreme Court rulings on campaign finance as the death knell of freedom but flying jet fighters are a fine distraction from that threat. The noise issue keeps the complaints flowing from people who chose to live next to the air base, the bright sparks! And this wouldn't be the Florida Keys if someone somewhere weren't complaining, and introducing common sense into the debate will earn you no friends. I live outside the fly zone and let them get on with it.

This is a good spot to ponder the relative merits of the Second Fourth and Sixth Amendments, but it's also a good place to enjoy the view.

On a day when the mosquitoes and no see-ums are away this is the perfect place for a picnic.

Personally I find insect bites to be far more aggravating than momentary jet noise. I thus find it ironic that yellow fever has been responsible for far more deaths than war. I know why my neighbors get up in arms about expensive government jets flying around, while the gradual dismantlement of the public health system takes place under their noses and not a peep do we hear. The obvious is easier to shout about, but Dr Joseph Yates Porter, the Army doctor turned unglamorous public health director responsible for eradicating yellow fever in Key West deserves more consideration in this age of declining public service. I've never seen someone die of yellow fever, for good reason, but I wonder when that might change?

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From The Archives: The Top At La Concha

The Top is the bar on the roof top of La Concha  hotel, which at seven stories is the tallest building in Key West. It's  a bar I have actually enjoyed visiting,  and  getting there is half the fun as The Top opens to the public at three and the elevator on the ground floor is programmed to reach the top floor at that point in the afternoon but the bar at The Top only opens at 5pm. Here's the bad news, tomorrow is the last day of operation of The Top as it is scheduled to be remodeled as a massage center and spa. Actually I had thought it was long since closed and haven't been back, as these plans were announced months ago. Now the newspaper is full of the closing and Facebook has a page calling for one last party, and it all ends Sunday night, so I figured this was the right moment to replay my 2009 essay on The Top.

If you ask me, this is the best place from which to view Key West's famous sunsets, though even of a sunny afternoon it's a pretty pleasant spot to hang out for a while:

La Concha hotel guests have access any time with their room keys in the hotel elevator, but the elevator will take anyone, even without a key, to The Top after 3:00pm. The bar opens at 5:00pm and you can watch the world go by in style, if you don't mind drinking your wine from a plastic cup:

I usually drink red wine but tradition has it that suicides who choose to leap from The Top are found to have left behind a glass of Chardonnay. If you don't believe me take the Ghost Tour which leaves from La Concha's lobby at 8:00pm, they will tell you the unvarnished truth. I took myself up to the The Top, and there took a moment by myself, on graduation day last week, so it seemed churlish to spoil the evening by taking a swan dive. I drank the wine and admired the view, including St Paul's Cathedral spire and Fleming Key:

A trawler chugging through the harbor en route to the Gulf via the Northwest Channel:
A tourist with Mule Key in the background:

The harbor:

As you can tell Key West is pretty much surrounded by boats at anchor which are most likely lived aboard:

One soon to be occupied by the fish is the Vandenberg (which was sunk that year):
There's Duval Street driving straight for the Gulf:
And here are some visitors touring the town on scooters, at Duval and Eaton, with a delivery scooter in pursuit:
A less energetic visitor enjoying a book on one of the terraces inside the building:

My colleague Noel described this as the coolest apartment in Key West, and as it's on top of the Kress Building and it is owned and occupied by Key West's original developer David Wolkowsky, the man who started the waterfront hotel craze by building the Pier House: I wasn't alone in enjoying the views from the top:

I decided to walk back down to the ground floor, but once you decide to take the stairs management makes sure you know there is no going back:

Until you are back in the lobby, pausing a moment:

Before you step out into the heat, noise and confusion that is downtown Key West.