Things To Do

The freshly paved William Street approach to the new Marker Resort is a reminder that money talks. Caroline Street nearby is an abysmal street, rutted and torn enough that you could get bounced off a scooter by the imperfections of the roadway. The city has plans to make the whole area look like this, properly paved, with kerbs, sidelwaks and everything, including landscaping.

For the time being Lazy Way Lane which runs between the brand new Marker and the funky Schooner Wharf is still a one way street though this sort of circle seems to indicate that access could be closed anytim.

I ask myself how long a loud music venue like Schooner Wharf will last next to a carefully landscaped fenced  hotel next door. For some its music for others its noise and Old Town tourist businesses are always struggling to straddle that fine line.

Though I noticed the Marker did participate in the Wine and Food Festival event last weekend, one of several resorts with sold out events. For everyone else the waterfront is he place to stroll and admire the boats and take pictures. Just like me, looking for signs to catch my eye.

50% off today only! Sure, hurry on in before they refuse to sell you something. Advertising is so weird.

 Another event that passed me by, no wine and food for the workers, no art either..!

It's winter time and Key West is busy.  

Posted with Blogsy

BANANA -Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything

The Federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission a few decades ago gave a whole load of land to the city of Key West, which has always been a  frontier town and filled with military bases and people. Its known to officialdom as Poinciana Plaza and it still looks like the Navy Housing it once was, complete with fencing and park-like grounds. 

Not the best use of precious land in a city where housing is not getting more affordable.  So when a proposal came before the city commission to build 40 new units of housing naturally the commission voted it down.

from Keys Weekly: 

The proposed Poinciana project entailed 40 new units to be built and operated by the city’s housing authority. Commissioner Terri Johnston said the project is a drop in the bucket towards the city’s overall need, but a beginning at least.

The proposed Poinciana project entailed 40 new units to be built and operated by the city’s housing authority. Commissioner Terri Johnston said the project is a drop in the bucket towards the city’s overall need, but a beginning at least.

“We have got to start somewhere. We have a location and let’s look for all viable sites. We have got a property with an executive director willing to work with us. Let’s be proactive,” said Johnston.

Chairman of Florida Keys Outreach Coalition (FKOC) Sam Kaufman agreed with commissioner Johnston and said nothing happens until the commission makes a decision.

“Poinciana seems to be an excellent location, with the site control and space. Procrastination is perpetual however. We don’t want affordable housing to move at the same rate as the Truman waterfront. The White Paper was presented two and a half months ago and Don Craig said that was urgent. I have not heard anything since Oct. 7,” said Kaufman.

The commission voted against directing the city manager to work with the Housing Authority of Key West for the development of affordable and workforce housing at Poinciana Plaza at the city commission meeting on Wednesday.

“Upon seeing this item on the agenda my immediate question is why are we not looking at Easter Seals. The property was already voted down as becoming the next homeless shelter,” Commissioner Tony Yaniz said. In December, the city commission voted against using the Easter Seals property as a homeless shelter site, however City Manager Jim Scholl and Mayor Craig Cates have said it is the only viable property where the shelter can be located. The deadline to move the shelter is in late February.

Affordable housing has been a serious issue in Key West for more than a decade, but the issue came to the forefront after City Planner Don Craig brought forward a document called the “White Paper” in October, explaining the urgent need for 6,000 affordable units. The document also directed the city to hire a fulltime staffer to tackle affordable housing and work with the city’s land authority, as well as state officials.

I think the paper laid the issue out very clearly and when you look at the vast open spaces at Poinciana Housing you have to wonder why the elderly Navy units aren't demolished to make way for modern, compact units that would go a long way to help people afford to live in one of the most expensive towns in Florida. 

This is New Town, several miles from the precious leafy streets of Old Town where the tourists flock but there is no sign the city commission is in the mood to make any decisions. What they do want to do is increase height limits to help disfigure the city on the specious grounds that the city is built out and  thus helping home owners increase the size of their homes would be a good thing.

City Commissioners Tony Yaniz and Clayton Lopez said they felt affordable housing might work better on other properties and the city should look at changing building heights before building any structures. Lopez suggested putting affordable housing units on part of the 6.6 acres of the Truman Waterfront Project, Yaniz said he would like to see other locations and buildings tower to six stories.

“If we cannot build out, the only way to go is up,” Yaniz said.

 Which if you look around the city, not just at Poinciana Housing you will see is not the case, Key West is, inexplicably not built out at all. With 34 acres of land handed over to the city by the Navy 15 years ago you'd think that would be obvious, but Truman Waterfront remains a barren wasteland with development proposals aimed at a luxury marina and country club facilities rather than open space, an old folks home and why not a few units of affordable housing.

Walking past the Keys Energy headquarters in Old Town the public utility is gutting its elderly building and renovating the shell. Not a bad thing at all and perhaps an example to the city of making a decision and getting on with it. 

The homeless shelter has to move and the city is having kittens worrying about who is going to sue them the minute they make a decision about a new location. The obvious thing there too is to simply decline to decide even though the old Easter Seals building is the logical relocation site on College Road. The logic is impeccable; until it no longer is.

Posted with Blogsy

Summer In Winter

I must have photographed the Customs House on Clinton Square a few hundred times but this is the time of year the colors leap out under the at intense blue sky and bright winter sun. This is the time of year the sloping roofline, designed to shed snow looks more absurd than usual as one thinks of similar Federal buildings doing that job properly Up North.

I read a protest on Facebook about the destruction of downtown with street closures in the busiest time of the year. I think it has something to do with sewers so one would like to imagine the work is urgently required. I think tourists kind of expect functioning loos even in this southernmost outpost of US hospitality. 

Like I mentioned last week every foray into town garners a fresh set of cooing pets for my overly indulged Labrador. She puts up with it very politely, as long as there is no food in the offing...

 ...but when there is the hint of a taste of food all good manners go out the window. The Cheyenne food plow is unstoppable. I have no idea what it was but it crunched satisfactorily.

 It is a perpetual hunt.

I've had falafels from the place at the end of the alley and they were quite delicious. The store front for the aptly named Falafel King faces Fitzgerald Street on the other side of the building but Cheyenne likes to hunt her prey in narrow alleys and dark corners.

This picture below I posted on Facebook wondering if there was a connection between smoking dope and smoking bicycles. Everything is illegal in Florida, except riding a motorcycle without a helmet which makes it all worthwhile.

I'm sure some people feel like they've been smoking a bicycle or something else when they see these birds wandering all over the place. 

 Winter as it should be.

Posted with Blogsy

Tim Egan, Brilliant Cartoonist

Save the Fool

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Tim Eagan

I get a little nervous when they start murdering cartoonists. I’d feel that way even if I weren’t a cartoonist, but it’s reassuring that so many other people seem to feel that there is something especially wrong with the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

Cartoonists, I think, enjoy a special reputation, even among their fellow satirists. They are the modern incarnation of the Fool, or close to it. Like that archetype, they are often seen as innocents and as truth-tellers. In fact, the reliability (and forgivability) of their truthfulness is rooted in that innocence.

In his purest form, the Fool acts as a mirror to the world around him. He blurts out what he sees in the way that madmen do — without regard to manners or custom. He simply reflects the unvarnished, often painful truth right there in front of us. Sometimes that truth is so obvious that the rest of us miss it. It catches us by surprise, and it makes us laugh.

The Fool is not reasoned, nor earnest, nor moral, but he does have an eye for absurdity and a nose for bullshit. He adds no analysis of his own; that is left to those who are foolish enough to call themselves wise.

The reaction to the French terrorists has become a little more diffuse since the Charlie Hebdo story. Since then, a kosher market and some unlucky hostages have been added to the list of bloody outrages in France. The sharpest sting for me, though, remains the murder of the cartoonists. I take it personally. It forces me to examine my own efforts as a satirist.

My first reaction was something like guilt. Those cartoonists were brave; I am a coward. I should be making drawings that push the edge and challenge the darkest, most dangerous forces in this world. Cartoonists in much more threatening surroundings than mine do it all the time, so why can’t I? I should be doing work, in other words, that makes people want to kill me.

I have since backed off that position. I am a coward, after all. Instead, I’ve decided to try and be a better Fool. Of the host of cartoons drawn in sympathy with Charlie Hebdo, my favorites have been the least angry. R. Crumb also labeled himself a coward, but he did draw “the hairy ass of Mohamid” (as only Crumb could), noting it belonged to his friend Mohamid Bakhsh of L.A. And I especially liked Charlie Hebdo’s first cover after the shooting: a head shot of Mohammed shedding a tear and holding a sign reading “Je Suis Charlie.” Innocent, simple, human, real. Defiant, yet sympathetic to non-radical Muslims (if not their faith). The epitome of a Fool.

I’m not Charlie, but I wish I were. 

You can explore Tim Egan's brilliance here: Tim Egan Dot Com

Walking Key West

A stretch of lovely summer days have inflicted themselves upon us, some windy, some less so: 

I never tire of primary colors on Key West streets, especially under the dark blue dome of a cloudless sky. I have, quite honestly lost track of all the transformations of this unhappy restaurants location. I have no supernatural beliefs to fall back on, but if I did, I'd say this place is cursed. Lots of interesting restaurants have come and gone.

 This is Key West in winter:

A colleague of mine just returned from a family outing to Fairbanks, Alaska where his married daughter has set up home, about as far from here as possible. A native of New Jersey he seems to have developed a fresh affinity for snow and stood there talking about minus 20 degrees being "not too bad." He also claimed groceries were cheaper and gas was barely more expensive than Key West which was surprising to me. However Fairbanks doesn't look like this:   

Sometimes the grass tends to look greener away from Key West, all the high prices, bums, endless debates in the newspaper about bicycles and iguanas and leaf blowers and and parking and all that stuff. Then you wake up on a 61  degree morning and wish you were wearing socks in bed and you realize you just aren't cut out for life Up North.

Then you see a porch, a bicycle, two chairs and one shoe, and your mind starts to ask questions to which there are no satisfactory answers.

I wonder how often I have walked past this well worn mailbox on Petronia Lane (which is not Petronia Street, and is not in Bahama Village) and not ever noticed it.

There is always something to look at on this tiny island. Blue skies, green leaves year round and warm sunshine on yellow homes.

Bill Butler Park at this angle looks to me like something exotic, southeast Asian perhaps or from a movie I very much liked the  1996 version of "Victory" from Joseph Conrad's novel:

It had shortcomings in plot development especially if you parse the wordy novel and look at the movie as a film of the novel rather than a piece of art on its own, but for me the moody atmosphere of the Indonesian island, the oily flat sea, the menace of the plot, it all struck a chord. Besides I like Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill and Rufus Sewell. Balcnies, angled rooflines and tall palms. Hmm, Key West or Surabaya?

 

And here we are back to reality, indoor outdoor living and a curious dog:

 No, no fog needed, no snow for ambient effect, sunshine suits me:

Posted with Blogsy

Backspace

I confess it will be a struggle for me to be cheerful about a place that replaces Finnegan's Wake, what used to be the quintessential dark cool pub. It was the place I liked to go by myself or with a friend, the food was good and utterly unlike anything else in town. It was a better pub than any I've seen in the US, so that was that when they closed.

I don't eat out much at the moment so it's no loss to the restaurant to say I miss the past. I need to make this a final look back and when I am back drinking alcohol and buying sugar fat and salt and I actually have time to do something other than work and prepare podcasts (!) I will enjoy checking this place out. I am not alone.

I suspect this new clean fresh space will do fine without me for a while. Led by experienced owners, retaining the old chef (Colcannon anyone?) and a strong Facebook following already...no problem. And cooking the pest Lionfish gives us a clue that they know what's going on in the Keys.

Up the street on Caroline Braza Lena the Brazilian barbecue dining room is still flying the sign outside while inside the place is upside down. The sign in the window said they'd be back after renovations. Mind you they've been closed forever.

I used to like this place from time to time not for the full on huge meat meals in the restaurant but for a mixed grill on a plate washed down with a Brazilian beer. So much for that. I'm not doing so well am I, if I ever get to eat out again.

Posted with Blogsy