My Keys in Black And White

I haven't used them much but I have taken some pictures in monochrome. They lend an image distance and I suppose on thinking about it I have preferred to post color pictures to lend immediacy to the scenes unfolding in the Keys. I am very aware that in 2005 I wasn't yet into digital photography and have no images of that fiasco which was Hurricane Wilma. Go HERE for a very complete discussion of that storm with some pictures, courtesy of the National Weather Service in Key West. So this time around I have been taking as many pictures as I can but I have to admit the constant stream of garbage and wreckage is wearing me down. By way of contrast here is the Seven Mile Bridge driving back to Key West:

 Ohio Key also snapped from a vehicle, cable company and telephone company trucks at work:

 A cloud also snapped from the Seven Mile Bridge. There is no chronology to these pictures, no story just images I like.

 This one is on Grassy Key, a bike path opened up to motor traffic by removing the post that allows only bicycles to ride by presumably in this case to allow clean up vehicles access:

 Also on Grassy Key further up the bike path Himself prowling:

 Grassy Key, a reminder of how important these wires and poles are in our lives:

Rusty watching something:

 My favorite leafy walk wrecked, near Bahia Honda:

 The 1942 water pipe pushed out of place by the storm which tore up the land this pipe was buried in:

 A dinghy washed up on the only land, a tiny islet, south of Bahia Honda before Cuba:

Lazy Way Lane near Schooner Wharf. The bicycles are back, if they ever left:

 These bikes are nearby in new racks near the Waterfront Brewery:

 A fair bit of boat wreckage at Sea Center on Big Pine:

 I got tired of seeing bucket trucks not in use, just sitting there:

My boy:

 Does it look less like wreckage in black and white?

In real life it still smells the same.

 More bucket trucks just sitting. I got frustrated seeing them not doing.

Happy memories piled up in a heap:

 Things got knocked over everywhere:

 Galley Grill on on Summerland got flooded judging by all the furniture pulled out:

 Summerland Key

 Leafless bushes everywhere here in Islamorada:

 Sunrise:

My other favorite walk at Boca Chica Beach. 

William's Prediction

I was walking Rusty past the library a few months ago when a scooter rider rode up to me and pushed his front wheel against the edge of the sidewalk. It was a hot sunny summer afternoon rather like this one, a picture I took in the same spot a few years ago:

I didn't recognize William behind his sunglasses and baseball cap. I usually see him driving a van around town or spot him in his mechanic's shop on Truman as in this photo I took of him in 2015.

He used to be my neighbor in Sunset Marina with two small dogs on a power boat tied up a couple of slips away from my own boat, the boat my wife and I had sailed round from San Francisco, a Gemini catamaran:

He belongs to that unseen but vital underclass of Key West residents, the ones who live normal lives making things work and keeping things working in a  town dedicated to the proposition that work is a poor substitute for drinking. That attitude is promoted by the people who make money off the drinking tourism, the people who come to Key West to escape, but escape comes with an intense price tag.

William knows it and like most wage earners he has an ace-in-the-hole plan to escape should the going get too tough. By boat or by van when Key West can't accommodate his modest life he will have to back away, like all of us. We chatted for a while catching up with our separate lives, me working for the city, him still wrenching at the shop. We lamented the future of Key West a city who's gentrification seems to have picked up speed in the decades we have lived here. Our marina life is more imperiled than ever though William thinks he can hold on for a while longer. Marinas on South Stock Island are no longer the havens they once were for hobos and people who wanted cheap living on a  cheap boat.

Well, William said to me in a parting shot, what we need is a Category Five hurricane to clear out Key West. More prophetic words were never said. We got our major storm last month and lived to tell the tale. Of course the storm decimated the poorer islands, Sugarloaf to Big Pine, sparing the second homes of the wealthy in Key West. I don't think William's hope that a refreshing storm would sweep away the people with money who are the problem as viewed from the perspective of the working class.

 

Stock Island is a prime example of working stiffs' homes now at risk after Hurricane Irma. Clearly this sort of living, posted previously on this page, isn't safe and with developers hungrily eyeing Stock Island as their next land of opportunity and profit. The Seahorse Park residents on Big Pine, the hold outs have received their marching orders from the owner, a member of a prominent Key West family.

The problem for the residents is that their modest accommodations are valuable real estate in a  county that requires building permits. Knock down a trailer and you can use that as the basis for a Rate of Growth transfer and build a million dollar house in it's place anywhere you like in the county! So you can see this sort of thing is now going to get ramped up especially as trailers are clearly not safe in major hurricanes. The transformation to a millionaire society will be cloaked as a safety precaution.

It has been a long hard fought struggle to get this place cleared but it seems that at last Seahorse will be no more. So where will the residents go? Who knows but I am hearing stories of people whose homes got flattened and who have no resources and precious little help from FEMA or the Small Business people and who thus are leaving the county. Which in an ideal society doesn't sound so bad does it? Survival of the fittest and all that.

Even if the free market, so called should regulate everything as a practical matter you need people to do the grunt work. Already we are seeing new hotels set aside garret rooms for workers. Up the Keys buses assist the commutes from low cost Florida City and Homestead for hotel workers in the Upper Keys. And on Stock Island Ed Swift built Meridian West (above) to provide worker housing. Meridian East has yet to appear, if ever. There are always proposals for affordable housing though affordability is never defined. Affordable housing is a way to make development respectable. 80 new apartments are planned near the airport and of them 24  will be "affordable." Hooray!

The picture above shows what was a trailer park on Simonton Street and now is no longer in reach for working folks. So it goes... And where does this leave Hurricane Irma's effects? In my opinion the difficulties created by the storm will be felt most by the people with least. It is not going to be as William hoped, a panacea for the working stiffs. It will open up fresh opportunities for more wealth creation by the few that already have a death grip on the possibilities. A hurricane is no solution because there is no solution. The more I wonder the more clear it seems to be: Irma's legacy makes it plain that it's better to be a visitor than a resident. Whether or not you have money.

Open For Business

During the hurricane and the immediate aftermath I was grateful for Facebook ans the lines of communication it offered. However that period of information exchange has reverted to business as usual making it too much of a place to whinge and trade barbs so I have veered away. However the last I was reading people are or were, still complaining about premature tourist visitation. That ship has sailed. Or, more accurately that cruise ship has long since landed. There was one Tuesday peeking over the roof tops:

The other side of the Keys is being tended to, more or less well according to who you talk to by the Red Cross on Flagler Avenue and FEMA, the federal emergency management people at the firehouse on Simonton Street:

I took a walk downtown after my exercise class finished trying to wipe me out on Tuesday and I poked my iPhone into a few corners of Duval to see what's what. The long and the short is that things are picking up even if it wasn't madly busy. It usually isn't anyway this time of year. Sloppy Joe's:

 I thought about rolling up the sidewalk as I looked south on Duval Street:

 But there were people having fun in the place so I left them to it:

Rick's was dead quiet and Smokin' Tuna around the corner was promising to open for evening entertainment. The Red Garter had at least some naked women to display judging by the open door. For some (strange) people that about takes care of Key West and everything you need to know.

Then there is the promise of Fantasy Fest scheduled to start the last full week of October the 20th with parties and the promise of  forbidden delights of the flesh. In the spirit of preparation the city has put out bundles of barricades for use during the Grand Parade the Saturday night that wraps the week up. I wonder what sort of parade it will be this year with so much effort going into rebuilding lives. Building a one time use float by contrast seems like a bit of a waste of energy to me.

The al fresco drinking at the Bull where smoking is encouraged which means I'll never get to check the interior of the place. Not that there's much to check. I have never been inside Ricks, The Bull or Sloppy Joe's or Irish Kevin's but Captain Tony's I did once have a beer in because a friend wanted a souvenir mug (true story). I am just not much attracted to the noise and crush of drinking in places like that. I still miss Finnegan's Wake. 

Your dream job, one of three to support life in these Keys, is opening up at Shorty's Market right in the heart of Duval: 

Irish Kevin's blasting music appealed not one jot to me. My idea of an Irish Pub is a place of pregnant pauses and long silences and appreciative beer tasting. The Croc store is not a bargain hunter's delight either and I don't pay full price. I might if they sold pink men's in size 13 but they are gone forever apparently. 

 Not a place to sup craft ales and contemplate the meaning of life or the craft of writing. Maybe I'm wrong but I'll never know:

 I have absolutely no clue why this picture ended up in my camera but here it is. A mystery. I guess people really were walking on Duval...

 Yes, there were a few at Greene and Duval:

Rental scooters are back filling the free two wheeler parking spaces. At least the trash and debris is gone opening up more room.

And electric cars are back too, creating their own hazards as their drivers treat the public streets as playgrounds.

 Willie T's took some of the most severe damage during the storm when the big tree fell down and knocked the place about. Drama queens used images of the bar as a sample of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Irma when it was the Lower keys outside Key West that got beaten up.

 In any event they are back:

 The San Carlos hasn't changed one bit as clam and serene as ever:

Not sure why Duval was closed but this sort of thing happens all the time, usually for street cleaning, but if you are irritated by this stuff you might not want to visit quite yet. Things are not entirely back to normal.

 Upper Duval (the south end) looking the same as it ever was: