Key West: Treasures, Trinkets, and Trash

Gentle readers, that summarizes the southernmost town in the USA, Key West, Florida. Forget that it’s Hemingway’s adopted hometown. It is now a tiny retail carnival town aiming for the lowest common denominator to people who’ve come from afar to reduce fractions. This gloriously decadent island winks, blinks, and hardly ever blushes. It’s a ton of fun.

The epicenter of Key West is Duval Street, a 3/4 mile stretch where the sacred and profane spill into each other with worldly insouciance.

On a post-lunch perambulation, I'm hailed from a darkened doorway by a lovely black woman in a paperclip bikini who promises visions of tawny sugar plums if I venture inside. It is 3 PM. My sweet tooth notwithstanding, I decline with a smile and an air kiss, both returned, by the way.

Across the street, a high-end Coach store flashes a wanton display of plush leather and fashion accessories like a retail store gone wild.

Voluptuous mannequins with postage sized bikinis ogle passersby from tiny storefronts.

And shapely girls at The Bull are ogled by enthralled tourists.

T-shirt and knick-knack shops elevate tackiness to an art form and punctuate every block. The best T-shirt logo, at least the best one I can write into this public blog is “Key West is a drinking town with a fishing problem.”

Bars flourish in this town in which the thermometer has been stuck on 86 degrees for several months. Music blares from Sloppy Joe's, and Cowboy Bill’s Honky Tonk Saloon, and the The Bull and Whistle Bar, where clothing is reputedly optional on the roof deck.

Out of the obligation for journalistic verification, I climbed to the third floor and observed well-formed nakednesses at the bar and lying Cleopatra and Caesar style upon chaise lounges one sunny afternoon. Key West is definitely laid back.


St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, the oldest in the Florida diocese, its whitewashed exterior shimmering brilliantly in the afternoon sun, seems to tolerate the frivolity. Sooner or later, penitents may enter to make amends.

An evening stroll down Duval Street is short on nuance and long on neon. Whether you’re straight, gay, or somewhere in between, there’s a seat at some bar for you. Downstairs at The Bull and Whistle Bar, it could be all in the same place. Music pours out of bars and spills into the street, a not too subtle siren call enticing you inside. Not that most of us need much of an invitation.

Parade is the default mode for Duval Street. On any given night, straight piped earsplitting Harleys, bicycle rickshaws, tiny electric glorified golf carts masquerading as mini cars, and ancient convertibles with babes of all persuasions throwing trinkets advertising girlie bars and pole dancing establishments cruise up and down.

This is a Noah’s Ark kind of town. Observe long enough and you’ll see all the species of the known earth: tourists, locals, all manner of certifiable characters, street people, teens with the ubiquitous skate board, shills in front of strip clubs, and very few kids under twelve.

One or two humongous cruise ships are usually docked here. I wonder what the folks from Iowa wearing shorts, white socks and walking shoes make of all this. It’s either Gomorrah or Eden with a guilty conscience. I imagine it might be like walking around a zoo with no bars between the visitors and wild creatures.

Say one thing about Margaritaville, everyone seems to get along. My first night in town, the captain brought me to Mallory Square, THE place to be at sunset in Key West. The seaside bar at Ocean Key Resort and Spa is jammed with patrons, their eyes on the horizon and hands cupping beverages. Great music from a live band hones the edge of the anticipated sunset.

“Have a beer!” A jovial middle-aged couple with enough beers on their table to start a game of checkers offers me a cold one. The sun sets, a million pixels pulse from scores of cameras. And the band plays on.

By the wee hours, Duval keeps humming with the hardiest partiers. By daylight, the whole spectacle begins anew. It never gets old in Key West. More than a few pilgrims have declared this paradise and never left

In case you wonder, there are museums, art galleries and quaint architecture to be seen in Key West. You just have to get Duval Street out of your system first.

Photos by P. Tamburello.

Mallory Square photo courtesy of http://www.sunsetcelebration.org/

Comments

[nikki]

Paul,

Lovely photos accompanying an equally lovely and information-packed description. So Duval Street is on my list of places to check out when I retire. Thanks.

[Susaan]

The photos are fun! But in truth, it is your writing more than the photos that captures the spirit of the place!

[S]

Ahhh it makes me wax nostalgic for the place - I can almost smell it! You have brought it alive - such vivid images.

[Christopher]

PT....love the insights. Looking forward to the unedited version.