All Quiet on the Key West Waterfront

Every year around the second week of March I recall my first visit to Key West in 1985 which changed my life forever.  I could not find Key West on a map when I first read about it in AFTER DARK magazine in January 1978. I still have that magazine. The pictures of Randy Jones of The Village People and the other boys grabbed my attention at first. But it was the story of this island where it was okay to be gay captured my imagination. I had lived in Denver, Colorado my entire life. When I started going to gay bars in the early 1970s, you could get arrested for walking across the street at midnight to go to The Broadway, a gay bar located a couple of blocks from the state capitol. It happened all the time. In 1973 friend and fellow law student got arrested in the Court Jester just for dancing with another man.  It took me seven years of thinking and dreaming of going to Key West before it actually happened.

We stayed two weeks. One week at Colours Guest House now called Marerro's. We spent the second week at LaTeDa. We learned so much about the island from locals (like the houseboy who told us where to eat and where to go at night) and guys that had been to Key West many times.

I asked about beaches and someone told us to go to Dick Dock at Higgs Beach. Dick Dock - What? The Queer Pier. What? It was a long wooded pier with a bend in the middle. We had rented a car which back then was almost a necessity to get to the Keys. I quickly learned there were few places to drive once in town and fewer places to park. The beach was one of them so off we went. I recall being awed at the sight of so many gay men sunbathing on the city block long wooden pier, laying on beach towels with their bodies slithered with suntan lotion. I don't care if your gay or straight, everyone checks out hot guys and not so hot guys. We put down beach towels, put on sun lotion, and  quickly learned the wood was splintery and most uncomfortable. The beach in my opinion is equally bad. I hate the grainy sand and people walking by or playing music too loud. The pier was always more civilized.

The city, the county, and the state each maintain a section of the beach. The city of Key West closed city beaches a couple of days ago because of the corona virus threat. Yesterday I went over to Higgs Beach to see if Dick Dock was blocked off. No. It was open as were the other beaches. The orders from thy mayor, the county, the governor were  being defied.

The pier has been re-built several times since I moved to Key West in later 1993. The splintery wood is gone and rails protecting idiots from jumping into ankle level water had been installed. The water and trade winds remain alluring. The parking lot was full of cars, motor bikes, and bicycles of law-breakers sitting too close to each other on the sand or on the pier.

Where ever you are, stay safe. Don't do anything really stupid. Believe there will be a tomorrow because there will. Doubt that, look below. Key West came back after Hurricane Irma. All is quiet on the Key West Waterfront.

1422 South Street, Key West - Just Listed

Just Listed  - 1422 South Street, Key West. The listing broker describes the property this way:

"This gorgeous light filled home features three en suite bedrooms plus two half baths. It was built in 2004 using the highest quality materials and attention to detail and has been meticulously cared for ever since. A custom Hansen & Bringle kitchen completed in 2017 features high end professional appliances including SubZero and Viking, Grohe fixtures,and stunning quartz countertops. The office has custom built-in desks, Ethernet & upgraded Wi-Fi . A guest bedroom suite is completely separate from the main living area. The pool area features lush tropical landscaping with irrigation and lighting and an adjacent new pool powder room. Many upgrades including a whole house generator, electronic gated parking for two cars, lots of built in storage. Excellent location."

1422 South Street could easily be a family home or a second home for snow birds. The Horace O'Bryant School (K thru 8) is located six blocks away. Bayview Park (our main city park) is located across the street from the school. Higgs Beach is located about five or six minutes to the south by bike. Our three shopping centers are located about five minutes or so to the east. Old Town is five minute drive on a good day. 

I took the above photos of Higgs Beach the dog park this morning around 7:30 AM.  (Intentionally left my shadow in the pic.) One lone person had already set up to get baked. A couple older guys were attending their dogs doing their duties. The old walking pier has been redone (again). New palms were planted. It's just such a pretty view. These are the places locals and tourists come to recreate.

CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS datasheet and more listing photos. Then please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642, to schedule a private showing of this home. I am a buyers agent and a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Key West (listing brokerage).  

The Thing I called "The Thing" that Appeared and Disappeard from Higgs Beach in Key West

My generation, the baby boomer generation, grew up fearing Russia and anything alien from outer space which I think was really about Russia - a society totally different than our own. One of the cult classics of that time was IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE.  I liked it so much I bought an 8mm five minute silent movie with subtitles.  When we don't understand something we fear it - well, most people do. Others go out and embrace it and figure out what makes it tick. Scientists and daredevils embrace the unknown.

Below are photos, most of which I took, but some which I borrowed from others who posted on Instagram, of an object that appeared one day at Higgs Beach in Key West.  I live a couple blocks away and would go over there quite often just after sunrise to visit this thing I could not understand. It just materialized out of nowhere one day. Initially there was no explanation as to what it was.

That is the White Street Pier in the background.  The beach is manicured each morning before the tourists and sun worshipers arrive. Those  tracks in the sand belong to the manicuring machine.

The East Martello Gardens is in the background. Maybe the iron fence was built to keep the aliens out.

We have a bit of a homeless problem in Key West. Some do-gooders feed them and that encourages more to come here - and stay. They sleep anywhere they can find a comfortable and safe place. For the weeks after I discover the thing I call the thing, I would drive over to Atlantic Boulevard (funny name for a two way street about only twenty feet wide) to take pics. Then I would see somebody laying in the bottom of the thing and drive back home.

One day I had had enough. I got out of the car and approached the thing. There was nobody sleeping there - just some mass of some sort. The thing looked like a smashed concrete sewer pipe.

Borrowed photo.

 Borrowed photo

On those occasions I show a condominium with a beach view I tell the prospective buyer about how quickly and how often the views of sand, water, sky change. They normally don't get it. These pictures show it to some degree. It's funny how a stationery object with a hole in it can be so mesmerizing. The hole challenges the viewer to look inside to see what is there. As you move around the view of the hole changes. It's remarkable in its simplicity.

Borrowed photo

Now I realize this not a smashed concrete sewer pipe but instead a fossilized giant shark mouth risen from the ocean.

Notice something different?  There is a little monument that tells us this is not a shark nor an object from outer space but instead a work of art.

The last line of the movie was "Well, they're gone!" or something very close to that.

One day I went to the beach and the thing was gone. It disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, without notice. I felt a sense of total loss. Seriously.  I had come to love the thing. It was someplace to go. To photograph and to imagine. And then it was no more.