Round Magazine Nº 2 by `Round Magazine

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key west

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It’s a long way to Key West and kind of inconvenient. Driving is interesting but draining, and flying to small towns is never easy anymore. For some it’s the last sane place in America and for others the opposite.

Whatever

the reason, it’s hard to feel ordinary after driving a hundred miles into the open ocean. But, as the explorers found, if you want

spice,

and

fruit

and nuts you have to be willing to go the distance.

Photographer: Sue Swank Model: Lindsay Danielle Viveiros

Sandy Cornish (c1793-c1869) Sandy Cornish (Uncle Sandie) was born a slave in Maryland about 1793. He migrated to Florida in 1839 where with his wife Lillah’s help he was able to buy his freedom. In the last 1840’s his free papers were lost in a fire. Six unprincipled men captured him with the intent of selling him at the slave market in New Orleans. Uncle Sandie escaped and to prevent recapture he inflicted several injuries on himself. In the public square of Port Leon, he cut the muscles of his ankle joint, plunged a knife in the other hip joint and cut off the fingers of his left hand, tendering himself unfit for labor and thus worthless as a slave. In the late 1840’s he came to Key West where he and Lillah bought a farm on what is now Truman Avenue near Simonton Street. Uncle Sandie supplied fresh vegetables and fruits to the island inhabitants. During the Civil War many Union Soldiers visited Sandy’s fruit orchard. He was by all accounts a highly successful farmer, one of the richest men in Key west and a leader of the African American community. In 1864 he established the ongoing Cornish Chapel of the African Methodist Episcopal Church at 802 Whitehead Street. Uncle Sandie died in the late 1860’s a wealthy and respected and free citizen of Key West.

People used to complain that there were never any good movies in Key West, just the average fare at the multiplex. A group of cinema aficionados decided to do something about it in 1998. Two like minded groups joined forces to establish the Tropic Cinema and bring alternative, independent and foreign movies to Key West. The theater now hosts the Key West International Festival of New Cinema.

oonrise and sunset are daily attractions on any island, but they are special events on the offshore islands of Florida. Beach lovers on Marco Island pause every night for the Green Flash, that elusive streak of color said to accompany the sun into the sea. Shell collectors on Sanibel Island enjoy their sunset cocktails in a wildlife refuge when the roseate spoonbills are in season. Here in the Florida Keys, Key Westers ‘go to sunset’ on Mallory Square Pier, with the jugglers, the tightrope walkers and the cookie lady. The Florida Keys are a curve of about 1700 islands that start 15 miles south of Miami and extend like a bony tail into the emerald-green waters of the Caribbean. You don’t cross a national border when you drive the longest overseas highway in the world but you do enter a mystical kingdom, where island time prevails from Mile Marker 100 at Key Largo to Mile Marker 0 at Key West. The sea is seldom more than a short drive away on either side, the Atlantic Ocean a few hundred yards to the left, the Gulf of Mexico a few hundred yards to the right. The concrete ribbon of Highway 1 ties these sandbars and coral islands together as it wanders south across bridges, past manatees and mangrove trees Film buffs should see Humphrey Bogart in a memorable old black-and-white movie called Key Largo before driving into the gateway to the Keys at Key Largo amidst a burst of colorful billboards. The most important sign points to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, which provides access to the only living coral reef in the continental United States, a reef seen by glass-bottom boat, dive boat or with snorkeling gear. As you drive south past clusters of island civilization at Marathon and Islamorada to the capitol city of the Keys at Key West, allow time to be lured a few hundred yards off the Overseas Highway to coastal resorts, restaurants, bars, marinas and other facilities beside the sea. Rent dive boats anywhere along the whiplash of islands or in Key West. There are one or two good sand beaches, notably at Bahia State Recreational Area, but everybody’s final destination is where Highway 1 ends at Key West. Key Westers call themselves Conchs, spelled like the famous Conch shell but pronounced “konks”. Like most islanders, they are individualists who create their own eccentric lifestyles beside the sea. They have been living from the sea for centuries, since pirates first lured Spanish galleons to watery graves on the reefs. Piracy became legal in the early nineteenth century, when any sea captain who owned a house in Key West became a licensed salvager, a “wrecker” eligible to claim shipwrecked goods as his own. There were three shipwrecks a week in those days, many caused by a wrecker with a wandering lamp, so it was a profitable business for Conchs.

Key West was the largest city in Florida, totally independent of the mainland, when Henry Flagler built his famous east coast railroad down the Keys in 1912, allowing passengers to make a ninety-mile sea voyage to Havana, Cuba, for twenty-four dollars round trip. He built the Grand Hotel, now the glamorous Casa Marina resort, which prospered until a hurricane virtually destroyed the railroad in the Labor Day hurricane of 1935. The government built the Overseas Highway to replace it. A highlight of that highway trip today is crossing the Seven Mile Bridge, which connects Knights Key, in the Middle Keys south of Marathon, to Little Duck Key in the Lower Keys. The Conchs built a New England style town with Bahamian architecture and an island life style that makes this unique town more like a Caribbean island than a part of the American mainland. Tour Key West on either the tour train or the trolley to visit the restored Conch houses of Old Town, a highlight of this two-by-four mile island. If you take the Trolley, disembark to visit the 21st century descendent of Henry Flagler’s famous hotel, Casa Marina Resort, or other island attractions such as Ernest Hemingway House and Museum, or the Audubon House and Gardens. You can take the next trolley back into town. At day’s end, when both you and the sun are at the end of your day, join the people who begin to drift down Duvall Street. They are going to sunset. A popular first stop may be the open air bar atop the Pier House, but everyone eventually gathers around the street theater which occurs every evening at Mallory Square Pier. Crowds of tourists and Key Westers are there, milling about, sitting on the edge of the pier anticipating sunset. They buy brownies and Key Lime Pie from the cookie lady. They cheer on the contortionist, the fire eater, the mime, the jugglers and the tightrope walker silhouetted every night against the deepening sunset. The greatest applause is saved for the sun itself. As the sun touches the horizon, the riot of activity goes into slow motion. People stop talking, as parishioners do when they go through the church door. The sun melts like gold, spreading its colorful blessings on the sea. Applause begins. And rises. The golden orb drops below the horizon and is gone There are no curtain calls in this theater, so the sundowners begin to move. The noise level rises. And the question forms: where should we go for dinner? Iris Sanderson Jones is a travel writer based in the Pacific Northwest. She is the author of several books including “Country Roads of Ontario” and “Quick Escapes in the Pacific Northwest”. She is a member of the Society of American Travel Writers.

Key West Sojourn by Iris Sanderson Jones

Photographer: Sue Swank Model: Kendra Spring Adams

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key west

C Fishing fast and slow on Knight’s Key 3 Waterproof Mascara * 4 Current in the current 6 Betsy the Lobster captured on Islamorada 7 Surfboards at Morada Bay 8 Jean dreamy * 10 Duval Street in Key West 12 Keychain lady 14 Bust of Sandy Cornish in Mallory Square 15 Cornish Memorial Zion Church 16 Motel sign 17 Hemmingway’s neighbor 18 Houses on Whitehead Street 20 A chicken 21 Tour train 22 Truman adjacent banyan tree 24 Cherry Chevy 26 Tropic Cinema 28 Key West Sojourn 30 Duval Street, after church 32 Local vernacular 34 Park bench siesta 36 Marilyn rocks * 38 Overseas highway BC White Crane in the middle of the road

any of the photographs in this M magazine may be purchased from

www.Studioli.com ublisher P Pui-Pui Li Editor in Chief Eric Jones Photographer Eric Jones Contributors Iris Sanderson Jones Sue Swank* box 140402 manor road station new york, ny 10314 round-magazine.com © 2010 `round magazine