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A — hops off the plane or the cruise ship in Key West and heads right to the Green Parrot or the Chart Room, eager to begin your vacation drunxtravaganza. But have you ever looked around while you were crawling from one bar to the next and caught a glimpse of a building (even through squinty, blurry eyes) and wondered […]

The straits of Florida that stretch between Key West and Cuba were a treacherous place to be in April 1980, but for Cuban refugees brave enough to attempt the crossing from one island to another, fear had become an old friend. Cubans were long terrorized under a regime that — under the guise of restoring freedom — turned neighbors against […]

Key West Art & Historical Society presents the work of artist Paul Arsenault with a special opening reception on Feb. 22 from 6 to 7 p.m. in the Bumpus Gallery at the Custom House Museum (281 Front St.). “Coastal Trade: Bounty, Booty, and Boats of the Gulf and Glades from Naples to Key West” is an exhibit of over 30 […]

VALENTINE’S DAY IS…tricky.  Anthropological research indicates that the day we now associate with the sting of Cupid’s arrow actually derives from Lupercalia, a pagan festival during which ancient Romans sacrificed animals, got drunk and naked and beat women with the hides of the slain animals in an effort to increase female fertility. (If you replace Rome with Duval Street and […]

As Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong throttled a tiny space pod toward the icy surface of the moon on day five of the now historic Apollo 11 U.S. journey in 1969, they could hear mission control counting down the seconds until their fuel tank ran dry. Scouting a rugged terrain of moonholes and craters, their heart rates intensified. With two […]

Most people know that Tennessee Williams was a famous American playwright. Many may have even heard of “The Glass Menagerie,” “A Streetcar Named Desire and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” — some from seeing stage productions, others by their silver screen versions. But even those who can name every play the Pulitzer Prize winner wrote might not know these […]

On a blustery, partly cloudy Sunday afternoon The Conch Tour Train, Key West’s old-time sightseeing tour, pulled out of the station on Front Street and rambled and jangled along the sometimes bumpy roads of Key West’s historic district. A ticket for the train, actually a car outfitted like a train with passenger cars in tow, is about $30 (plus tip); […]

CAYO HUESO — LITERALLY “bone cay” in Spanish, Key West has had a fascinating, often morbid history. In its precolonial days, it was said that the island was once a communal graveyard, littered with the bones of prior inhabitants. Key West became an official territory of the United States in 1822, but its rich history spans well beyond the past […]