Some Famous Writer Once Lived Here: Key West, Florida

Some Famous Writer Once Lived Here is where we check out cities or towns that--you guessed it--a famous writer once lived. Picture the illegitimate lovechild between the US Census report and a tourist pamphlet from a local chamber of commerce. What's it like there today? Here's where we find out.


Today:  Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, and others once lived in Key West, Florida:

The Florida Keys are like a Diet Hawaii with half the travel time to get there in you live in the 48 contiguous states. You won't get leis, volcanoes, and the smooth, smooth rhythm of Don Ho's music to spice up your day like you would in Hawaii, but the Keys offer retirees in abundance, narrow roads, and the dulcet tones and bum lifestyle of Jimmy Buffet.

Diet Hawaiian waves as well.

While there are 1700 islands in the archipelago that makes up the Keys, most islands are ignored like a red-headed stepchild. Celebrities and tourists flock to Key West mostly, including Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams. You know how you were forced to read To Have and Have Not in high school by your English teacher? You can blame Key West for stirring Hemingway's creative juices, as he wrote the book there.


The basics of Key West, Florida:

Location:
Nearly 160 miles from Miami via car, Key West is only 94 miles from the Cuban coastline. Whichever direction you choose to go, you'll end up at a nightclub swiveling your hips, which is probably a sight no one wants to see.

2010 Census:
Population: 24,649, down 3.3% from the 2000 Census. Florida is God's waiting room after all, so it looks like God's been busy.

Racial Makeup: 83.8% white, 9.7% African American, 2.1% two or more races, 1.6% Asian, and 0.4% Native American. No word on how many identify as Jimmy Buffet Parrotheads.

Great news for single women, as 55.4% of the population is made up of men. As long as you don't mind the smell of cheap beer, suntan lotion, and illicit Cuban cigars, you've got it made.

12.9% of locals live below the poverty line. Apparently poverty wasn't interesting enough for Hemingway to write about, though.


What to see, what to do in Key West:

Do you live in the middle of the desert and have never been to an aquarium before? The MOTE Marine Laboratory & Aquarium is there to fill the void in your life. On their website, they say, "The answers are in the ocean." I don't know what that actually means, but I hope it's the answer to what the Powerball numbers are for tonight's drawing.

Where were the answers in the ocean that night, MOTE?? Hmm?

If you're jonesing for a fix of Hemingway, don't worry. Key West is practically a shrine to the man, with a Hemingway Days festival held every July. The highlight is the Hemingway look-a-like contest, where mildly overweight 60-ish year old men with white hair and beards dress up like they're on safari. It's kind of like when your crazy uncle Frank forgets to take his meds and drinks too much at Thanksgiving.

Hemingway dress-up not enough for you? You can tour the house he lived in for nearly a decade, now a museum, and come across 50+ felines. Hemingway loved cats back in the day, and was once given a polydactyl (six-toed) cat called Snow White by a passing boat captain. Snow White was seemingly the amorous sort, as today there is an untold number of cats in Key West--including the 50+ at Hemingway's house--that are polydactyl.

One of Hemingway's cat's descendants with a mitt large enough to play baseball.

If you really need a break from Hemingway, there's always the Tennessee Williams Key West Exhibit. The exhibit is in a separate building and is not the house Williams owned and lived in from 1949 until his death in 1983. That house is privately owned today, and apparently the owners aren't interested in inviting hundreds of tourists into their living room every afternoon. So much for HGTV-style "entertaining."

The Chamber of Commerce has a section on their website about "Places to Propose" if you want to get married. The website page proceeds to simply tell you how much the license fee is ($93.50!),  some basic rules, and that you can get married in the Clerk of Courts office. After all, nothing says romance like the Clerk of Courts office. But let it be known that at no point on the "Places to Propose" page does the Chamber of Commerce actually tell you where to propose. Small missed detail.


Where to eat in Key West:

Looking for that restaurant that hitches its wagon to famous writers some way or another? There's the Hot Tin Roof restaurant. Sure, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof deals with alcoholism, but why focus on the negative? The restaurant is upscale, and charges $22 for a basic cheeseburger, showing that alcohol might even affect menu pricing decisions, too. That's called synergy, folks!

Time to get boozin'.

Two Friends Patio Restaurant claims its history goes back to 1886, where it opened as a saloon. They say the restaurant's name came sometime after World War One, but don't explain how. Personally, I always enjoy vague allusions in my history lessons. Keeps me guessing.

If you REALLY want to see that Ernest Hemingway look-a-like contest mentioned earlier, swing over to Sloppy Joe's Cafe, where it's held annually. Get your fix of impersonators and cheap American beer all in one.

So...much...Ernest.

To cap off the night, there's Better Than Sex, which is an intimate dessert-only restaurant. Their drinks go by the names "The Klimax," "Shelby's Shocker," and "The 'Money' Shot," while their desserts are named the likes of "Cookie Nookie Pie," "Tongue Bath Truffle," "The Missionary Crisp," and "Fork You Fondue." I don't know if any of this is better than sex, but my curiosity is piqued.



Isn't Judy Blume occasionally a resident of Key West, too?

She is, but no word if she has a polydactyl cat.


Tennessee Williams' thoughts on Key West:

"There are punks here. That’s because a couple of gay magazines publicized this place as if it were the Fire Island of Florida. It isn’t. One Fire Island is quite enough. But it attracted the wrong sort of people here: the predators who are looking for homosexuals. I think the violence will be gone by next year."

Followed up with: "I’ve been here longer than (the predators of Key West) have, and I’m not leaving."