Old Key West Bottling Plant

I recently found an amazing archive of old Key West Photos at the Monroe Co. Library’s Flickr page. These shots of KWest from the 40’s – 70’s to me represent the “real” KW, before tourism took off and redevelopment took over and transmogrified the island into a simulacrum of itself; a place dusty, mellow, local and genuinely alive, populated by Bahamanian and Cuban Conchs, sailors, hippies, artists, refugees and scalawags of all stripe, who lived and let live. There was peace and more freedom there than any time or place I’ve lived since. And so I can’t resist taking these old photos and modding them to reflect the feelings they incite, deep within memory, dragged up from the depths of my heart.
Old Coke bottling factory on lower Simonton(?) Street, alley view, @ 1960. Credit for the original
to Florida Key’s Public Libraries http://www.flickr.com/photos/keyslibraries/

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