But some locals would rather take in the welcome mat, or at least roll it back a little. “Duval Street was beautiful,” says architect Michael Miller, whose office overlooks the city’s mile-long 19th-century main drag. “Now half of it’s a carnival midway.” Key West is under attack from the sea, they say, as giant cruise ships every day disgorge thousands of passengers on bargain runs out of Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. This year close to half a million passengers will disembark into Old Town’s narrow lanes; the local population is 25,700. Now some Conchs, as the natives call themselves, have had enough. “This is a small island,” says local grocer Jimmy Weekley, bemoaning the crowds he says are changing the face of the town. “You’ve got to have a balance.” Prodded by the town’s hotel owners, who profit least from the cruise-ship boom, the city commission will soon review a controversial proposal to cap the number of cruise-ship tourists.
The problem’s not so much the number of new tourists as the nature of new tourists. Key West has long been a resort, where 71 percent of the economy comes from visitors. But just two years ago Duval Street was lined with crafts and antique stores. Big-city literati shared outdoor cafes with charter-boat fishermen. The AIDS epidemic, which ravaged the island’s large gay population, is responsible for shuttering many businesses. Now the streetscape is dominated by T-shirt shops, more than 50 at last count, that soak up the $20 to $30 left behind by the average passenger. For merchants like Dianne Zolotow, whose Lucky Street Gallery sells contemporary art, that’s no help. “The ships are like huge subways that go to sea,” she says.
Cooler heads among the island’s population recall far greater challenges, like hurricanes, pirates, even condo-buying Yuppies. Cruise-ship passengers, however tightfisted or rowdy, rarely venture more than half a mile from the ships. “Duval Steet is like any tourist town, but half a block away is a wooden museum,” says retired store owner David Wolkowsky, 74, whose apartment overlooks acres of meticulously preserved antique architecture. No matter how many passengers arrive each day, a local statute mandates that the ships be gone by dusk lest they block the view of sunset from Mallory Pier. That’s a law with nearly unanimous support.
