Key West Trolley Tour - YouTube HD (cc)
Uploaded by JCVdude on 02.09.2011
Transcript:
Fire during a hurricane. The hurricane slammed the church.
The hurricane slammed the church.
The Parishioners came back to the church to assess the damage.
They found the front 4 doors were still standing. Still intact.
They considered that good luck.
They called it the 4 Door Church after that.
See how narrow these streets are. They were not designed for great big trolleys like this.
That is the oldest High School in Key West. It was built in 1909. It looks like a castle.
All these building have metals roofs because of the fire that took place in 1886
The fire broke out on Duval St. and wiped out the entire town in 6 hours.
At that time, all the roofs were made of wooden shingles.
The fire leaped from roof to roof and destroyed the town in 6 hours.
They could not put out the fire at that time.
The only fire equipment they had at the time was in the yard being repaired.
Not a good time to have our fire crew out of the area.
Now this part of town I hate when I have to pull over because I get a nose bleed here.
This is Solares Hill, the highest point in Key West It is 18 feet above sea level.
Sometimes if I cannot stop the trolley I pull a shoot out
That is when we all get out and pass the shoe ??
Now we are in the dead center of town.
At the dead center of town is the Key West cemetery.
Key West cemetery. If you have been to New Orleans you know what a cemetery in New Orleans looks like
All the graves are above ground.
We live on a million year old petrified coral reef we call the Island of Rock for a reason.
It takes dynamite to dig down inside of it.
Most everybody is in crypts or Mausoleums above ground.
Over 100,000 of our former citizens are in here.
You see the flag pole there? There is a statue of a Sailor.
He is looking – He is looking for the survivors
of the USS Maine when it blew up in the harbor in 1898
and all the sailors were brought here and cared for
by the Nuns of Saint Mary’s Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church and Convent.
That is the entrance right there.
Go in there and enjoy yourselves.
There is a brochure right by the front gate.
There are 60 different headstones that they point out.
Sloppy Joe Russel is in there of Sloppy Joes bar.
The Harrises of the Southern Most House.
The Currys from the Curry Mansion.
We also have P. Roberts
Pearl Roberts was our local hypochondriac
She was always complaining about how bad she felt.
When he finally passed away. She got the last word in.
Because she put on her head stone, I told you I was sick
Another one I like is I am just resting my eyes. I like that one best.
Now I am going to show you what an eyebrow house looks like. (Only 30 on the Island)
This building right here with the 2 flags, look at all the second story windows
are protected by the overhang.
See how it keeps the sunlight out. It also keeps the rain out.
It also allows ventilation to go through the building. They are called eyebrows.
They are all designed for ventilation.
These are conch homes.
There are 3000 conch homes that exist on this island.
The largest collection of historic homes in all of Florida
Synthetic sponges take up only one tenth of what a natural sponge does.
They still produce sponges down here
But in 1910 something called the Red Tide went through the Keys.
I am going to drop you off at Mallory Square
All the sponges at Mallory Square are now harvested in the Southern Keys.
We finally got it back.
We know it is back because you walk down Duval Street
you will see people sponging each other off down there all day long.
Key West has a very superstitious group of people
Look underneath these porches
I want you to see the color underneath the porches
It is a special color
You probably will not be able to tell you the color of it
But it is a blue color.
Look underneath this porch here on my left.
This is an example of it real close to the trolley.
That is blue. It is called Haint Blue. H-a-i-n-t
Key West is very superstitious
They do not want spirits to cross their porches. and get into their homes.
So they paint it with Haint Blue
They feel that the spirits will not cross the water
So they cover it with Haint Blue
Now also we have Gingerbreading here in the Keys.
See the building right here on my right?
This is Antonio Diaz De Roscos home that white building.
You look at the second story and it is Gingerbreading.
It is like a ships wheel.
They are all designed for advertising.
When they build that, they put ship rail on it because then people could walk by it,
And know that the guy was a ships captain of a boat.
If you saw pineapples on it, the guy probably had a plantation here in the Keys.
It was all for advertising.
They filmed a movie out in this area about 20 years ago.
It is called Criss Cross with Goldie Hawn.
If you have never seen the movie, do not worry about it. Not many people did.
They film a lot of movies here in Key West.
I told you Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis filmed a move here.
Her parents filmed a movie here.
Anybody know about her parents? Any movie buffs on board?
Tony Curtis right, very good.
Janet Lee, very very good.
They filmed a movie with a guy whose real name was Archibald Lee. Stage name was Carry Grant
Now coming on my left is the Octagonal or Bird Cage house.
Calvin Klein owned this house for almost 10 years.
Calvin Klein owned that from 1980 to 1989. Almost 10 years.
That was the first house to sell in Key West for almost $1,000,000.
That was 30 years ago.
Now here is the old stone church, our first United Methodist Church.
This church is made of 2 foot thick limestone walls. We call it the Old Stone Church because of that.
When they quarried the Limestone they created a big cistern or hole underneath it now used as a cistern.
They still use it for irrigation.
Most of these buildings have cisterns.
There are only 2 buildings in Key West that actually have basements.
One of them is the Hemingway House the other is the Southern Most house on the Continental US.
The original Hemingway cottage is now called Pelican Poop.
I don’t know what Pelican Poop have in there for sale, hopefully not pelican poop.
I am going to turn in here.
They have got all these streets blocked off today.
They are doing some work on the streets.
When they do that they block them off.
This area is so small it is hard to get around sometimes. We are used to going certain ways with these trolleys.
I can only make a certain type of turns in the trolley because they are 40' long.
The mansion coming on my left is called the Porter Mansion.
Dr. Porter was born here and died in 1927 80 years later.
There has been the same economic downturn here in Key West as everywhere else in the US
Property values went down by 50 percent
This white building here was $15 million for sale. They finally settled for $7.5 million this past year.
Kenny Chesney house is on my left or was until 3 months ago.
Robert Frost spent 16 consecutive winters here.
This is the Robert Frost cottage right down this little road.
On my left is Kellys Caribbean Restaurant.
Kelly McGillis the movie actress.
She turned that into a restaurant years ago.
This is where PanAmerican Airlines had their ticket office years ago.
Really neat inside. All airplane motifs inside.
On my right is the Audubon House.
John James Audubon lived in this house on my right.
From 1830 to 1831 he worked on his Birds of America book.
It is called the Audubon House.
That is the largest collection of his works in the United States.
Passports you can get the Conch Republic Passports. Want to get one?
I will tell you about it in a second.
The last stop we will come to is Mallory Square where we drop off at.
Where you will disembark and change drivers to continue around the island
And that is Mallory square.
There is the sponge market the shell warehouse
There is a lot of people down here but a lot of people are going back to their ship.
Just be patient they are just like you and me.
trying to get back to their ship.
For people trying to get back to the ship these are they trolleys they are going to be lined up for.
If you are going to be here overnight the Sunset Celebration takes place right here on Mallory Pier.
If you have not done that yet, it is great to go to.
Mallory Pier is going to be in front of the trolley in a second.
I’ll show you where it is located
and there are street performers that have been doing it for 40 years
Every night they have a great big carnival out here.
They have all kinds of artists and actors, musicians really amazing street performers.
They have tight rope, dogs that do all kinds of acts. It is really fun.
The hurricane slammed the church.
The Parishioners came back to the church to assess the damage.
They found the front 4 doors were still standing. Still intact.
They considered that good luck.
They called it the 4 Door Church after that.
See how narrow these streets are. They were not designed for great big trolleys like this.
That is the oldest High School in Key West. It was built in 1909. It looks like a castle.
All these building have metals roofs because of the fire that took place in 1886
The fire broke out on Duval St. and wiped out the entire town in 6 hours.
At that time, all the roofs were made of wooden shingles.
The fire leaped from roof to roof and destroyed the town in 6 hours.
They could not put out the fire at that time.
The only fire equipment they had at the time was in the yard being repaired.
Not a good time to have our fire crew out of the area.
Now this part of town I hate when I have to pull over because I get a nose bleed here.
This is Solares Hill, the highest point in Key West It is 18 feet above sea level.
Sometimes if I cannot stop the trolley I pull a shoot out
That is when we all get out and pass the shoe ??
Now we are in the dead center of town.
At the dead center of town is the Key West cemetery.
Key West cemetery. If you have been to New Orleans you know what a cemetery in New Orleans looks like
All the graves are above ground.
We live on a million year old petrified coral reef we call the Island of Rock for a reason.
It takes dynamite to dig down inside of it.
Most everybody is in crypts or Mausoleums above ground.
Over 100,000 of our former citizens are in here.
You see the flag pole there? There is a statue of a Sailor.
He is looking – He is looking for the survivors
of the USS Maine when it blew up in the harbor in 1898
and all the sailors were brought here and cared for
by the Nuns of Saint Mary’s Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church and Convent.
That is the entrance right there.
Go in there and enjoy yourselves.
There is a brochure right by the front gate.
There are 60 different headstones that they point out.
Sloppy Joe Russel is in there of Sloppy Joes bar.
The Harrises of the Southern Most House.
The Currys from the Curry Mansion.
We also have P. Roberts
Pearl Roberts was our local hypochondriac
She was always complaining about how bad she felt.
When he finally passed away. She got the last word in.
Because she put on her head stone, I told you I was sick
Another one I like is I am just resting my eyes. I like that one best.
Now I am going to show you what an eyebrow house looks like. (Only 30 on the Island)
This building right here with the 2 flags, look at all the second story windows
are protected by the overhang.
See how it keeps the sunlight out. It also keeps the rain out.
It also allows ventilation to go through the building. They are called eyebrows.
They are all designed for ventilation.
These are conch homes.
There are 3000 conch homes that exist on this island.
The largest collection of historic homes in all of Florida
Synthetic sponges take up only one tenth of what a natural sponge does.
They still produce sponges down here
But in 1910 something called the Red Tide went through the Keys.
I am going to drop you off at Mallory Square
All the sponges at Mallory Square are now harvested in the Southern Keys.
We finally got it back.
We know it is back because you walk down Duval Street
you will see people sponging each other off down there all day long.
Key West has a very superstitious group of people
Look underneath these porches
I want you to see the color underneath the porches
It is a special color
You probably will not be able to tell you the color of it
But it is a blue color.
Look underneath this porch here on my left.
This is an example of it real close to the trolley.
That is blue. It is called Haint Blue. H-a-i-n-t
Key West is very superstitious
They do not want spirits to cross their porches. and get into their homes.
So they paint it with Haint Blue
They feel that the spirits will not cross the water
So they cover it with Haint Blue
Now also we have Gingerbreading here in the Keys.
See the building right here on my right?
This is Antonio Diaz De Roscos home that white building.
You look at the second story and it is Gingerbreading.
It is like a ships wheel.
They are all designed for advertising.
When they build that, they put ship rail on it because then people could walk by it,
And know that the guy was a ships captain of a boat.
If you saw pineapples on it, the guy probably had a plantation here in the Keys.
It was all for advertising.
They filmed a movie out in this area about 20 years ago.
It is called Criss Cross with Goldie Hawn.
If you have never seen the movie, do not worry about it. Not many people did.
They film a lot of movies here in Key West.
I told you Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis filmed a move here.
Her parents filmed a movie here.
Anybody know about her parents? Any movie buffs on board?
Tony Curtis right, very good.
Janet Lee, very very good.
They filmed a movie with a guy whose real name was Archibald Lee. Stage name was Carry Grant
Now coming on my left is the Octagonal or Bird Cage house.
Calvin Klein owned this house for almost 10 years.
Calvin Klein owned that from 1980 to 1989. Almost 10 years.
That was the first house to sell in Key West for almost $1,000,000.
That was 30 years ago.
Now here is the old stone church, our first United Methodist Church.
This church is made of 2 foot thick limestone walls. We call it the Old Stone Church because of that.
When they quarried the Limestone they created a big cistern or hole underneath it now used as a cistern.
They still use it for irrigation.
Most of these buildings have cisterns.
There are only 2 buildings in Key West that actually have basements.
One of them is the Hemingway House the other is the Southern Most house on the Continental US.
The original Hemingway cottage is now called Pelican Poop.
I don’t know what Pelican Poop have in there for sale, hopefully not pelican poop.
I am going to turn in here.
They have got all these streets blocked off today.
They are doing some work on the streets.
When they do that they block them off.
This area is so small it is hard to get around sometimes. We are used to going certain ways with these trolleys.
I can only make a certain type of turns in the trolley because they are 40' long.
The mansion coming on my left is called the Porter Mansion.
Dr. Porter was born here and died in 1927 80 years later.
There has been the same economic downturn here in Key West as everywhere else in the US
Property values went down by 50 percent
This white building here was $15 million for sale. They finally settled for $7.5 million this past year.
Kenny Chesney house is on my left or was until 3 months ago.
Robert Frost spent 16 consecutive winters here.
This is the Robert Frost cottage right down this little road.
On my left is Kellys Caribbean Restaurant.
Kelly McGillis the movie actress.
She turned that into a restaurant years ago.
This is where PanAmerican Airlines had their ticket office years ago.
Really neat inside. All airplane motifs inside.
On my right is the Audubon House.
John James Audubon lived in this house on my right.
From 1830 to 1831 he worked on his Birds of America book.
It is called the Audubon House.
That is the largest collection of his works in the United States.
Passports you can get the Conch Republic Passports. Want to get one?
I will tell you about it in a second.
The last stop we will come to is Mallory Square where we drop off at.
Where you will disembark and change drivers to continue around the island
And that is Mallory square.
There is the sponge market the shell warehouse
There is a lot of people down here but a lot of people are going back to their ship.
Just be patient they are just like you and me.
trying to get back to their ship.
For people trying to get back to the ship these are they trolleys they are going to be lined up for.
If you are going to be here overnight the Sunset Celebration takes place right here on Mallory Pier.
If you have not done that yet, it is great to go to.
Mallory Pier is going to be in front of the trolley in a second.
I’ll show you where it is located
and there are street performers that have been doing it for 40 years
Every night they have a great big carnival out here.
They have all kinds of artists and actors, musicians really amazing street performers.
They have tight rope, dogs that do all kinds of acts. It is really fun.