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Key West Goes Straight

Today's Times recognizes the changing face of Key West. Once home to all-male guest houses and drag shows, now things have changed. Apparently the annual Fantasy Fest has become a huge draw for the heterosexual bunch.

Real estate prices have jumped, "While transplants once could buy up attractive but dilapidated houses in Old Town, those "Carpenter Gothic" houses have now been restored with pastel paint and shiny tin roofs to a standard that would make Martha Stewart applaud. Today, a tiny bungalow in Old Town can sell for $600,000 or more." and some worry that investors and real estate moguls will buy up the guest houses and turn them into condos.

Of course, the originals always remain and hold on when a sense of place is threatened.  As "Miss Maseratti was about to step into the spotlight to lip sync a disco version of "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" during which she would strip off her khaki skirt to reveal a blue maillot spangled with white stars...she insisted she was not about to leave the island, even if the Atlantic Shores did. "I still love Key West," she said. "I love it. I'll be here until they drag me out screaming and kicking."

With that kind of opposition, the developers might want to reconsider.

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·   Is Key West Going Straight? [NY Times]