The Key West Mystique
Key West Island News
Key West Island News connects Key West residents and friends of the island, fosters our One Human Family culture and advances understanding of shared goals for our island community
Linda Grist Cunningham | Columns and news analysis
Key West Island News editor Linda Grist Cunningham has written more than 4,000 columns — in print and on the web — since 1968. She hates writing and is compelled to do it anyway.
Key West sargassum 2022 | One of these days, it’ll kill summer beach time
If you want a happy-face spin on the state of Key West sargassum 2022, you best look elsewhere because -- wait for it -- Mary, Joseph and the Wee Donkey, that black, decaying algae is piled up past my thighs, the off-beach waters are a gooey chocolate sludge and the...
Key West airport | Come on, folks; we need this expansion
Sometimes I feel like a one-person marketing department for the Key West Airport. I'm usually the one at happy hour not carping about long waits in baggage claim. I'm mostly unwelcome on social media when I don't fall in line with the "reasons to hate the Key West...
Seven Mile Bridge | Yay! Finally, we found a parking place
Is it worth the hassles to visit the new Old Seven Mile Bridge? Sure. As long as you can deal with four caveats, one of which is that the views are better from a speeding car on the old new Seven Mile Bridg
The Key West brand | What do these authors have in common with the Tourist Development Council?
The Key West brand: If you’re doing business in the Florida Keys, there’s only one key word set: Key West. If you’re a writer, an artist, a musician, a not-for-profit and you have even the remotest connection to the island chain, there’s only one key word set: Key West. If “Key West” isn’t in your name, if it’s not part of your website’s URL, if you choose cute over key word — say Bone Island — you’ve lost search power.
Key West 2022 | 10 (small) tips to rebuild an island sense of place
This isn't one of those Key West has changed laments. Of course, it's changed. Three years of Covid-19 escalated the speed of those changes, leaving us more than a tad discombobulated. Time wears away familiarity even when we hold on for dear life trying to slow or...
Camping at Fort Jefferson: Is that primitive island getaway worth the hassles?
During Covid, camping at Fort Jefferson had become akin to Disney World crowds but without the amenities. Not only was the ferry booked out forever, but anyone who could beg, borrow, charter and (perhaps) steal a boat was headed to Fort Jefferson with a sleeping bag and some charcoal. Is it still worth the hassles?
Dear Connor is a collection of columns Linda writes for her grandson, Connor. Though he may never read them, they help her make sense of the world.
Dismantling the 14th Amendment: Keeping it upbeat in Key West when the world isn’t
I love my Key West Bubble, but national dissonance is dribbling through today. I am unsettled at the prospect of living through the dismantling of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The 14th Amendment, ratified by the states in 1868, can be boiled down to this: Oops, when we wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments), we were thinking only of straight white men with money. Perhaps we need to fix that?
Dear Connor | As the American democracy unravels, can there be hope for your future?
American history is filled with "times like these." Three times we have been here. I believe we will be OK. Though my rage boils over too often, I believe in Americans-in-the-middle. I believe there are extremists on the right and the left -- and I believe they do not, do not, represent who we are as a people. They get the attention and the headlines today; spoiled children clamoring for their own ice cream cone, unwilling to share and willing to fight to the death to keep what they believe is theirs and theirs alone. Getting through this transition will not be for the faint of heart. But get through we will.
Hurricane Irma | In September 2017, Linda Grist Cunningham created and launched a Facebook Page that aggregated news coverage during Hurricane Irma. She was off-island at the time visiting her mother in Virginia. Her husband remained in Key West. Over the three weeks that she and her partner journalists John Teets maintained around-the-clock coverage, they reached almost a million people around the world. These are the columns she wrote each day. Hurricane Season is always June 1 – Nov. 30.
Hurricane Irma | 5 years that changed Key West and the Keys
Once a month I drive to Marathon and back for a board meeting. I've done that since before Hurricane Irma clobbered Key West and the Florida Keys on Sept. 10, 2017. For five years that 100 mile round trip has been my gauge for our recovery from...
Hurricane Irma: 9-23-17: Closing up shop. Saying Godspeed. Going home to the Cat 5s
When we launched Key West Hurricane Irma, our online news coverage, we weren’t sure when “quit” would happen. We were confident we'd know. Today is the anniversary of knowing. It was time to wish our house guests farewell and Godspeed.
