8 posts tagged “sarasota”
At the end of the day, Sarasota's best traits are that it's not Orlando. Or even Tampa. You're about as far from mouse ears and mock-toberfests as you can get. The attractions are family owned (like Sarasota Jungle Gardens) and quaint.
And while the community is remarkably clean, you'll run across the occasional reminder that no area is immune to unemployment and homelessness.
I was preoccupied by the big clock in the park near the end of Main Street. But only after downloading the pictures did I notice the homeless man sleeping on the bench (shown between the clock's legs).
These are not my photos.
I purchased a Minolta film camera at a garage sale in Sarasota, FL last weekend ($1, including a snazzy black case and the original instructions). The film inside yielded family photos that appear to be from Dec. 2002 and March 2003 -- Christmas and winter break visits, perhaps?
I don't know anything else about the family. I think the seller of the camera bought the camera at an estate sale and was re-selling it to clear out her inventory.
Any of these people look familiar? Or this backyard pool and lanai, perhaps?
Continuing my early morning photo crawl---
From what I've read, Sarasota transformed from a fishing and agricultural village in the 19th century to a real estate boom town, thanks to some aggressive early 20th century promoters. Ever hear of John Ringling? He made his money in the circus business, but went to town in the real estate world, developing most of Sarasota Bay's islands.
Sarasota's eclectic architecture captivates me. Unlike New York City's gothic insistence and pre-occupation with reflective surfaces, Some Sarasota buildings remind me of the better matte paintings from Star Trek. Some classic forms blend with Spanish interpretations. But then, I'm no architect.
The Opera House (above) began life in 1926 as the Edwards Theater, hosting live performers and bands, and vaudeville acts. The Municipal Auditorium (below) was a WPA project that's still in use today (although dwarfed by the larger Van Wezel auditorium, closer to the bay).
And then, you run across a building that looks like it was brought in from Guadalajara. The Warren Building, for example. Pretty in pink, but a little hard on the retinas.
I personally prefer a quiet cafe table, tucked away in a back-alley garden.
A few glimpses of Sarasota that don't have much to do with flamingos or beaches or T-shirt shops. I get out early, before visitors and pedestrians clutter the sidewalks and storefronts, spoiling my photos.
Tourism boards sometimes hate when I do this "dawn patrol" photography. But Sarasota's budget axe fell on 27 police department employees a few days before I arrived. They probably had more important crimes to fight than a lone photographer packing an SLR.
I promise you, there will be a palm tree shot in the next few days. But over at Turtle Beach -- Siesta Key's less-popular twin -- they've done a good job roping off the more fragile native flora. The light was right, and I was packing a 300 mm lens, which helped blur out the background nicely. You can't do this with a pocket digital camera, friends.
I wouldn't presume to do a sequel to any Alfred Hitchcock film.
But if I did, I might base it at Sarasota Jungle Gardens, where the flamingoes have no fear of humans.
Nor are they concerned with such obstacles as police barrier tape...
... or restaurants that take their names in vain.
This particular flamingo followed us halfway out of Sarasota Jungle Gardens. Good thing our rental car had a sunroof.
You didn't know me when I had a serious -- some would say, irrational -- preoccupation with flamingoes.
Good thing, too.
Because it became somewhat annoying. Inflatable flamingoes, flamingo tiki lights, flamingo mobiles, fake flamingo noses, flamingo sweatshirts. I was insufferable.
I even wrote an article about obsession with all things flamingo in Rochester, NY. Which consisted of a few plastic garden ornaments and a deco-motif clothing store on Goodman Street. The local Sunday magazine bought the piece, thinking it was perfect to lighten up an otherwise dreary winter weekend in upstate New York.
Luckily, I grew out of it. Sweatshirts get paint stains. Inflatable items develop leaks and wither.
Then, the phone rang. The folks at the Sarasota Jungle Gardens had an idea for a publicity photo. I had some free air miles.
I can't disclose all the details yet, but suffice it to say -- the birds welcomed me back. And they had no idea I was coming...
Yes, that was an elephant holding up rush hour traffic in downtown Rochester this morning.
Once a year, Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus brings its show to town. Most of the circus paraphernalia comes in by truck. But the bigger animals (and the human performers, I hope) travel by train. The rail siding is nowhere near the hockey barn/auditorium where the circus performs, so they parade the elephants and a few horses across town to the venue.
Rochester is a "family town," where diners are called "family restaurants," and parents cheerfully send their kids to school late to see a few elephants. And even the motorcycle cops get into the act.
A few years ago, I spent a week in Sarasota, Fla., the original home of Ringling Brothers, interviewing the descendants and families of circus performers who remained there after Ringling relocated to Virginia. You have to look hard, but there are a few remaining artifacts of circus life. Some backyards still have trapezes set up where you'd otherwise see a swing set. And the high school has its Sailor Circus, where the kids rehearse all year after school in a covered circus ring, and perform a Ringling-calibre show in the spring.
Alas, the website that commissioned the story went in another direction, and discontinued publishing such stories. Maybe they needed to see the elephants hold up traffic in Rochester this morning.
SARASOTA, FL. -- Got a jump on Passover this weekend, visiting family for a short seder in sunny Florida. Aging parent with aging dogs. Too much barking. Uncomfortable sleeping arrangements. You know the score.
Sarasota and nearby Bradenton are somewhat built-up now. Fewer pawn shops, more Starbucks. The Sailor Circus -- once run by the Sarasota school district as a credit-bearing curriculum for high school students -- has been shifted to the county. And there are more Super Target Marts and a Walgreens on every corner. (Pictures when I get home; uploads are iffy in the land of DSL.)
I look for an escape route to the out-of-the-way places. Siesta Key Beach, with a few tourists at dusk, watching a hazy sunset while a bagpiper plays children's songs. Or Anna Maria Island, at the northwest corner of Manatee County, with a long wooden pier that ends with a tin-roof bar and restaurant in Tampa Bay; you could mistake it for a pier in a 1930s Hemingway novel. No lifeguards. Teenagers casting their nets off the pier for schools of fish swimming by. A manatee swimming lazily toward warmer waters. BK and JK toying with a live conch found in the shallows. Florida without a trace of Disneyana or rampant Orlando-ism. I got my feet wet and sandy and my outlook improved dramatically. Relatively quiet and kinda nice.
But when you return to drier land, you learn that half of the insurance companies are abandoning the home insurance market here, scared off by the 2005 hurricanes. The ones that remain are jacking their insurance rates by 50-70 percent, placing most middle-class homeowners in a state-run insurance pool that, by some accounts, rates below Circuit City in terms of customer service.
Homes in the western part of south-central Florida run between $300,000 and over $2 million. Insurance? Hell, I can't envision the mortgage.
I'm a huge Jimmy Buffett fan, but Margaritaville was never like this.
