Some pics from the Festival of Trees today

Again, videos are cooking and will be up soon!

Nadine Burns is the Producer of this years Street Painting Festival. Nadine and Maryanne Webber (the Festival director) will be putting on a spectacular event this year!

 

The Festival of Trees is still going on...

Video of the presentations, along with Mayor Triolo, Commissioner Szerdi and Representative Mark Pafford's remarks will be up shortly.

Note that the newspaper sponsor of the event was the Lake Worth Herald (more on that later):

From The Lake Worth Tribune's first restaurant review by Joseph Thompson III

From the paper's restaurant reviewer (no résumé included) about a Lake Worth premier restaurant:

"I watched as the food runner repeatedly blew her nose into a Kleenex, looked at it, and then blew more, all in full view of the hostess stand and everyone coming and leaving the restaurant. I wished at that moment that I'd stayed home and cooked my own dinner."

Keepin' it classy at the Tribune, Margaret Menge? This is from Ms. Menge's printed paper, which appeared seemingly overnight. However, the seeds were planted a while ago. Here is the other blogger's glowing introduction of our new Lake Worth blogger back in 2012.

From last evening's Appreciation Ceremony by the Neighborhood Association Presidents' Council - Lake Worth's First Responders

Ceremony sponsored by the NAPC.

Todd Dripps gets the story again!

Scanned the newspapers, tv stations and several other likely sources and cannot find any news on the protest by Everglades EarthFirst! yesterday. Other than our intrepid reporter Mr. Todd Dripps. Here is Mr. Dripps Facebook page.

Check out the pictures!

For some reason Mr. Dripps keeps referring to the Briger 'Forest' as the Breaker 'Forest'. Most of the pictures in his collection from yesterday clearly have signs that read, "Briger". Minor point, but the EarthFirst!ers aren't necessarily known for following conventions, like proper names of places, or any rules for that matter.

Governor Rick Scott honors deputy Brian Fidler with the Governor’s Heroism Award

“In these times when a lot of elected officials have turned their back on law enforcement, we’ve got a great governor in this state who’s had the courage to stand up, support law enforcement and talk about the good things that law enforcement does,” Bradshaw [Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw] said. “We are so fortunate in this state to have a governor that makes the commitment to law enforcement to give us the resources we need, give us the backing we need to do what we do to keep people safe. There’s a lot of places that don’t get that.”

PBSO Sheriff Bradshaw quoted by George Bennett at the Post On Politics blog.

Last Friday morning (1/9/15), Governor Rick Scott honored Lake Worth deputy Brian Fidler with the Governor’s Heroism Award for saving the lives of three children. The award is given to individuals who risk their lives and go “above and beyond the call of duty.”

Meet Matt Morgan of the Palm Beach Post

There was a vehicle accident on Lake Worth Road west of the Turnpike. Mr. Morgan at the Palm Beach Post reported on this story. Here is Mr. Morgan's story in the Post, the headline reads:

Wellington man, 69, dead after two-vehicle Lake Worth crash Thursday

This is from the text:

A Wellington man, 69, died Thursday after rear-ending another vehicle on State Road 7 near Lake Worth Road, authorities said.

Here is the accident location:

The vast sea of "Lake Worth" mailing addresses strikes again. This really is more Wellington. Can we please be more careful in our reporting?

Traffic Advisory - Southern Boulevard Bridge Repairs

The Southern Boulevard Bridge, will have one lane closed in each direction, as needed, on Tuesday, January 21st from 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., for bridge repairs.

Campaign kick-off DURING our Lake Worth First Responder/PBSO/Fire Rescue ceremony tonight?

Tonight at 6:00 is the Evening on the Avenues/Neighborhood Association Presidents' Council (NAPC) ceremony celebrating our Lake Worth First Responders, PBSO District 14 and Palm Beach County Fire Rescue, Stations 91 and 93.

From the NAPC website:

To honor our First Responders, the NAPC “Front Porch” will be specially lit with blue lights on Friday night. Blue front porch lights will be available for neighbors to take home to show their appreciation as we encourage everyone to light their own front porches in blue for the rest of January. We will offer a Statement of Appreciation to representatives from PBSO and Fire Rescue from the stage at 8:30 pm followed by a special First Responders Appreciation cake, of course lit with blue candles, for everyone in the Plaza to share.

Curiously, a candidate challenging sitting Lake Worth Commissioner John Szerdi decided to have his "Kickoff Party!" tonight at 6:00. Would this be a not-so-subtle snub of our PBSO District 14 and our PBC Fire Rescue? 

This 'Kickoff Party' was posted on another blog but fails to mention where the party is and describes the party as by "invitation". Then why promote an event if no one knows where it is? More exclusive than inclusive. This is part of candidate Ryan Maier's campaign.

This stealth 'party' is being hosted by "We". No 'We' is identified. When was the last fundraiser/campaign kickoff where the 'host' committee was unidentified? Don't you find that odd? I do and so should you. 

So much for openness and transparency in our little City of Lake Worth.

Coming tomorrow at the Cultural Plaza...

Contact David McGrew, our Lake Worth Horticulturalist, for more information at 561-586-1677 or at dmcgrew@lakeworth.org. Hope to see all of you there tomorrow!

A good idea from Riviera Beach Mayor Masters?

You decide. Here is the Mayors Facebook page. "Barack Obama Highway" does have a nice ring to it. This is what the mayor posted on his Facebook page:

Everglades EarthFirst! SHORT NOTICE...rally TODAY at 4:30 in Palm Beach Gardens

From earlier training sessions the Everglades EarthFirst!ers had at the Quaker Meeting House here in Lake Worth, FL:

Below is a recent flyer left in downtown Lake Worth (from last October):

If you wish to attend the protest today take I-95 North to the Donald Ross exit. Proceed East until you come to Central Boulevard. When you see the Scripps Research Institute on your left you are close to Central Boulevard. Send me pictures if you can!

The Lake Okeechobee water releases will begin today

George Bennett of the Palm Beach Post, has this news:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will begin releasing water from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie Canal on Friday to lower the lake’s level and ease pressure on the aging earthen dike around it, the U.S. Army Corps of engineers announced Thursday. The lake level now stands at 15.03 feet, about a foot higher than a year ago. The Corps has already begun releasing water on the west side of the lake into the Caloosahatchee River.

“We are concerned about the current lake level and forecasts calling for above-average precipitation during the remainder of the dry season,” said Lt. Col. Tom Greco, Jacksonville District Deputy Commander for South Florida. “The lake is currently at the same level as in January 2013, when an early start to the wet season required us to make large-volume discharges later in the summer. Our intent is to make small releases now to reduce the likelihood of larger releases later.”

[and...]

Higher water levels put more pressure on the dike, and because water can flow into the lake six times faster than it leaves, the Corps says it needs to drop water levels now before the rainy season begins. To buttress the dike, the Corps has completed a 21-mile cutoff wall and is replacing many aging culverts. Still, the earthen dike remains in such poor condition that it is ranked among the most likely to fail in the United States.

Liz Balmaseda LOVES the restaurant Table 26!

Here is the review by Ms. Balmaseda:

TABLE 26

This stylish eatery, named after the latitude of Palm Beach, transports the essence of The Island to busy South Dixie Highway. Expect superbly prepared global comfort dishes and expert hospitality. Brunch is served Saturdays and Sundays from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Reservations are strongly suggested for dinner and brunch; walk-ins welcome at the full-service bar. (And, bonus, valet parking is free.)

Table 26: 1700 S. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach; 561-855-2660; Table26PalmBeach.com

West Palm Beach was named one of the top "Queerest Cities in 2015" in America by the magazine The Advocate. I wrote about this last Tuesday. Table 26 was mentioned in The Advocate article being a long-time gay-owned restaurant in West Palm Beach.

And don't forget!

Liz Balmaseda LOVES our Lake Worth Bradley's Beach Club too. I was there for a meeting on Tuesday and had the fish tacos. Delish. My dinner companions shared the grilled avocado appetizer. We went nuts about this Bradley's signature dish. One had their Caesar salad with shrimp and other other had the pork taco dish. Both received 4 to 5 forks! When you go say "Hi" to Mitch for me.

My 'Cottages of Lake Worth' presentation last night...

There was a meeting of people interested in the Cottages of Lake Worth that met in the wonderful space on the second floor of Suri Tapas Bar. I was asked to give a short talk on the history of Lake Worth and the how/why of importance of our historic cottages. This is the transcript of what I said:

We are here to celebrate the collection of Cottages of Lake Worth that make the city unique.

• What conditions were in place that brought them to exist?
• Why does Lake Worth have this collection that adds to its sense of place that other communities do not?
• What threats have these cottages faced over time that make them all that more remarkable?
• How can we use these cottages, along with other efforts by the City of Lake Worth, the Community Redevelopment Agency and the Historic Resource Preservation Board, to create more of a “known destination” and contribute to the community’s economic vitality?

The origins of Lake Worth, from the Historical Society of Palm Beach County:

From 1889 to 1903, Fannie A. James maintained the Jewell Post Office at the Florida East Coast Railway for the few households between West Palm Beach and Lantana. James and her husband, former slave Samuel James, homesteaded 186 acres from present Dixie Highway to Lake Worth, and from Lake Avenue to 12th Avenue South. In 1911, a year after Samuel James died, Fannie sold most of her land to Palm Beach Farms Company, who had purchased several hundred more acres nearby and thousands more in the Everglades.

The owners of Palm Beach Farms Company—Frederick Edward Bryant, his brother Harold J. Bryant, and William Greenwood—formed Bryant and Greenwood, which marketed the land throughout the U.S. and Canada. They offered five-acre farm tracts in the Everglades for $250 each, $10 down and $10 per month; a 25 foot wide lot was thrown in free at the Townsite of Lucerne on the shores of Lake Worth. A drawing was held by the lake in April 1912. When many purchasers found their farmland under water, they chose to live on their free property by the lake, where surveyors laid out 55 miles of streets and 7,000 lots. A school was ready in the fall on M Street between Lake and Lucerne Avenues.

This is the “field” from which our cottages grew, near the downtown commercial streets of Lake and Lucerne Avenues, north and south, about ten or so blocks in each direction. Most of these cottage homes were of simple construction and made with indigenous materials, such as Dade County pine, known for its durability as a south Florida building material. Some were built from masonry materials, but that generally came later during the boom of the 1920s. This is when Addison Mizner popularized the Mediterranean Revival style in ritzy Palm Beach.

Lake Worth’s development was very middle class, with some of the cottages serving as Winter getaways from the cold north, others were homes for local merchants, trades people and some professionals.  More from the Historical Society of Palm Beach County:

A year before the city was created in 1913, news arrived in October that another post office had claimed the name of Lucerne just a month sooner, and the townsite became the City of Lake Worth, named for Colonel William Jenkins Worth, who had ended the Second Seminole War. In December a census recorded that Lake Worth had accumulated 308 residents, 125 houses, ten wagons, seven automobiles, 36 bicycles, and 876 fowl.

Max and Rose Kalb Greenberg were among the first residents of Lake Worth in 1912. (The city incorporated in 1913 and we celebrated its Centennial now two years ago, which partly led to the formation of this group, the Cottages of Lake Worth).

The Greenberg family sold lumber, hardware, and furniture in Lake Worth; The Greenbergs’ son, George (1915-2007), was born at home on North M Street, currently the site of Lake Worth Public Library. In 2006 George described his childhood in Lake Worth, where “it just seemed like we knew everybody.” Although his family shopped at Mrs. Schmidt’s Illinois Grocery, a butcher shop, and Wonder City Bakery, George recalled vendors in wagons with vegetables, chickens, hot bread, or ice. “There was a big card we used to put out [every day] and it had how many pounds of ice you wanted: 25, 50, or 10 or 15…. It depended on how your ice had melted during the night. My job every morning was to take the drip pan under the icebox and empty it.”

Laundry was done in the backyard, where a washtub sat on three large rocks. “You built a fire underneath the washtub and boiled the clothes …. You had a washboard to rub the dirt out [and] a clothesline to hang the clothes. That was a weekly ritual.”

On a wall in City Hall is a list of all the names of the people that we in Lake Worth call the “Day the Lights Came On” in 1914. You should check that out if you have a chance.

Here is where we leave the pioneer era and cross over to the period known as the “Florida Boom.” Still though, through much of the early part of the 20th century, south Florida retained an atmosphere of being on the frontier of civilization. Some would argue that we still are.

Let’s do a little time travel and let’s jump ahead 12 years from the city’s birth, or ninety years ago. Close your eyes and imagine the following.

• The date is January 15, 1925.
• The colors of a beautiful south Florida twilight sunset are in the sky.
• There is a sliver of land along the east side of Lake Worth (barrier island) that contains a new concrete bathing “casino”, reached by a low bridge across the water. There are are no other buildings north or south of that landmark.
• Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President of the United States is in the White House.
• Prohibition is in effect.
• Radio is a new invention. Telephones are less of a novelty and some now have dials.
• There are street lights lit by the city of Lake Worth’s own electric company and city water is running through pipes in the ground.
• Dixie Hwy or U.S. 1 was two lanes and was the main motor vehicle route north and south along the east coast of Florida.
• The population of the state of Florida is 1,264,000 (Today it is the 3rd largest state, recently surpassing New York, at 19.9 million; Palm Beach County is now at 1.4 million people and part of the metropolitan area that includes Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. That area totals over 5 million people.)

Back to 1925. There is no Palm Beach International airport, there is no Florida Turnpike, there is no I-95. You most likely arrived in Lake Worth the first time by train on the Florida East Coast tracks: Flagler’s Railway.

The “new” Gulfstream Hotel - first called “El Nuevo” was under construction and will open in the fall of 1925.

Population of the state has increased 30% since 1920 due to the economic boom after the end of World War I, expansion and growth of the middle class, more reliable train transportation, mass production, affordability of the automobile, and additional leisure time.

This is the period when many of our cottages were built and more of these were of masonry construction: most roads were not paved, some might say that isn’t so different from today, but the Florida Land Boom was on, much speculation abounds in real estate. Cars were still not owned by everyone and access to garages, when they were built was from the alley. Most goods could be accessed by walking or biking to the corner store. In many pictures from this era, you see bikes leaning against the cottage at the front door.

An unusually cold winter in 1925, an unusually hot summer in the same year, then a major hurricane in Miami in 1926 which caused a ship to sink blocking the port, preventing building supplies from entering the “boom city”, soon after there was an embargo of building supplies entering south Florida as little freight was going back in return to the north, then the disastrous Hurricane of 1928 hit. This hurricane is referred to as the Okeechobee Hurricane due to the thousands of deaths that happened when Lake Okeechobee overflowed its banks.

The boom was then over and development in Lake Worth leveled off in the 1930s and 1940s, with the addition of more cottages during this period, however, not at the breakneck pace of what had occurred in the 1920s.

The Dawn of the Modern Age

World War II saw many located here for the war effort. Morrison Field, eventually to become Palm Beach International, was a military field and much of the United States operations in Africa originated from there. Population grew.

Areas north and south of the developed area of Lake Worth built up during this period. People who worked in the war effort liked it here and settled permanently.

The era of post World War II prosperity began. More house were built, houses got bigger and always had a one car garage, eventually a two car garage would become a standard feature.

People yearned for space for children to play. Areas with small lots like the Lake Worth’s cottages were thought of as congested. Zoning classifications were changed to make the area suitable for denser, multifamily development. These drained those with money and children toward newly developed areas with bigger lots north, south, but mostly west to land that had been considered swampland at one time but was now open to development due to extensive drainage projects.

In the 50s through the 1980s, many cottages were torn down to make way for condominiums. They dot the area where many cottages still survive today and are referred to as “cat walk” apartments, known for their long walkways along the front of the building, usually overlooking a parking lot for cars.

This was a tough era for many of our cottage buildings. Those that did not survive the redevelopment threat, went through changes which made them multiple living units, sometimes with inappropriate additions. Others succumbed to fire.

What protected the area from total urban renewal?

Likely the placement of the exits off of I-95 to the north and south of our downtown area, unlike most south Florida communities along the east coast. Our main roads through the downtown did not have a direct exit from the Interstate system due to the location of the Lake Worth High School and the city’s electric and water plant.

In fact, up until the last revision of our Comprehensive Plan, the area immediately south of the downtown could be redeveloped into projects that could have 30 units to an acre. Now the area is zoned as single family. The economic incentive present in the zoning has been removed, allowing for the enjoyment and preservation of many of the city’s historic structures, in particular the cottages.

Today, we have come full circle.

The Millennial Generation is ditching the car and turning to transit alternatives. A “bikeable” and “walkable” community is seen as an asset, with the car taking a "back seat".

The large “baby boomer” population is not only an “empty nester” family, but now retired, many looking to simplify and settle in a community that has a strong quality of life and a “uniqueness” component.

South Florida stands on the threshold for new rail service. Beyond Tri-Rail and Amtrak, we will soon have All Aboard Florida that will be a fast train with stops in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando.

There will eventually be local train service established linking the eastern downtown areas along the Florida East Coast railroad. So we have demographic changes and technological advancements that allow for more flexibility in where and how we work and live.

These Lake Worth cottages are survivors, perhaps survivors of the fittest that are again finding their day in the sun. That’s why we are here today to celebrate them and that is what gave birth to our special organization: the Cottages of Lake Worth.