The last night of our trip… lets hope it is better than last night. Our hotel proved too much even for my patience as we tried to sleep. The Chesterfield is not a hotel. It is a club/dorm. It reminds me more of a hostel. It really is a shame. This could be a nice hotel if the residents of it would simply respect each other. Last night, our third floor room was bomblasted from all sides – doors slamming in the hall at all hours; a rooftop party in the building next door level with our window and spitting distance away; a party in the next room; and my favorite… a woman, drunk, sitting in the hallway outside our door talking loudly on her cell phone having a fight with her boyfriend about 3am. She was the one who broke my last nerve and I went out in the hall in my shorts to kindly ask her to relocate. When it was clear she had no intention of moving, I turned into Godzilla. And she had the nerve to call me rude.
We awoke to people having a conversation in the hall at either end about breakfast options. The designer of this hotel clearly only thought about form and not function. There is no soundproofing whatsoever. I mean really – would it have been so difficult to insulate the rooms from sound?
Mom and I got ready and on our way out, complained to management who agreed to move us to a different room. Unfortunately if we went to a lower floor, we would have to deal with the all night club in the lobby, whose sound makes it up to the third floor through the stairwell, but I can’t imagine being any closer to it. So we were stuck on the third floor… but at least on the other side away from the roof top deck and down the hall a bit away from the elevator noise and stairwell. We are still dealing with the hallway noise though.
Breakfast was surprisingly good… from a little café around the corner. Eggs, bacon, salad, a bagel and fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. I’m definitely game for that again tomorrow. From there, I got out my camera and started my photo safari. My safari this time focused on the “details” of south beach… but then expanded. At first, I was only taking pictures of architectural art deco details, but expanded it to details about people, cars and other little surprises like a chair in the ally. We’ll see what kind of collections I can make out of these photos.
Oddly enough, we happened right onto the gay pride parade. I don’t think most people knew it was happening… the gathered when the parade started. Mom and I grabbed a table and a few drinks for curbside view in the shade. The best part of the parade was easily the droves of cars each with a gay couple who have been together longer than 20 years. The longest anniversary that I saw was 65 years.
The worst part of the parade wasn’t anything to do with the parade at all, but these overzealous, bigoted, Christian extremists who wanted to instill the fear of a vengeful, hateful God in all the fags and dykes on the street. These people really are extremists… I saw no difference between their hate and the Islamic extremists blowing things up also out of hate.
After the parade, mom and I meandered down Ocean drive, popping over to see the beautiful and packed beach for just a moment. My photo safari kept going and I added shooting the names of the famous old art deco hotels too.
We stopped for lunch at a streetside restaurant and had salads and people watched.
After lunch, we decided to make our way back a few blocks and over to Washington where the Wofsonian museum is located. Washington st was a stark contrast to the glitz and glamour of Ocean drive with a Pride parade. This street had tattoo parlors, cheap t-shirt shops and was just plain dirty. Hard to believe it was only 2 blocks away. We made it to the Wolfsonian, which was a really different museum. I didn’t read up on it much – its origins or anything… but the concept was a museum dedicated to the early century and how economic and political events drove the design of every day things…. Such as the concept of streamlining after the depression which started out in kitchen appliances and instilled a hope for the future. It was also amazing to see the effort put into such design back then before computers… with all the modeling needed to create these shapes.
As we rode the elevator up, we were on it with a few other people taking a private tour. They seemed like important people… not sure who they were. But they got to get off on the administrative floors where we were invited to go with them and see parts of the museum others don’t get to see. On that floor were these beautiful windows from a movie palace in Noris, Pennsylvania and a really old pasta machine. Apparently the things in the Wolfsonian were there to either do something or inspire something… not the typical art.
From the museum we made our way home and napped in our new room.
For dinner, we decided to cancel our reservations on Lincoln road and walk the other way on Ocean drive because we were both too worn to go all the way to Lincoln Road again. We ended up eating at the Avalon, which served me some shrimp and grits – a tasty meal… The windy night and location made for good people watching again. After dinner… we have decided to call it a night.
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