I Love Key Biscayne

by Patrick Vitello
(Key Biscayne, Florida)

Thanks for the nice website about Key Biscayne, or the Key as we call it here. My wife and I moved here in 1981, and have seen some real changes since then.

Most of the changes have been good, but we do miss the Crandon Park Zoo and Sunday's By The Bay, the nice waterfront restaurant that used to exist at Crandon Park Marina.

It's a safe community, and everything is within walking distance or a bike ride.

We live in one of the original Mackle homes, and are surrounded by McMansions. That's one of the changes we don't like. In the old days, most anybody with a job could afford to live here. Not now.

It seems like many of our neighbors are wealthy Latins with businesses in South America. Mama and the kids and the maid live here on the Key, while Papa is back in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janiero, Caracas or Bogota.

Still a nice place to live, but you need to press one for English now and then.

Note from Florida Backroads Travel: The cultural impact of the early Cuban residents of Key Biscayne is alive and well, and I just discovered some of it today in Mount Dora. There is a great little restaurant there and the Cuban-American server is named Bebe.

She never heard of Bebe Robozo, long time Key Biscayne resident and friend of Richard Nixon. I like to think her parents named her after that Bebe.