A New Look at an old Island City

Island City Map

Island City, also known as Wilton Manors, is a small town of about 12,000 people in South Florida that is bounded on four sides by the Middle River.  The Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean are only a flat five miles away.

It’s where I grew up, married, worked and raised two sons. My perceptions of this quirky little town are colored with childhood dreams, middle-aged judgement and now, during the last part of my life, these impressions have settled into a combination of fantasy, history and, finally, a sort of reality.

I’ll share these stories through this hyper-local blog, and leave a record of time and change

First, the visuals.  The older architecture here is a South Florida, flat-roof version of mid-century modern that is either defined as charming or a mess. Real estate developers say mess; the rest of us lean toward charming.

Wilton Manors is an urban Matryoshka.  The Island City is nestled inside of Ft. Lauderdale while the World’s Smallest City, Lazy Lake, is tucked inside of Wilton Manors.  This is a reminder that even within urban sprawl, there are hidden layers of communities.

The memories of my youth in the 1950s through the 1970s paint a picture that is similar to day , but now trees are taller and lawns are greener.  Six-foot tall wooden privacy fences have replaced the old chain link versions that used to mark off sandy yards filled with sandspurs and land crabs.

Constant train whistles were the soundtrack of my childhood, and they eventually punctuated the busy years of work and child raising.  They now provide a rhythm for age when changes in life and times give me an observational distance that make me want to communicate stories that hopefully relate to some universal themes.

The two maps represent a blend of fact and fiction

So, please read about a city that follows my sketchy descriptions, and leave plenty of room for your own imagination.