West Palm Beach Does It Again!

     Well, once again, the story is out of the Palm Beaches--West Palm Beach to be specific.

     This time, however, the story is not about a flubbed election, hanging chads, butterfly ballot, or squabbling candidates. This time, the story is holiday history. Palm Beach County, in addition to the odd election snafu, has a history of unusual Christmas trees. Here's a picture of this year's contender:

     Constructed in downtown West Palm Beach along Flagler Drive, this 35 foot Christmas tree is breathtaking. The day I was there, camera in hand, people were walking around it in awe. How did they do that? Built by Team Sandtastic, a professional sand sculpture company, the tree took 400 tons of sand. And on December 6, they're even going to light it up in a tree lighting ceremony. How's that for ringing in the holiday season?

     Part of Sand and Sea-son's Greetings holiday celebration sponsored by the City of West Palm Beach, the big tree is only part of the story. Spread out around downtown are several smaller sculptures. Maps are available on the fencing surrounding the tree. There's also an "aqua trolley" available to help people get around to see everything, including a sand Santa's workshop in front of City Hall.

     The Sand and Sea-son display is running through the month of December.

     Of course, this is only the latest in local Christmas tree lore. 

     Still going strong is the 100 foot tree constructed on Old School Square along Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach. This behemoth has been going up every November for twenty years. While it's man made, it's still impressive. The tree literally towers over the school and every building nearby. It's hollow and for a small donation, one can walk inside to see holiday displays.

     The Delray Beach Downtown Development Authority has added a holiday carousel and an ice skating rink to the fun. Ice skating! In Florida!

     You can enjoy this tree until the beginning of 2013.

     Neither of these two fantastic trees were the first in Palm Beach County holiday history, though.

     In 1971, Generoso Pope, founder of the National Enquirer, along with his wife, Lois, erected a huge living (or recently living) tree on the property of the newspaper for the employees. When Pope noticed that people were slowing down as they drove by the newspaper's headquarters on Federal Highway in Lantana, a tradition was born.

     The tree always came by rail from the northwest and every year a larger tree was chosen. 

     It entered the Guiness Book of World Records in 1979 as the "World's Largest Decorated Christmas Tree" when it hit 117 feet. The Christmas displays gradually took over the grounds of the newspaper and grew to include toy trains, faux gingerbread houses and traditional holiday displays. It became THE display that just couldn't be missed and became a highlight of the holiday season for thousands of residents and tourists alike. 

     By 1987, the tree was 126 feet tall, and over 1 and a half million people toured the grounds that year alone. The last tree was erected in 1988. Pope passed away that year and the paper was later sold.

     If you get a chance this December, head over and take a look at the two fantastic trees still standing in the Florida sun. Make sure you get your picture taken next to the tree or trees of your choice. We thought the National Enquirer tree would always pop up every December and never bothered to have our picture taken by it. The Delray Beach tree has a good start, but who knows how long these two will be around?

    UPDATE: Wellington's own Cassadee Pope, now a contestant on The Voice, performed at the tree lightning held at Clematis by Night December 6. All reports are that she was fantastic, as usual. Congrats to Cassadee on her continuing success on The Voice and good luck heading into the finals! 

Comeau and Clematis

Comeau Building (Yellow Building with Arches
at Street Level Behind Palms) 2012

            Before I started school in 1966, I frequently traveled to West Palm Beach with my mother to meet my father for lunch. We headed for his office in the Comeau Building which had that wonderful smell old buildings get, probably from decades of polish on wood trim and walls . We rode up to his floor in elevators that forty years before had been hailed as modern and swift and came complete with elevator operators. At age five, I didn’t notice them being particularly swift and there were no longer operators standing by in sharp uniforms, but the elevators were still impressive as elevators were few and far between in the North Palm Beach area in the mid-1960s. I was always fascinated with the mail chutes, too. One would put an envelope in the chute on say, the seventh floor, and it would disappear into the murky shadows. Heady stuff for a child and I used to beg my father for a piece of mail to contribute.

            The Comeau Building is still there on Clematis Street. It was built in a Classical Revival style from 1916 and was completed in 1925. The building withstood hurricanes (including the horrible one of 1928 which destroyed buildings all over South Florida) and a fire in the mid-1980s that gutted the 10^th floor. The building, named after Alfred J. Comeau, an early entrepreneur of the area, has been through foreclosures and several owners over its eighty-six year life span, yet it still stands. It was named to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on September 6, 1996.

            At one time, a company was going to turn it into a hotel. That would have been something to see. I would have loved to stay there, but the hotel plans never materialized. The latest information in the May 4, 2011 South Florida Business Journal. AW Property “plans to completely renovate and modernize the 90,000 square foot icon with about $2 million in initial capital and tenant improvements. The building’s use will remain office, with ground-floor restaurants and retail storefronts.” I’m glad that building isn't being renovated out of existence.

            Being on Clematis Street itself is an odd feeling for me. In my mind, I have the pictures of how it looked when it was a big event to go downtown and fancy patent-leather shoes and socks with lace were required to go with a fancy dress to meet my dad. The buildings on Clematis are the same shape and size, but the facades are totally different. My memory takes me back and forth between what was and what is now. The last time I was on Clematis, 2010 or thereabouts, the old Woolworth store space was occupied by a design store. The lunch counter had disappeared as had the bins of ten and twenty-five cent knick-knacks that I loved to sort through while my Mom looked at more interesting things. 

            After dragging my dad out of his office in the 1960s, we’d head to the lunch counter there in Woolworth's to eat. I’d pester to sit in a booth by the front window so I could watch shoppers and businessmen walk by as I devoured lunch. I don’t think anyone in town made a grilled hotdog quite as good as the cook at Woolworth's and if I could find a way to time-travel, that would be one of the silly, little things I’d want to go back and try just one more time.