If you asked me, and no one has or will, Key West is missing something in having plain manhole and utility covers (though this isn’t bad).

I suspect custom covers cost more, and money is money, but distinctive places should have distinctive manhole covers. Aren’t details important in fostering – or in this case enhancing – a sense of place?

On the other hand, Key West has a sense of place without too many equals. That’s as good a reason as any to stroll down Duval Street, tourist hub of Key West, and take it all in. Or as much as you can. On a mild mid-December day, that wasn’t hard.

As a tourist street, a lot of retail detail.

Buildings that have somehow survived these last 100 years or so, despite the ocean’s habit of kicking up a hurricane-force fuss now and then.

St. Paul’s Episcopal, 401 Duval.

In 2014, I ducked away from crowded Duval into the church, which seemed to be open because the organist was practicing. I sat, impressed by his vigorous noodling, and by the fact that no one else was in the church.

This time, closed.

Looks like a movie theater. It was. Now a Walgreen’s.

More detail.

“Duval Street, the undisputed ‘Main Street’ of Key West, is the only place in the U.S. where one street allows you to walk from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico,” says the American Planning Association, in picking Duval Street a Great Place in America.

“ A citywide commitment to preserving the National Register of Historic Places single-largest collection of wooden structures has allowed Duval Street and the rest of Key West to transition from an economy based on maritime industries and Cuban travel during its earlier years to one now supported by entertainment, art, and tourism.”

Don’t forget the oddities.

Also in the formula for placemaking.