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With declining revenue due to a lack of international visitors, the former home of writer Ernest Hemingway in Florida, USA, is struggling to stay afloat. Most of the staff at the house, now a museum, were laid off due to Covid-19. However, the unusual six-toed cats living there continue to attract local residents.
After Hemingway's death in 1961, the house became one of Key West's top tourist attractions. The residents had weathered many severe storms and economic downturns, but were unprepared for the Covid-19 pandemic that brought the tourism industry to a standstill.
Covid-19 prevented foreign visitors from visiting the museum, leaving only domestic visitors, but even those numbers have decreased due to the ongoing pandemic in Florida. Thirty of the museum's 45 staff members have been laid off recently. "I used to have over 10 guides, now only four," said Andrew Morawski, the museum director. The remaining staff continue to work, guiding visitors and caring for the six-toed mutant cats, descendants of a cat that writer Hemingway owned decades ago. "We still plan to reopen the museum and ensure the cats are well cared for," Morawski said.
Visitors are now even more interested in the cats than in the life of the author who wrote the work.The Old Man and the SeaHemingway, the 1954 Nobel laureate in Literature, "is no longer taught as much in schools as it used to be, especially in America," the museum director said. Therefore, "the cats seem to attract a little more interest from visitors," he added.
The writer Hemingway owned many cats, including a six-toed cat named Snowball.
The weather in Key West is always hot and humid. Sweat beaded on the faces of the tourists as the tour guide recounted the life of the writer and his wife Pauline, while another museum employee poured ice into the cat's water bowl.
"Oh, how adorable!" the tourists exclaimed.
Key West is the endpoint of a chain of coral islands in Florida, stretching 175 kilometers off the southern tip of the state and connected by 42 bridges. "It used to be so crowded you could barely squeeze through the throngs, now it's deserted," said Jack Reichenback, a 67-year-old local who lost his job during the pandemic and is trying to sell a watercolor painting of a seascape. "Things are terrible."
For the first time in years, tourists didn't have to navigate through crowds or stand in line to take photos in front of the landmark marking the southernmost point of the United States. Among those waiting to watch the sunset was Carol D., 65, a New Yorker who frequently visits Key West. When asked if she had ever been to Hemingway's house, Carol said she didn't know the place, but enthusiastically recommended it: "You have to go see the house full of cats. They're amazing," Carol said.
