The town of Palm Beach is millimetring towards a facelift on what it, IMHO, this country’s premier shopping street: Worth Avenue in Palm Beach.

This is what it looks like now, looking towards the intersection of Worth Avenue and County Road.

This is the graphic rendition of what is to come, with the widened “faux conquina” sidewalks.  It’s a good example of some of the really cool looking things architects and engineers can come up with to show what they have in mind.  One complicated issue is the traffic and the parking.  Because the Everglades Club blocks access to most of the street from the south, ingress and egress have always been tricky, and no matter what solution is adopted, it’s usually wrong.

One of the commenters of the Shiny Sheet piece noted that “…you’re joining an elite corp of like-minded bon vivants in the pursuit of happyness [sic].”  My main memories of Worth Avenue, however, are in joining my rowdy classmates at Palm Beach Day School in getting our uniforms at the Prep Shop.  I doubt that we added anything to the cachet of the place, but to be able to look back on that as a middle school memory is way cool.

It’s great to have the palm trees back again.  A tree-lined street is always good if you can manage the damage the root system does to the sidewalks.

Another great deflation of the elite cachet of Worth Avenue took place a few years back when a Jewish customer of mine from Cleveland, OH and his wife were visiting a jewellery store there.  The proper salesman was showing his wares and quoting the prices as “15” and “30,” elegantly leaving out the trailing three zeroes.  My customer obviously got his fill of this and, pointing to another item in the showcase, asked, “How much is that?”

“Twenty,” the salesman replied.

He threw a $20 bill on the glass.  “I’ll take it!”