Drag Queen Drop Highlights Key West New Year's Eve
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KEY WEST (CBSMiami/FKNB) -- New Year's Eve revelers celebrated the arrival of 2016 in Key West with multiple subtropical takeoffs on the traditional "ball drop" in New York City's Times Square -- including the "drop" of a renowned female impersonator in a super-sized red high heel after one of 2015's last same-sex weddings.
Thousands of people gathered on the island's Duval Street outside the Bourbon St. Pub complex to watch drag queen Sushi, the alter ego of Key Wester Gary Marion, "drop" in the red shoe for the 18th consecutive year.
About 90 minutes before the descent, the shoe served as the wedding altar when Sushi, dressed in a lavish handmade silver-and-white gown, exchanged "I do's" with her longtime partner Jeff Kucin. As a flower girl threw silver rose petals, New Year's Eve revelers witnessed and applauded one of the final same-sex weddings of 2015, the year they were legalized nationwide.
A few blocks away, crowds celebrated while watching a gigantic manmade conch shell, the symbol of the Florida Keys, descend to the roof of Sloppy Joe's Bar. In Key West's Historic Seaport, a pirate wench was lowered from the top of a tall ship's mast at the stroke of midnight outside the Schooner Wharf Bar. And a celebration at the Ocean Key Resort featured a huge replica of a Key lime wedge "splashing down" into a larger-than-life margarita glass.
New Year's Eve revelry elsewhere in the Florida Keys included waterfront fireworks displays and parties in Key Largo and Islamorada as 2016 arrived.
(©2016 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Florida Keys News Bureau contributed to this report.)