Paul Castronovo’s message to his listeners: The Keys are open

The South Florida morning radio landscape has changed significantly over the past 30 years. But one constant has been Paul Castronovo.

He’s moved up and down the dial as stations continuously switched their formats since he and Ron Brewer started their a.m. show on what was then WSHE in 1990. Several stations and three decades later, classic-rock station Big 105.9 has been his home base for quite some time — along with Brewer until late last year.

Although based and mostly heard on the mainland, even the casual listener knows Castronovo is an avid waterman and comes down to the Keys on a regular basis to fish.

“I’m in the Keys All. The. Time,” Castronovo said during a commercial break while broadcasting “The Paul Castronovo Show” from the bayfront Marriott Key Largo Resort, mile marker 103.8, Friday morning.

He brought his crew, which includes Ghia, Sharp Dressed John, Luis Diaz and Rob Calvert, to Key Largo to let his listeners throughout South Florida know that while the Keys got beat up by Hurricane Irma in September, hotels, restaurants and fishing guides are up and running and ready for tourists.

The idea came after speaking with his friends who live and work in the Keys, like charter fishing captains Scott Walker and Ted Benbow and Chef Michael’s bartender David Kramer, who kept telling Castronovo, “We’re open. Tell people.”

“So, I went on the radio, I have a big audience in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, the Palm Beaches and north, and I’ve been saying, ‘You guys have to go down to the Keys,’ ” Castronovo said.

Then he thought that he’d do a better job at getting the message out if he and his cast packed up the show and headed down the the Keys for a couple of days.

“Why don’t we lead by example and put our money where our mouths are and book some rooms, come have dinner and spend a couple of bucks,” Castronovo said. “So we started to have some meetings and decided that was the way to go.”

He and his team arrived Thursday evening for a happy hour broadcast at Jimmy Johnson’s Big Chill, mile marker 104 bayside. During the show, he had local business owners and community leaders come up to the mic and provide updates on how they’re recovering from Irma. Turnout was larger than expected, Castronovo said.

“The bartender said that it was the biggest crowd they’ve had since Irma,” he said. “We have lots of fans that live in Key Largo and drive to Miami to go to work. So we had that crew coming.”

Friday morning’s show from the Marriott Key Largo also featured Keys luminaries broadcasting the welcome message to neighbors up north.

“Come on back down, we’re open for business,” said Islamorada resident Jimmy Johnson, namesake of the eponymous Big Chill and former NFL football coach of the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins.

Castronovo said the original plan was to broadcast from Islamorada, but the four-island village took a bad hit from Irma, knocking out several of its major resorts for the season, including Cheeca Lodge and Spa, the Islander Resort and the Post Card Inn Beach Resort and Marina.

“But then, after speaking with some people, Key Largo is a little bit more up and running right now,” Castronovo said, noting he plans on doing more Keys broadcasts this year. “So, maybe we’ll do Islamorada in a couple of months and work our way down south, and then Key West ultimately.”

Castronovo cites the Key West as a prime example of why it’s important to spread the word that tourists should return to the island chain. The Southernmost City wasn’t hit nearly as bad as the Keys in between it and the city of Marathon, and it was one of the first areas to exhibit signs of recovery in Irma’s aftermath.

“But people don’t know that,” he said. “They just think, ‘oh, the Florida Keys got killed.’ ”

This story was originally published November 3, 2017 at 4:42 PM with the headline "Paul Castronovo’s message to his listeners: The Keys are open."