Friday, July 4, 2025

Freedom Walk 2025 – Looking for the Heart of Orlando

 


This morning, I did my usual Fourth of July freedom ride/walk. There are two reasons I chose this day for a photo safari: there’s very little traffic on a holiday, and nothing feels freer than walking around or cycling around while taking pictures.  People are sleeping-in knowing that they have an evening ahead of obnoxious fireworks and badly burned frankfurters. This year I set out once again on foot. My main objective was to check out Church Street, in particular the property that used to be my former work place, Church Street Station.

I got to downtown early. It was mostly the unhoused and a few caffeine-addicted, coffee seekers. Despite the City’s best efforts, Orlando has never solved its homeless problem and when there are not downtown workers present it’s even more obvious. 

This year I’m not feeling patriotic. The so-called Alligator Alcatraz in the Everglades shows the cruelty and inhumanity present in our country and I am repelled by it. Trump's big, beautiful bill is going to harm a bunch of his big beautiful people and send this country further and further backwards. It’s hard for me to feel rah, rah, go America! these days. So, my initial foray onto Church Street does nothing to help my feelings of doom and gloom (my voice transcription app wrote “demon glue” instead of doom and gloom.)

My memories of youthful days as a member of the good time gang –  partying with abandon in beautiful showrooms – surrounded by beautiful people – are slapped hard by the reality of the decay around me.  Not a single building in the entire Church Street Station complex is currently being utilized. The only hint of commerce is a sign for a ghost tour.





Orlando's 19th-century growth was closely tied to the arrival of the railroad in 1880. This is the third depot erected at this location; the first two were made of wood. Orlando's first tourists stepped off the train here. Today it is lost within a sea of high rise buildings and ill-placed signs. It seems like there is visual cutter everywhere...

The reason for this foray into my past is that I’ve been thinking about Church Street (constantly) since I agreed to do a talk at the History Center later in July. I’ve learned through my research that the amount of history that occurred in this one short block in downtown Orlando is astounding, and I keep finding more to confirm that. But I am appalled by the little regard given to this historic street these days. When Bob Snow came to town in the early ‘70s, he was able to see beyond the urban decay to find the good bones underneath a crumbling veneer. He was able to build on that foundation and make something the likes of which Central Florida had never seen before – an adult wonderland of nostalgia, wrapped in the rhythms of the past, that grew into a bottomless mug of good times. (A beer metaphor seemed appropriate.) I feel like the good bones of his creation are still intact, but the skin is sagging, and age marks are starting to appear. It's time for the next Bob Snow to step up and bring Church Street back to life again.

The City's pretty new banners for the 150th anniversary of incorporation contrast starkly to the magic of my memories made in these now empty buildings.




I worked hard to find vestiges from the Church Street attraction where I came of age. I'm sure part of my metaphysical angst about the condition of the buildings are tied to fears of my own aging... 


As I left Church Street to continue exploring downtown, this sign along the track seemed fitting for the aging complex: "SEEK HELP/FIND HOPE."

Moving beyond Church Street, I found more evidence of the downtown that used to be the playground of my youth combined with the historic buildings that I have learned to love. The Tinker Building, built by a Hall of Fame Major Leaguer who brought the big leagues to O-town, looks dwarfed by the 21st century. The Rose Building also looks squeezed between the Angebilt on the right and another high rise on the left. Rose was a State Senator, developer of 1920s neighborhoods, and was influential in the creation of several of Orlando's wonderful parks. 



As I worked my way towards Lake Eola, the site of tonight's big fireworks display, I notice my mood started to improve, unburdened perhaps of the weight of my memories.  People walked dogs, tourists posed for pictures, and food vendors moved into position along the lake. The population of swans, however, still exceed the number of early morning Fourth of July visitors – in my opinion, we have enough swans now. Time to stop collecting. 






When I first moved to Orlando, even before I started working at Church Street, I would visit the newly-renovated Lake Eola to jog. I was miserable, friendless and dateless, removed from my family for the first time in my life, and a visit to the park lifted my spirits. Working at Church Street permanently removed me from that funk, and I can connect the dots from where I am today, to my time working there. That's why I am so saddened to see the entire Church Street block in a funk.

But on this day, Lake Eola is starting to work its magic. As diverse groups of people start to congregate, I remember that this place is really the heart of Orlando. At least on the Fourth of July. 


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