THE Orlando Photo Thread

[JFW657]

14 minutes ago, codypet said:

Until you got to Mills.  Anderson dead ended at the Urban Wetlands (where a sidestreet exists today.  Greenwood extended all the way to South with a Grand entrance and then Lake Como's Buckminster Cir continued were 408 is today.  

http://orlandomemory.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/1934-Orlando-Street-map.pdf

Ahhhhh, to be able to travel back in time and spend a couple of days taking a nice bicycle ride around Orlando.

With a modern digital camera/camcorder, of course..... 

[jack]

1 hour ago, codypet said:

Until you got to Mills.  Anderson dead ended at the Urban Wetlands (where a sidestreet exists today.  Greenwood extended all the way to South with a Grand entrance (which is shown in this map as a grid of roads) and then Lake Como's Buckminster Cir continued were 408 is today.  

http://orlandomemory.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/1934-Orlando-Street-map.pdf

This is fascinating. Some of the street names have changed downtown and it looks like not all of the area was platted at the time. Maybe some farm land or orange groves still remained? 

 

[Jolly Roger's Crackers]

4 hours ago, jack said:

This is fascinating. Some of the street names have changed downtown and it looks like not all of the area was platted at the time. Maybe some farm land or orange groves still remained? 

 

I saw that as well.  Curry Ford was named Conway Rd. Also...the whole  Bel-Air neighborhood area had no development at all.  Lake Weldona looked larger also. I often wonder about that area just west of the executive airport...just north of South Street between Primrose and Crystal Lake. It's obviously airport property now (with landing lights) but on  Maynard and Lakewood it looks like there were entrances to driveways (or other structures) there.  I wonder if that was a collection of homes lost to time and airport expansion (or perhaps former barracks when the OEA was an Army Air Base). Cheers.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Jolly Roger's Crackers

[orlandoguy]

I saw that as well.  Curry Ford was named Conway Rd.

And weirdly, what’s now known as Bumby Avenue was called Conway Drive south of Gore Street. [emoji2369]

[smileguy]

Lake Eola last night with Radius and Orange/Robinson apartments peeking into view.

[Jolly Roger's Crackers]

Another old map of downtown:

http://orlandomemory.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/1926-Subdivision-Map-Realtor.pdf

Tried to insert it as a photo. Didn't work. Cheers.

 

Edited June 17, 2020 by Jolly Roger's Crackers

[AmIReal]

On 6/16/2020 at 5:37 PM, Jolly Roger's Crackers said:

Another old map of downtown:

http://orlandomemory.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/1926-Subdivision-Map-Realtor.pdf

Tried to insert it as a photo. Didn't work. Cheers.

 

Really nice find. This one, which has been posted before shows the changes that occurred over 40 years. All those trees became neighborhoods.

 

[spenser1058]

Actually, “all those trees” were a fanciful figment of the mapmaker’s imagination. Orlando was mostly palmetto and pine scrub at its founding (don’t be surprised at taking such liberties - at one point, land sellers, forerunners of today’s developers- advertised Orlando as having “no insects”; that took an amazing amount of chutzpah given it was originally located in Mosquito County).

In any event, it was Mayor Matthew Marks who started the program of planting oak trees around the city, which transformed it. Mayor Marks wasn’t elected until 1888, four years after the map. He served three years, and even fast-growing laurel oaks (which caused the city problems later because of their relatively short life span) take a few years to provide meaningful shade.  
 

We should be thankful to those, like Mayor Marks, who recognized what value our oaks would bring to the city. In fact, they placed a marker in Eola Park commemorating his work.
 

 

Edited June 20, 2020 by spenser1058

[dcluley98]

Holy crap, Spenser is a TIME TRAVELLER! 

 

[spenser1058]

Just now, dcluley98 said:

Holy crap, Spenser is a TIME TRAVELLER! 

 

Nope, just an ardent fan of Orlando history. UCF periodically offers a course in Florida history which I heartily recommend and there are excellent resources both at the History Center and OPL.

I know many here believe only developers make cities by destroying the land and the sense of place it engenders but that is hardly the case.

Further, Orlando was incorporated in 1875 and we weren’t all just sitting around on the front porch whittling until the carpetbaggers arrived after 1965.

[dcluley98]

4 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

Orlando was incorporated in 1875 and we weren’t all just sitting around on the front porch 

SEE? 

I told you!   

[JFW657]

1 hour ago, spenser1058 said:

Actually, “all those trees” were a fanciful figment of the mapmaker’s imagination. Orlando was mostly palmetto and pine scrub at its founding (don’t be surprised at taking such liberties - at one point, land sellers, forerunners of today’s developers- advertised Orlando as having “no insects”; that took an amazing amount of chutzpah given it was originally located in Mosquito County).

In any event, it was Mayor Matthew Marks who started the program of planting oak trees around the city, which transformed it. Mayor Marks wasn’t elected until 1888, four years after the map. He served three years, and even fast-growing laurel oaks (which caused the city problems later because of their relatively short life span) take a few years to provide meaningful shade.  
 

We should be thankful to those, like Mayor Marks, who recognized what value our oaks would bring to the city. In fact, they placed a marker in Eola Park commemorating his work.
 

If you'll take a closer look at the map in question, I think you'll see that what you described is exactly what is depicted.

Tall, skinny indigenous pine trees and what I assume are small orange and citrus groves.

[spenser1058]

4 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

If you'll take a closer look at the map in question, I think you'll see that what you described is exactly what is depicted.

Tall, skinny indigenous pine trees and what I assume are small orange and citrus groves.

I’m looking at it on an iPhone so it’s hard to tell exactly what the trees are. I’m glad to see the map is correct if that’s the case, although my guess would be in reality there were more palmettos than pines based on the scrub in East Orange.

[dcluley98]

Nature will run it's course. 

Edited June 20, 2020 by dcluley98

[AmIReal]

2 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

Orlando was mostly palmetto and pine scrub at its founding

and of course lots of citrus groves until  the 1895 freeze.

[spenser1058]

1 minute ago, AmIReal said:

and of course lots of citrus groves until  the 1895 freeze.

The citrus groves were still a relatively minor amount of acreage in the 1880’s. The losses were indeed tragic, but the history was written mostly from the perspective of the English “second sons” who came to the area and assumed Orlando never got cold.

The miles upon miles of citrus that folks like Dr Phillips planted came later.

[AmIReal]

7 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

The citrus groves were still a relatively minor amount of acreage in the 1880’s. The losses were indeed tragic, but the history was written mostly from the perspective of the English “second sons” who came to the area and assumed Orlando never got cold.

The miles upon miles of citrus that folks like Dr Phillips planted came later.

Yes. The downtown groves were small in comparison, but they made up  a significant portion of Eola Heights and the areas stretching south.

[Jolly Roger's Crackers]

8 hours ago, AmIReal said:

Really nice find. This one, which has been posted before shows the changes that occurred over 40 years. All those trees became neighborhoods.

Is it just me or does the shape of Lake Eola look odd?  Might be just the perceived perspective of the person who drew the map....but Lake Eola looks much more elongated than it is. Lucerne looks different as well....but I realized that his map was obviously "pre"  Orange Ave's "bridges" in that area. Still....Eola looks weird. Cheers.

[AmIReal]

1 hour ago, Jolly Roger's Crackers said:

Is it just me or does the shape of Lake Eola look odd?  Might be just the perceived perspective of the person who drew the map....but Lake Eola looks much more elongated than it is. Lucerne looks different as well....but I realized that his map was obviously "pre"  Orange Ave's "bridges" in that area. Still....Eola looks weird. Cheers.

By golly I think you're right. In the newer photo the shape is the current egg shape of Eola. But in the older photo it appears... wait, OMG the Lake bulges east beyond Eola Drive just like @spenser1058 told us it should.  What is our past could be our future.

[spenser1058]

Flooding used to be a continuous problem east of Rosalind. In Eola’s case, they capped the spring (yes, Eola was a sinkhole, but likely exacerbated by the spring beneath) and connected it along with other downtown lakes which can empty into the Greenwood drainage area.

[JFW657]

10 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

I’m looking at it on an iPhone so it’s hard to tell exactly what the trees are. I’m glad to see the map is correct if that’s the case, although my guess would be in reality there were more palmettos than pines based on the scrub in East Orange.

I would assume that at that point in Orlando's development, with streets, yards and houses, not to mention the citrus groves which I assume are what is depicted in the map as well, that most of the palmettos had been cleared out of what is now downtown.

 Of course, out by Bumby, Colonial Plaza and Fashion Square etc, there were probably still an abundance of them.

Same with most of the other outlying areas. 

[nite owℓ]

Old news, but... about a week ago Bungalower reported someone painted tears of blood on the Muse. It was quickly cleaned up by the city. Not that I'm in support of permanently altering the sculpture (I always wondered when this would happen with chalk or something), but with the recent anniversary of Pulse shooting, the BLM movement & deaths from the epidemic, the photo becomes a statement piece:

From Bungalower's insta: https://www.instagram.com/p/CBnlxLjgaMc/

 

[uncreativeusername]

Not quite a photo, but some really interesting drone views - especially the new density buildup along Livingston.  

 

[JFW657]

View of the former CNA now BB&T building from the former Beardall Park that used to be at the corner of S,Orange and South St.

That was a nice little park.

 

[uncreativeusername]

34 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

View of the former CNA now BB&T building from the former Beardall Park that used to be at the corner of S,Orange and South St.

That was a nice little park.

 

Interesting - I had no idea this existed. Did Grand Bohemian replace this directly, or did something else happen in between?  I lived in Orlando well before GB opened, but I cannot remember what was there previously.  I see from the dedication program that this was historically city land; from school to new school to City Hall to OPD HQ to park.  What were the circumstances for the city selling this land? ( @spenser1058, I'm ready for a history lesson!)