City Beautiful

Orlando and Coral Gables have the same nickname, which led to a little trouble. Not that the two places are easily confused, but everyone likes to feel special. But why would two totally different cities pick the same, somewhat awkward name -- "The City Beautiful"?

For the same reason that many other cities across the nation chose it as well -- the name comes from the City Beautiful Movement, a Progressive reform movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As cities grew, so did the problems of urban life, such as poor sanitation and crime. Greatly simplified, the City Beautiful's proponents thought that a clean and attractive city would create more prosperity. Beaux Arts architecture typifies public buildings of this time and this movement. An early and particularly well-known expression of City Beautiful was Daniel Burham's White City at the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

D(isney)-Day

On November 15, 1965, Walt Disney, Roy Disney, and Governor Haydon Burns shared the stage at a press conference in Orlando, announcing Disney's plan to build a new theme park in Orlando. Until shortly before this announcement, Disney's real estate agents had worked secretly for 18 months to buy land before word got out and prices rose accordingly. Learning from prior experience in California, Disney wanted enough land for the park to be completely self-contained, and to have a sizeable buffer from the outside world.

In 1996, as part of the ceremonies for Walt Disney World's 25th anniversary, Disney held a reunion of sorts marking the occassion of that press conference, which took at the Cherry Plaza Hotel in Orlando, overlooking Lake Eola. The Cherry Plaza is now the Post Parkside apartments. Its restaurant has changed hands several times over the years, and may or may not reopen as Stottler's.