Editorial: Bob Snow made magic on Church Street and should inspire Orlando to soar again

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31-01-2025

Bob Snow's influence on Orlando starts with his simple refusal to stay grounded. He had the knack of seeing things other people didn't see — and helping others to share his vision, even when his ideas seemed wildly inconsistent with reality. In an era where downtown districts were emptying out as shopping, dining and entertainment businesses fled to suburban malls, Snow saw the potential in cities' empty centers — first in Pensacola's Seville Square, then in Orlando's Church Street Station. At a time when disco's pounding beats and clubs filled with flashing lights dominated nightlife, Snow heard Dixieland jazz and pictured venues of quirky, extravagant beauty that demanded close examination.
And when Snow first arrived in town in the 1970s and described his plans to transform a few blocks of grimy warehouses and vacant storefronts into a custom-built 'historic district' that had nothing to do with the city's history, many Orlando leaders must have looked at the mustachioed aviator-turned-musician-turned-impresario in his early 30s and wondered if he was …. well, high.
Snow, who died last week at the age 82, left a legacy that is nearly impossible to set boundaries on. And it found its perfect home in sleepy downtown Orlando, which in the 1970s was feeling shabbier by the minute as Walt Disney World's own magic unfolded.
Over the years, Orlando city officials learned to listen to Snow, to marvel at his extracurricular feats of derring-do and to buy into his high-flying dreams. (At one mid-1980s City Council meeting considering his request to close Church Street for several days and hold street parties, one council member joked that the city really should be paying him and not the other way around.)
By then, they knew what he could do. They'd experienced the magical blend of invented history and meticulous detail that, for a few glorious decades, transformed several blocks of downtown into Church Street Station. Within months of opening in July 1974, Church Street became one of the state's top tourist destinations. In its heyday, nearly every detail of the lavish complex was teased from Snow's own fertile imagination — and often decorated with authentic oddities and architectural flourishes he'd tracked down himself. He approved many of the cancan dancers, roguish cowboys and Red Hot Mamas who beguiled and entertained Church Street visitors. And as time wore on, he became more involved in shaping the city's overall vision for revitalizing downtown — though always with his own flourish, including dumping a saddlebag stuffed with cash on then-Mayor Bill Frederick's desk in support of a plan to put police officers on horseback.
'This is what Church Street Station is: An event, a happening, often indistinguishable from the human happening that is its owner, founder and chief barker, Bob Snow,' wrote Howard Means, the Sentinel's critic at large, in 1982. 'Daring projects begat daring projects, and that's what Church Street Station is: A magnificent dare. A vast, richly detailed and gaudy invitation to Orlando to step out of itself.'
That dream — like the hot-air balloons Snow cruised in with his friend, Col. Joe Kittinger — eventually came down to Earth. Snow sold his interest in Church Street Station in 1988 and 1989, and the development of theme-park based entertainment complexes starting with Disney's Pleasure Island pulled away some of Church Street's audience. He tried to replicate his success in other venues, including Las Vegas — but those efforts never really soared the way Orlando's did.
Today, the names that lit up Church Street's marquees — Rosie O'Grady's Good Time Emporium; Apple Annie's Courtyard, Lili Marlene's Aviator's Pub and Phineas Phogg's Balloon Works — are mostly gone; in December, Snow attended an event at which pieces of the decor from Church Street's ballroom were on display. Downtown nightlife is in a state of struggle, with ongoing clashes drawing a heavier police presence and the abrupt closure of multiple clubs.
But Snow will always serve as an inspiration to Orlando's downtown leaders, who are looking at the blocks that still bear signs of Snow's transformative vision and asking: Can the magic happen again? This is Snow's legacy: The memory of Church Street Station's glory can drive the determination to reinvent Orlando one more time.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Executive Editor Roger Simmons and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at [e-mail]