Rollins
graduate Duane Zimmerman died on January 23, 2009 at the age of 64, leaving
behind a legacy at Orlando Regional Medical Center. Zimmerman’s route from his home to the ORMC almost certainly consisted of a
single uninterrupted route east along State Road 408, however to capture a more realistic view of Central Florida I recreated a
meandering detour through the homes of the hinterland factory workers. This can
be done under the assumption that, perhaps, the 408 was under heavy
construction or that, being a toll road, Zimmerman had neither change nor an
E-Pass, and that the only freeway, Interstate 4, goes north-south rather than
east-west, and thus does not help Zimmerman. State Road 50, also known as
Colonial, always slows to a crawl during rush hour, so Zimmerman would not
follow this road either. Therefore the route I took, and the route Zimmerman
may have taken from his home under the aforementioned assumption, would be east
on Old Winter Garden Road, south on John Young Parkway, east on Orange Center
Boulevard and continuing onto West Gore Street, and finally turning south onto Orange
Avenue. Perhaps this route is unlikely because it would take him through three
of the most dangerous and infamous parts of Orlando (Orange Blossom Trail, Pine
Hills, and Parramore), but
it shows the starkest contrast between both his suburban lifestyle and urban
career and the blue-collar world in between. Throughout this photo essay I will
examine the differences between Zimmerman’s residential area and the residential
area of those who live closer to the urban core.
Zimmerman’s
day began in his Hiawassee home next to Fellowship Bible Church. Situated between the 408 and Old Winter Garden
Road, Zimmerman’s home is a white two-story figure that appears small only
because of the large swath of land that surrounds it. Though it is clearly not
a carbon copy of prefabricated homes along the block the way homes were in
Levittown, with the black demarcating fence and impressive lawn it is still
clearly a model of suburbia.
Zimmerman’s
home lies practically under the 408, but he would choose not to turn on to the
toll road. He would be reminded of this decision the entire trip by signs
directing him to the 408. The signs are easy to ignore, but it is not so easy
to drive blindly by the flags decorating nearly every building. These flags’
owners come from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and even Rwanda. This is
an area of immigrants.
Billboards
decorate the sides of increasingly decrepit roads, many advertising in Spanish
or for trial attorneys or sometimes both at the same time. Many of the
residents here are not only immigrants or children of immigrants, but most are
of Hispanic heritage and have not given up their Latin roots. They are also,
much like most immigrants, part of a low socioeconomic status.
Nearing
the end of his trip Zimmerman would pass under I-4, the one link from Daytona
on the Atlantic Coast to Tampa in the Gulf. This is the only practical way across the peninsula, yet the fault lies not
with developers but with Florida’s natural landscape; the soft swampy marshland
of Central Florida prohibited further interstate development during the 1950s
when Eisenhower first implemented the Interstate Highway System.
While
Eisenhower’s planners may have not been able to overpower nature, the more contemporary
developers at the Orlando Regional Medical center certainly could. Millions of
gallons of concrete allowed for terracing around the ORMC site, with
stereotypical Florida palm trees increasing in height the higher they were on
the terracing. This is a small matter – it is not the straightening of the
Kissimmee River – but it shows that Man’s technological ability has matched his
aesthetic desires since the Cold War.
Should
one be lucky enough, one might see an Air Care helicopter take off from or land
on an ORMC rooftop. During his time as facilities administrator, Zimmerman
helped develop this – a lifesaving program that allows a helicopter to drop in
and pick people up much faster than any ambulance could when forced to crawl
along Central Florida’s poorly designed infrastructure.
Between
Zimmerman’s suburban home and his job on the very outskirts of Downtown
Orlando, one can see the poverty and urban sprawl that accompany large clusters
of minorities and immigrants throughout America. Near Zimmerman’s home one
could find teenagers loitering by gas stations and strip malls. Outside several
buildings connected to ORMC one could see doctors drinking coffee during quick
breaks or patients’ relatives walking with a slow gait and heavy shoulders
burdened by the misfortune of sending a loved one here. However, in between
these areas of middle- to upper-middle class, one finds no such activity. On
Orange Blossom Trail, between a Popeye’s Chicken and a liquor store designed
like a prison, one is bound to find a sad individual – hopefully clothed – limping
across the street, oblivious to any cars he may walk into or that may run into
him, the effects of some addiction evident in his unsteady walk and dropping
from his wet, glazed eyes down his cheeks and onto his trembling lips. The fear
one feels as one drives by signs directing one to Pine Hills and Parramore
cannot be articulated. This sadness, this fear, is the product of an outsider
status that has yet to be shaken. Whether this status is caused by time in the
United States (e.g., first- and second-generation immigrants) or socioeconomic
inequality (e.g., the inhabitants of Pine Hills and Parramore), the status is
an outlier that does not fit with the linear model of Zimmerman’s middle-class
suburbia to the upper-middle class of Orlando’s urban core.
Bibliography
Primary
Source
Harlan News-Advertiser
Staff, “Remembrance: Duane Zimmerman,” Harlan
News-Advertiser, February 6, 2009, accessed November 3, 2012, http://discoveramericasstory.com/view_article.html?articleId=HRN0206200901102
Secondary
Sources
Jon Teaford, The Metropolitan Revolution (Columbia
University Press: 2006).
Gary Mormino, Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams
(University Press of Florida: 2005)
My Clearwater. “Map of
the Central Florida Area.” Last modified September 13, 2005. http://www.clearwater-fl.com/info/about/geography/central_florida.asp
Neighborhood Scout.
“Crime Rates for Pine Hills, FL.” Last modified 2012. http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/fl/pine-hills/crime/
U.S. Department of
Transportation Federal Highway Administration. “Welcome to the Eisenhower
Interstate Highway System Web Site.” http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/homepage.cfm
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