PHOTO VIA MILTON MCKNIGHT FACEBOOK PAGE
Milton McKnight, known to generations of downtown Orlando workers and business owners as one of the neighborhood’s most familiar faces, has died.
His passing was confirmed this week by Mount Zion Tabernacle Christian Church (Website), where he served as a deacon. The church shared the news in a social media tribute calling him one of its “great deacons” who was known for his diligence, his faith, and his love for people. A “homegoing” service is being planned, with details expected soon.
For more than three decades, McKnight was a constant presence along Orange Avenue and near Church Street Station. He used a wheelchair as a result of cerebral palsy and greeted downtown’s lunch crowds and evening visitors, often selling roses for two dollars apiece. Longtime downtown workers describe him as a man who seemed to always be smiling, no matter the day.
Word of his death also spread through a tribute from Jim Hobart, a former employee of Knight Images and Knight Creative who first met McKnight in 1997 when the company moved into the historic Kress Building on Orange Avenue. Hobart recalled spending afternoons with McKnight at the Harp and Celt Irish Pub and Restaurant in 2008, listening to him talk about growing up in Philadelphia and moving to Florida in late 1988.
Hobart later wrote up McKnight’s story for a website, miltonmcknight.com, and printed business cards so passersby could learn more about him. In 2009, a University of Central Florida film student named Alyssa Velazquez used one of those cards to reach out to McKnight and went on to make a documentary about his life for her senior project. Hobart called it the best record that exists of McKnight’s story.
Downtown Orlando rallied around McKnight more than once over the years. In the early 1990s, attorneys Sharon Stedman and Sharon Greiner led a fundraising drive that bought him a new electric wheelchair after his old one broke down and left him vulnerable to a robbery. About 60 downtown workers gathered to watch him try it out. In August 2012, friends, businesses, and the Orlando Sentinel helped raise money for another new motorized chair after that one wore out in turn.
Downtown workers also looked out for him in other ways. In November 2015, a man stole McKnight’s money jar, and nearby office workers chased the suspect down, recovered the money, and held him for police, according to reports at the time from Fox 35 and WOGX.
Since news of his death spread, McKnight’s longtime Facebook page has become an informal memorial, filling with photos and stories from people who bought flowers from him or simply stopped to talk over the years. Many describe him as a symbol of old Orlando, a steady presence in a downtown that changed dramatically around him.
Further details on the homegoing service are expected to be announced by Mount Zion Tabernacle Christian Church.
