Two From July 1962
Today's photos are from faded slides, but I am very fond of this first view, taken from a speeding Monorail. How that train caught Mono I will never know, and I'm not sure I want to. Anyway, I believe that we are running parallel to Harbor Boulevard, and looking at one of the many hotels and motels that sprang up around Disneyland (much to Walt's chagrin). I'm sure you'll agree that this view looks kind of charming more than 45 years later, with the tiny kidney-shaped pool (complete with thrilling slide!), minimal mid-century architecture, and some cool old cars as well. Check out the blue auto with the gigantic tail fins slightly to the left of center (near the top)! There is still a lot of farmland and stands of eucalyptus trees in Anaheim in 1962; all gone today of course.
Another slide from the same bunch shows this fun view of one of Huck Finn's rafts ferrying a full load of guests over to Tom Sawyer Island. It's July 1962, and there are very few (if any) crazy souvenir hats to be seen, what gives? 
9 comments:
Must remember not to read your comments with a mouth full of drink. Or a headfull either, but that's another subject.
What an incredible image of '50s motel. Fins, simple rooms, kidney shaped pool... Do they have tele-vision Vera? Turn on the TV and go into the coral tile bathroom to shave with the straight edge and give the TV a minute for the tubes to warm up.
Nice raft pic too. The fort back there, cast member with bare feet...
Perhaps it is my imagination, but the people on that raft seem to have a haunted, desperate look, almost as if they've been lost for months at sea and don't think they will ever make it to land again. Of course, since the Cold War was still very much on, it could also be the look one gets from worrying about communism. We will never know.
I was thinking the same thing as Chiana, what is with the bare feet? I may have stayed at that motel. Can not be 100% positive but I think so. Wonderful picture.
I think the CM may be wearing clogs. This was a very wet position
Tom Sawyer raft guys were frequently barefoot in the early days of the park ...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v470/bananaphone5000/NEWGORILLA/6-58TwainB.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v470/bananaphone5000/NEWGORILLA/6-58TwainA.jpg
It seems that in some ways that era was more uptight than our own and in some ways less so.
I think that blue auto is a '59 or '60 Cadillac. I remember seeing Disneyland, for the first time, from the back seat of a '62 Sedan Deville.
That image of Harbor Blvd is fantastic. So many millions of pictures inside Disneyland and so few documenting the exponential growth of Anaheim on the outside.
I belive the motel in that image is the Carousel Motel (1520) and though the neon and Googie design elements are long gone the Carousel still exists.
It has grown from a single story to five with a roof top pool boasting city views (no more views of eucalyptus or orange trees). That's not all that changed, the fee for a rollaway bed at the Carousel now cost as much as a room in the Disney Motel when the photo was taken. Remember how Motel 6 got it's name?
I like the unique enterprises which seem to explode around any mother lode of capitalism. Motif choices ranging from Western to Tiki and Stone Age to Space Age, linear logic abandoned in favor of some good ole escapism garnished with a large slice of American Kitsch!
Hi... just happen to cross your site...
Im planning to go to Tokyo or Hong Kong Disney this Christmas. Hoho and I found some stuffs from Hong Kong Disneyland here as well:
disneycloth.cwahi.net
I will definitely take tones of photos there!!!
That's a great old photo of Harbor Blvd. I believe the industrial building in the background is the old Altec-Lansing plant.
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