Thursday, August 27, 2009

Disneyland Hotel at Night, June 24 1966

I've posted many thousands of images on this blog, but only a tiny fraction of those are night photos. Understandable really, but when you get a nice one, it's always great.

Here's an interesting night shot overlooking the Disneyland Hotel, circa 1966. In the background you can see the glowing trail left by the Monorail in this long exposure. The Matterhorn is clearly visible, as is the Rocket to the Moon (which would be demolished only 3 months after this photo was taken). Is that the castle to the extreme left?

At the bottom, you'll see plenty of construction going on at the Disneyland Hotel! Thanks to Don Ballard's website, I can tell you that in 1966 the hotel "...underwent a $5.5 million expansion. The Tower Building was expanded to almost twice as big and the Plaza Building was added to the Hotel".


Presumably that's the Plaza Building looking only about half finished. Hey, there's my hammer!


You can see a daytime photo of some construction from this same era here.

8 comments:

Sierra view said...

SB castle is those slightly triangular shapes to the left of the Matterhorn. At the extreme left, that concentration of light is the facade of it's a small world, which was new in '66.

You can see the rocket, with a red tip, and beyond that, that must be HoJo's.

There might be a glowing trail from the monorail in the station, but all the long yellow and red streaks are from cars and trams in the parking lot.

I'm curious about the 3 very bright lights to the right of the Matterhorn. Angel Stadium is way off to the right, and then some, but this looks like a ball park. Boysen perhaps?

Leila said...

very interesting

Jim said...

Love the night shots. Reminds me of our summertime ritual of standing on the corner of of Tiller and Haster EVERY night at 9pm sharp to watch the pyrotechnics explode over the castle.

Katella Gate said...

Jim, funny, I used to envy those houses adjacent to the Park, especially for their view of the nightly fireworks... free.

BTW, this is a great night shot with all the different shaped elements, not just a spackle of city lights.

TokyoMagic! said...

Another incredible shot, Major!

I miss the Plaza Building with it's half sunken 1st floor....actually, I miss all of the old DL Hotel!

Nancy said...

this is such a cool picture! :D

again, it never ceases to amaze me how big DL actually is when you see a picture like this, compared to being in the park, when it never seems so....

Chiana_Chat said...

Nancy said it! :)

Jim said...

Katella- Not sure the houses were worth envying :), but the location WAS magic. Sometimes the "coffee shop" aromas wafting in the breeze was a bit overpowering.