Random Pix From August 1967
Here is a random pair of photos from Fun Dad!
Guests are milling about near the Submarine lagoon, beneath the Monorail track (I almost typed "trackS"). The picture is sort of a neat perspective, with the people in shadow in the foreground, and then the sunlit folks beyond that, and then the lagoon and Sub (plus the Autopia, Peoplemover, and Motor Boats) beyond that. As is the case in many of these 1967 photos, I just love the styles, colors, and patterns on the clothing. Polka dots, stripes, plaids, it's all here.
How about a nice lunch over at the French Market? You can hear some live Dixieland jazz too, courtesy of the Strawhatters. In the distance, you can see folks walking up the steps to Frontierland station to the left, while the brick walls surrounding the Haunted Mansion are just visible to the right.
Thank you, Fun Dad!
18 comments:
You can almost feel the awe that some of the people feel in the first photo as they look out at a
"nuclear" submarine in liquid space for the first time. Love it. Thank you Major.
Oh, yeah, this is some primo peoplewatching.
A little known fact....that French Market stage raises and lowers, sort of like the Tomorrowland Terrace Stage. I should mention that the roof you see over the stage, does not raise or lower like the TL Terrace's stage roof does. And I'm not sure if they ever raise or lower it with the performers on it, but I saw a couple workers lower the unoccupied stage a few years back, while I was dining at a table located right next to the stage. It is also shown lowering in a Sandy Duncan Christmas Special from the 1970's.
I love all of the color here! The vehicles, the clothes, the sky - even the slurry adds to the picture. Anyone who claims that New Tomorrowland was all white just wasn't there.
Note the brand-new, Corvette Stingray-inspired Mark VII Autopia cars on the overpass. It has just occurred to me that I have no memory of seeing the motorboats from the sub lagoon, but it's obvious here that you could. I was probably too focused on everything else to notice.
That glimpse of the HM wall has me wondering...at this point, was the "crypt" door opening into the cemetery that serves as the "chicken" and emergency exit in place yet? Or was that added later with the show building?
TM!, the old bandstand could also be lowered - you just had to dig a hole under it first.
Quick! Grab that table in the middle before that guy gets it!!!
Sorry, had a Disney Dining reflex there...
It's really cool how you can see the motorboats from here. Throw in a Monorail, and you'd have an ideal "world on the move!"
Gnometrek, it’s easy to imagine being there on that beautiful August, with the sun starting to set. What an amazing place!
Melissa, ha ha, it’s voyeur time here on GDB.
TokyoMagic!, until fairly recently I had no idea that the French Market stage raised and lowered just like the one in Tomorrowland. You probably told me! How many tunnels are beneath New Orleans Square? Several as far as I’m aware. Presumably those were the inspiration for the “utilidors” at WDW.
Chuck, I have definitely read wrongheaded statements like “Tomorrowland used to be all-white”. Kind of like “Main Street used to be mostly browns”. All it takes is a few moments on Google to see that both of those are erroneous. I don’t remember seeing the Motor Boats from the Sub Lagoon either - as you suggest, I was probably overwhelmed by so many distractions. As for your Haunted Mansion question, I’m going to have to rely on the knowledge of one of the GDB readers!
Stu29573, it’s funny, I thought the exact same thing, though there are a couple of other empty tables nearby. Still, it seems like finding a table at many Disneyland eateries can be a challenge.
Penna. Andrew, it’s true, a Monorail swooping by would make that first picture complete.
French Market was my favorite dining place on the west side of Disneyland. Thanks, Major.
These are fine photos, Major. Many thanks to Fun Dad for the "you-are-there" quality, there's no big bang or wow-factor, just good solid scenes of people having fun.
I really wish I could just walk into the French Market scene. Like Ken, this was the favorite spot for dinner.
@Tokyo, I'm not sure that there is a tunnel to the French Market stage. I watched it raise up once recently and the players came "overland" through the dining patio, although that isn't proof there wasn't another underground route. I think the retractable stage might be just to protect the band's set-up and speakers from weather and curious fingers when not occupied.
On another visit, I watched some musicians carrying instruments cross the DLRR tracks on the Main Street end of the station and head into the "prop" buildings over there (the ones with the clotheslines and laundry just outside the Main Street tunnel). I don't know if that was a standard route or not, and might have been due to the remodeling of Club 33 that was in progress at that time.
@Chuck, re the HM exits, the Long-Forgotten blog has an article about these side exits. IIRC the one that you are referring to as the "chicken exit", which allows egress from the upper end of the Picture Gallery and also the bail-out from the OmniMover load queue, was part of the original construction of the Mansion building.
This exit was planned to be one of the exits from the original walk-thru version of the attraction, which was to have dual shows, so two (more-or-less) symmetrical exits were needed. After the attraction became an OmniMover concept, the "left exit" became the chicken exit, and the right exit was re-tooled into the crypt "main" exit. At least that is how I recall his descriptions, but am too lazy to go look it up.
Cheers.
JG
Love the pics today. The Subs are my favorite, that and MTTNW. As an 8 year old, I was blown away by the Subs. I can still remember the excitement over riding them. Thanks Fun Dad and Major.
Major-
Polka dots-! We definitely need to see more of those. (Just don't tell the present-day Imagineers - it may inspire them to go nuts-!)
I'm with Ken & JG as for dining at the French Market. I may have eaten more meals there than at any other DL dining spot - or it sure seemed that way.
Thanks, Major.
JG, I assume that there is still live music performed at the French Market, though perhaps not as frequently as in those days. I read your note to TokyoMagic! about the possibility of no tunnel underground - it seems like having the stage go up and down just to protect the equipment is kind of overkill! But anything is possible. Interesting about the musicians going into the prop buildings, I’ve always wondered if those served any use. Thanks for all of the info about the Haunted Mansion crypt exit!
Jonathan, the Subs were definitely up there among my favorite attractions. Not so much these days. The whole experience of riding them was great, including going down the little spiral staircases, and sitting on those small seats, leaning forward, feeling the air blowing on your face, etc. So great!
Nanook, I honestly don’t think I’ve ever owned a piece of clothing with polka dots! That seems to be almost exclusively a thing for women. Somehow I’ll survive!
One of the "twin" outfits my sister and I had were dresses that were identical except hers was white with big navy blue polka dots, and mine was navy blue with big white polka dots. We looked like negatives.
One of my screen backdrop photos popped up with this picture from Daveland.
https://www.davelandweb.com/neworleanssquare/images/8_68_ETBC_N09.jpg
The lady with beehive hair in the pink clothes seated at the right in today's photo 2 looks like the lady in the right of the Daveland photo looking for a seat.
The two photos taken just about a year apart from opposite angles.
JG
JG, thanks for the vector. I think this is the Long-Forgotten article you were remembering. Working my way through it now...and anticipate falling down a few rabbit holes along the way. Thanks!
...and you even commented on that post. No wonder it stuck in your memory. :-)
@ Melissa-
Think 'positive'-!
@Chuck, that's the one. Long Forgotten is a fascinating blog, and very architectural in it's way. Especially that post, lining up the drawings from plan to section and plan-over-plan, that's how we used to develop designs, before 3D modeling. The HM is an interesting attraction since it changed so dramatically in concept over time. Every post in that blog is worth reading.
JG
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