Park Entrance, June 1962
Well, what do you know, today is our friend Melissa's birthday. Melissa, if you are out there, please drop us a line, we love you. As usual, Sue B. has sent in something extra fun for the occasion - a lucky little girl with an impressive birthday haul. I was spoiled rotten, and I don't think I ever got this many presents! A phonograph, a stuffed dog, a purse, a doll and baby buggy, and so on. No idea what the "Clean up" poster is for. Maybe the girl was a slob!
____________________________
For many people, those first moments at Disneyland are among the most exciting. Buying your tickets (well, you don't really do that like in the old days anymore), and then waiting to go through the turnstiles - the feeling of anticipation is off the charts. And then you might have the Disneyland Railroad at the station, bell ringing, whistle blowing... so great.
Here we get a look at the front from just outside the original teensy ticket booths on a June-gloomy day, 1962. I was wondering where all the people are, but it's almost 3 o'clock. They're already inside! Is that parked van "bad show"? Technically he's outside the gates. Still, it's a little odd to see it there. Maybe some dad made a wrong turn. To the right, you can see a sign that we saw before, check it out HERE.
I'm unsure as to whether the lady in the foreground was the intended subject of this photo, but she's blurry, so the joke's on her. Other late arrivals are heading in, not even pausing to admire the floral Mickey Portrait. Visigoths!
18 comments:
Wow. It so unusual that there are no comments, that I have to post something!
The little girl does have a pretty good haul of new things, but that smile is creepy, or at least full of mischief.
It does seem really odd to have a van right there behind the ticket booth. Seems like bad show. I wonder if they are just dropping off something, or someone.
Is it just me or do there seem to be an inordinate amount of pictures of the station taken around 3pm? My memory tells me most of the train station pictures happen then. I’m probably wrong,
“I spent all this time setting up the perfect ‘arriving at Disneyland’ picture, and that darn blurry women walks by at that instant” says the photographer. Or at least I would.
Silly me forgot to wish Melissa a happy birthday! And thank you to Sue and the Major for the pictures!
Happy birthday to an amazing poet!
The wood floor underneath little Shari is pretty darn shiny. That TV looks like it was turned on. Too bad we can't see anymore of the screen. And just where did that little door lead? To another dimension? Did it lead to Shari's room? It looks just her size.
Happy birthday Melissa! I hope you know just how much you are missed!
Thanks for the pics, Major and Sue!
Happy Birthday, Melissa!
And Happy Birthday, Mom Pepperidge, too!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MELISSA!! Please “phone” home!!
Check out what’s behind the clean up poster : a pink & white Ford model T touring car!!! Sitting at the wheel is a Barbie-sized type doll.
It always seems homes From the 1910-1950 period have creepy little doors and hatches ….storage? Coal shoots? Demon doorways? A friend of mine lived in a “luxury apartment building” in Silverlake … on the outskirts of Hollywood. To clarify the apartment was luxury when it was built : 1924. It was still cool looking … but along the hallways matching each apartment entry door was a tiny miniature replica of the full-size entry door …. Just without the door bell and peek-a-boo window . The tiny troll size doors are led to a cupboard in each apartment kitchen - back in the day the milkman would leave the dairy orders inside the little doors - not cluttering up the hallway.
Happy Birthday Melissa! Many happy returns of the Day! We miss you and hope you are well!
Little girl won the birthday lottery, her day must be as far from Christmas as it gets. I think the little door probably leads to an attic space under a low dormer or similar feature, under a stair etc. I remodeled several older houses in LA which had the “milkman doors”. These went out of style along with “telephone niches”.
Love the photos of the Esplanade, before it had a fancy name. The theming is “Main Street Lite”, even the trash cans. The van probably delivered amplifiers and instruments for Sunshine Balloon or Papa Doo Run Run… “it’s ok, we’re with The Band!”
Poor blurry lady, she is trapped out of focus for eternity while Dude is rocking those blue anklet socks.
Thanks Major and Sue!
JG
Happy Birthday Melissa! We miss you! And a big happy birthday to "Shari"....it seems that we all were kind of creepy back then, and Shari is no exception: as were the "almost twins" Stephen King inspired photo from yesterday (Happy Birthday Grant). Many Virgo's around: so very organized. The Libran's like myself need the Virgos of the world and so does Excel software. Looks like Shari cleaned up for her happy day. Looks like there are some "Barbie" Inspired dolls in a vinyl case: they call these "Schmarbies"....like Louis Vuitton is called Louee Veetahn at some vendor stands at swap meets. On to the Main Gate photos: there isn't one Main Gate photo I don't like and these are no exceptions. TECHNICALLY...a van at the Main Gate isn't "bad show" as you haven't passed through the gate...HOWEVER...it's placement isn't exactly "Good Show" either. There is no good reason why that van would need to be there in the afternoon: UNLESS it was to cart the thousands of dollars in cash back to Cash Control in a more secure fashion. I agree that buying tickets was all part of the pre-experience experience that we shall never experience again. I know someone who tried to buy a ticket at the ticket booths and it was quite the (overly taxing) experience in itself. A view today of the train station, flowers, eucalyptus trees, etc is quite the same "feeling" as today...which is nice...bring back the attraction posters: I'm not sure why this is such an issue. Digitally print them, stick them in a frame and "poof" done. When I am boss I will make it so. That tree allll the way over to the right is now absolutely massive, and one of the most impressive trees in the Park. The guest in the photo: Blurry Lady: she might be Shari all grown up...she's kind of giving off Shari vibes. Frank Wells admin was named Shari and the birthday girl photo brought back memories. I felt bad for Shari, and I'll leave it there. That's a whole lot of people up at the Train Station looking at the Parking Lot. The Parking Lot was indeed impressive I have to admit. The view today is not as impressive. The Main Gate (outside the turnstiles) today is not impressive at all: in fact: it is disappointing. The art direction has some "opportunity". Perhaps in time, they will put more emphasis on the experience before the experience. It's all part of the Disneyland show. If you miss the first act: how do you know what's going on? I'll stop now. Thanks Major!
Happy Birthday Melissa-! We miss you. (Please don't trip over the strange collection of boring 'area rugs' placed out willy-nilly on the floor).
Thanks Sue and The Major.
Budblade, I messed up and today’s blog post did not publish until several hours later than usual! It happens. I think the girl’s creepy smile is just one of those fake smiles that children are called upon to do for endless photos, my niece and nephew were cute kids but so many pictures show them with weird rictus grins. I’ll bet the van was “Walt’s Van”! When at the park these days, you have to be careful not to walk in front of somebody taking pictures, which happens a LOT.
Budblade, let’s hope she see’s this post!
Andrew, Sue is doing her darndest to find Melissa, she’s really done incredible investigative work!
TokyoMagic! Shari’s mom must use Mop ’n Glo, it’s the only way to get such a shiny result! Yes I wish we could see what was on TV, it was probably “ILL”. I was thinking that the small door might be an “under the stairs” closet, my sister’s house has a door kind of like that.
Lou and Sue, oh my gosh, it’s my mom’s birthday too!?! ;-)
Mike Cozart, jeez, I did not even notice the purple car for her faux Barbie doll. A toy car for a girl?? We had a house in Pennsylvania that had a blocked off chute for coal - instead of heating the house with coal, we had a big tank of heating oil. Coming from California, I had no idea what it could be! That old Hollywood apartment sounds cool, that sort of thing is vanishing from the area as developers build new “luxury” condos.
JG, I’m assuming that the little girl had some grandparents nearby (or visiting), my grandparents were the ones responsible for really spoiling us. Not that I complained! Yes, I agree with you, I think that door is for an under-the-stairs storage space. I’ve never seen “milkman doors”, but I like the idea of them. Ha ha, yes, the van was for one of the bands, and almost certainly was lined with burnt orange shag carpeting. Note to self: buy blue anklet socks.
Bu, aw, poor Shari, I’ve had my share of terrible photos taken, so I can’t be too critical. Just one fraction of a second was captured on film forever. There really are a lot of September birthday’s, it’s kind of amazing. I don’t know if kids were aware or cared if a doll was a real Barbie; if it looked close enough, was that OK? Brand names might have been big then too. I know when I got a bike, I got a Schwinn, and I would have been happy with any bike, but loved that I had a cool Schwinn. I did say that we weren’t in the park yet so that the van might not be “bad show”, but why did it have to be right there? Perhaps there was a good reason that we can’t fathom all these years later. By 3:00 in the afternoon, I could imagine that it might be time to take the cash from the ticket booths back to Cash Control. Ha ha, hey, I know somebody who tried to buy a ticket too! Or rather, had some nice people try to buy a ticket for him. It seemed to throw the whole system into chaos. I agree with you, they should bring the posters back; now they could be produced for much less money on large inkjet printers, and nobody would be the wiser. Obviously they couldn’t have posters for extinct attractions, although that might be kind of cool. Get talented artists to make new posters! I’ve only known one Shari in my life, she was my boss, and I really liked her. We actually got together for lunch years later.
Nanook, thank you for emailing me early this morning!
Oh thank goodness! Today's edition of GDB has FINALLY been posted! I won't say anything disparaging about Major, so I'll direct you to yesterday's "lethal side-eye" girl. ;-)
"Happy, happy" birthday, Melissa! And "joy, joy!" We miss your wit, your song lyrics, your poetry, and your observations. We've had to substitute our own VFAs, and we haven't had a good "Helloooo sailor" in ages! Please come back to us.
Yep, Shari really hit the jackpot on this birthday! Maybe all her birthdays have been like this? They had to rent a storage unit for all her stuff by the time she was twelve. We can see only a tiny bit of the TV on the left, but it looks like an early '60s model? Another 'winner', Sue. Thanks.
1) This photo is actually quite colorful, despite the June Gloom. It's a little darker than usual; I guess that accounts for the saturated colors. It must have been a little chilly on this day; almost everybody is wearing long sleeved sweaters.
2) "not even pausing to admire the floral Mickey Portrait. Visigoths!" The barbarians are at the gate! I think the photographer's target was the storm grate, partially hidden behind the blurry lady. As Budblade noted, she just happened to walk by just as the photographer snapped this picture.
Thanks again to Sue for the birthday photo. And thanks, Major... even if it IS late. ;-p (Better late than never.)
I used to dream of driving my Ford Econoline up to the front gate like that, my dog and I just jump out and be there! The flower face is funky today, so delineated by concrete, it looks as though it could have had a water feature running through! That would be nice.
Hoping Melissa can read our birthday wishes, sung in silly rhyme.
MS
Happy birthday, Melissa! Hope you can stop by layer. I’ve saved a Fudgie in the feeezer for you.
Mrs. Chuck says that’s a “Tammy” doll on the couch. In her words, “a much more wholesome looking teen fashion doll. She was very popular, too.”
The “mother-in-law’s apartment” over my grandmother’s garage had three of those little cubby-hole closets under the eaves. They were pretty useful and a handy addition in that storage-challenged space when I lived there in college.
Oh, yeah. The Disneyland photos are cool, too.
We are also always assuming the time on the clock tower is correct ! In many past visits and current ones … the clock tower isn’t working or isn’t correct.
I remember in the mid to late 80’s there was a big issue with the park timepieces sponsor … I think it was Elgin or Lorus …. And they were getting irritated that they were sponsoring all the clocks in the park and many were constantly not working - the main st. Station clock was the one really irritating the sponsor ….as it was (at the time ) Almost always wrong or not functioning “here we are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to have our name on these clocks and millions of people looking at them and now associate out name with a broken Disneyland clock!”
Mike, that really is crazy -- about the clocks not always being the right time. That really messes up our photo-sleuthing. And it also makes its difficult to know exactly what time to set our Time Machine to.
The current (2024) floral Mickey is weird. Maybe even a little creepy, IMO.
Update: I'm now in contact with someone who knew Melissa, and she's trying to get me info. As you may recall, Melissa told us--in the comments, a few months back--she's having some vision problems. I'm hoping and praying that Melissa will be OK, and we can all reconnect here, shortly. We all love and miss her! GDB is just NOT the same without her.
TokyoMagic! Shari’s mom must use Mop ’n Glo, it’s the only way to get such a shiny result!
Major, at least we know that she didn't use the Wacky Package version, "Mop 'n Glop"!
My house has a "milkman door"! And the house I grew up in had a "milkman door," and a phone niche! It also had two secret panels for hiding stuff! One of those was in the wall of the dining room, and the other was under the floor of the kitchen broom closet. In the case of the milkman doors, neither one leads to a kitchen cupboard, but it looks like the milkman could fit up to three bottles "within the wall," and then there is a door in the kitchen that can be opened to retrieve the bottles. The spaces are lined with metal, so maybe that was to keep the space cooler? The doors were all painted over years ago, but my brother and I were curious to see what was on the other side of the door, so I think we used an X-Acto knife to cut through the paint seal around the door and open it up. My mom was NOT happy that we did that! I have just left the milk doors on my house alone, in their "painted shut" condition!
TM!, there was a “milkman box” by the front door of the apartment over my grandmother’s garage when I was little. It had thick, wooden sides and top and was lined with metal as well, so I assume that was intended to keep it cool long enough for you to retrieve it and put it in the refrigerator (the house was built in 1939, so it never had iceboxes). At least I assume it was for milk. Maybe it was lined with lead and intended for storing Kryptonite.
Maybe it was lined with lead and intended for storing Kryptonite.
Anonymous, or maybe uranium!
Post a Comment