Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Leftuggies

It's time for another batch of "leftuggies"!

This first image is from a 35mm slide that was damaged. Still, I seem to never grow weary of views of the Moonliner or the Flight Circle, even when truncated. We get a pretty good look at the backstage area near Tomorrowland, including (just to the right of the rocket) the old Dominguez home that was used as the administration building for a number of years.


Next we have a scan of a souvenir slide. Not Pana-Vue or Tru-Tone or any of the other familiar brands. I like the soft colors!


How many pictures have we seen featuring the "Friendly Indian Village"? Too many, perhaps. One detail that I find interesting is the area barely visible through the trees (and past the train tracks)... it appears to have been a green grassy area at some point. Not sure I've ever noticed this before!


I hope you've enjoyed today's leftuggies!

7 comments:

K. Martinez said...

The 2nd pic with the open and unobstructed view of the rockwork Cinderella's Castle sits atop in Storyland is great. Nice rockwork and forced perspective. Nice dream like color too.

Nancy said...

I too noticed the colors on photo 2 right away, the sunshine was so bright that day!

Tomorrowland, could never get enough. I find in interesting sometimes that they did their best to remove you from anything outside the burm, but the Skyway gave you a bird's eye view of that very thing! Miss it still

Also never noticed that there was a flatland near the village, now I have to find out if I have any pics of it in meager collection!

Nice set today, all around the Land :)

Tom said...

Great pics of the usual but featuring the unusual - like the Dominguez house! Although I always thought it was over by the Jungle Cruise area...

Major Pepperidge said...

K. Martinez, it is true, the rock work for Cinderella's Castle is pretty nice, and surprisingly bug for a "miniature" castle and mountain.

Nancy, it seems like the berm was least successful in Tomorrowland due to the Skyway and Peoplemover; once you got up in the air, you could easily see backstage and outside the park.

Tom, I think the Dominguez house was originally in the location that would become Adventureland, but when the park was built, it was moved to the backstage area near Tomorrowland to be used as office space.

Nanook said...

Another thumbs-up vote for these unusual views. The Dominguez House adds to the joy. Thanks Major.

Snow White Archive said...

In pic #2, if it was Wisconsin, I'd say those look like patches of melting snow on the ground off in the distance.

Anonymous said...

@Tom. The Major is correct, the Dominguez house was originally in the area that became the Jungle Cruise. There is a very large palm tree between the JC and the Treehouse which is now visible in GoogleEarth which was part of the landscape right around the old house.

This tree was going to be removed as part of the Indiana Jones reconfiguration of that area. When it was pointed out that the palm was one of the original site trees, the Forbidden Eye entrance and queue was redesigned to retain it.

At some point, not sure when, the old house was removed. Ultimately, it's Back Lot location in the photo here is now inside Space Mountain, but I think it was moved or demolished even before that attraction was built, perhaps around the time that the Grand Canyon diorama was added, since the enlarged administration building was part of that construction.

I vaguely remember that open space behind the Indian Village, I know that at some point the train was more "exposed" on both sides in that area. I don't know if the track was re-routed or if the berm was moved. I suspect the latter. It's interesting to see how narrow this corridor is now. The tram route from the parking garage runs parallel to the train in this region now with the berm in between.

The tunnel beyond this area is just a metal culvert, a low-budget adaptation definitely out of keeping with the darker tunnels encountered between Main Street, NOS and Bear Country. I keep hoping that they will re-work the culvert into a more Frontier theme.

Early in the park history, that end of Tomorrowland was very exposed to the outside world and the Back Of House areas as well. I also remember being able to see right out into the parking lot from the TL Skyway platform. Eventually, the trees grew up and blocked that view too.

Major, these are some very special leftovers. Glimpses of things long forgotten.

JG