It's time for more stuff from Sue B., who has been sharing photos taken by her dad, Lou Perry. Today's pix are from March, 1985. Disneyland was just a few months shy of turning 30. All of the photos feature Main Street Station.
There it is! You know it, you love it. The "population" is a surprisingly specific number: 241,310,337 (I think, it's a little hard to decipher). Did they change it daily? Why not just round it off to 240,000,000? The last population number that I could find was 650,000,000 and that was actually from a few years ago.
Lou loved the little details that most folks didn't notice. Like this end of the station with the little dormers. They even have a "DISNEYLAND" sign in case you haven't figured out where you are yet.
Lou grabbed two shots of the E.P. Ripley as it waited at the station; the DLRR is always a treat. As I've said before, I love all of the Disneyland locomotives, but the two (the C.K. Holliday and the E.P. Ripley) were built at the Disney Studio by Rogger Broggie and a bunch of train enthusiasts. They did such a beautiful job! Do you think they would have imagined that their trains would still be going strong over 60 years later?
Howdy, mister! I hope that guy knows that he has one of the coolest jobs at Disneyland (although the sweeps might argue the point... I've heard that in the good old days, being a sweep was a great job).
Well hey, who's that fella? Sue says When I was looking through these photos, I thought, "Why did my dad snap pictures of another crazy photographer?!" . . . then I realized it's my cousin Mark (who's also now a shutterbug, thanks to my dad). Mark lived near Disneyland, at that time, and my dad probably brought his latest camera/toy for both of them to play with.
Sue continues... About two hours before a parade, my dad would usually park his equipment (and self) up on the train platform area so that he would have a good view. With my cousin there, it obviously freed up my dad to wander and take other pictures, and it kept my cousin occupied (sort of like giving a kid a coloring book and crayons, to keep them quiet.) I wonder if I can locate the parade photos they took . . .
FYI, Sue did give me some parade photos, though I am not positive if they are the examples she was trying to locate when she originally sent that email to me.
THANK YOU, Lou and Sue!
Major-
ReplyDeleteThis is some serious photography. 'Point and shoot'... I think not-! It's nice to be the beneficiary of such hard work. So who are those fellas in those B&W "cameos" surrounded by patriotic bunting, etc.-?
I suppose there's nothing wrong with those brown/white square signs identifying the Disneyland Railroad, but compared to the classy Santa Fe logo/signage of yore, they're horribly out of place.
Thanks to Lou & Sue, and The Major.
Wow! What a great set of photos of the Main Street Station. Love all the details on view here.
ReplyDeleteKind of mind blowing that you mention Disneyland turning 30 when it's already passed double that at 65 years. Time sure flies whether you're having fun or not.
Thanks, Lou and Sue! Always love your photos.
These photo show the short lived green trim color scheme the Main Street Station sported in 1985. It gave the building a dowdy look. In fact during this time most of the structures received new color schemes for the first time since the park’s 1955 opening. In 1992 Main Street again received new color schemes the first Kim Irvine candy toy color version mostly used today. It was the first time Tony Baxter approved the new colors as opposed to John Hench approving the first two color schemes. Also at this time the darker color schemes developed for Disneyland Paris began appearing on other Disneyland structures like Frontierland.
ReplyDeleteI was starting to get a weird "deja vu" feeling reading this post, right when I got to the part about the attendance number/population and also the date of March 1985. Then I remembered this GDB post from last September:
ReplyDeletehttps://gorillasdontblog.blogspot.com/2019/09/disneylands-30th-from-lou-and-sue.html
As per my comment on that post, I went to the park just 16 days before Lou took those pics. In that earlier GDB post, you can see an actual up-to-the-minute attendance count for that day, because Lou took a pic of the machine out front, which was counting the guests as they walked through the turnstiles. I'm assuming these pics were taken the same day, or maybe a day before or day after, depending on how many days Lou spent at the park?
I have a pic of Town Square, showing the same bunting with the black and white pics. Looking at that pic, I could swear one of the pictures was of John F. Kennedy and since I was at the park on February 20th of that year, I just assumed that they were pics of all the presidents and they were put up for President's Day. However, when looking at the two black and white pics in today's post (second to last pic), those men look pretty young and they don't look like past presidents. I'm wondering if they could have left the bunting up for March, but swapped out some of the pics? What was going on back in March of 1985? Was there a Space Shuttle launch? Could these men be astronauts? So many questions.
Thank you Lou, Sue and the Major, too!
Hmm... I can't get my mind off Jackie Robinson for that bottom banner, and could the top one be Buzz Aldrin? Just guessing. TM! brings up some good possibilities. They could all be astronauts. Thanks Lou and Sue!
ReplyDeleteMike Cozart, that green really did stick out to me.
I actually love this color scheme. It seems very realistic to me. The quote, "Kim Irvine candy toy color version" actually makes me feel a little sick....
ReplyDeleteWunderbar photos today, as is always the case with Lou's work. But I gotta know, who are the bunting heads? I will do a little research and try and find out. Thanks Lou and Sue and Major.
ReplyDeleteI think the bunting and pictures are of all different Americans - these were decorations for THE AMERICAN GAZETTE PARADE - “salute to the American Hero”
ReplyDeleteThanks Lou & Sue, wonderful photos.
ReplyDeleteThanks Major.
Nanook, I can’t imagine going to Disneyland with a camera such as the one cousin Mark has! I used to whine about lugging my little point and shoot Nikon anywhere. You’ll see more of those “cameos” in an upcoming post! I think the color (probably bad Photoshop work on my part) on the “brown and white” signs is off, I’ve seen those signs in person and they were actually much more red. But they still don’t hold a candle to the Santa Fe signs!
ReplyDeleteK. Martinez, I thought the same thing, “How can it have been another 35 years since these pictures were taken?”. My grandma used to always tell me how fast the years went by, and I thought she was nuts, ha ha.
Mike Cozart, interesting, I didn’t really notice the green on the station, but of course now that you’ve pointed it out, I can’t “unsee” it. Maybe it was supposed to feel like bronze with a patina, like you might see on some grand old buildings. Strange how color schemes for a different park would influence the colors at Disneyland - sort of like how the colors at WDW popped up in Anaheim.
TokyoMagic!, Lou took a lot of pictures on that visit, so you’ll be seeing many more in the coming weeks and months. Maybe Sue will chime in if she knows whether Lou went to the park multiple days in a row. I still don’t understand how they updated the attendance on the train station sign, even if they electric counter was doing its thing out front. Did they change it daily? Or weekly? As I said to Nanook, you’ll see more details of those signs with the famous faces on Main Street coming up.
Andrew, don’t be silly, Buzz Aldrin and Jackie Robinson weren’t Presidents! ;-)
stu29573, I hate to always complain about Kim Irvine’s color choices, she seems like a nice lady, but ay-yi-yi, I truly do dislike her color choices in almost every instance.
Jonathan, patience, grasshopper! You’ll see many more of those mystery faces in an upcoming post. Now that I see that there’s so much interest (controversy??) maybe I’d better move things around so that you’ll all see “who’s who”.
Mike Cozart, wow, that’s a parade name that is not familiar to me at all!
DrGoat, Sue has been slaving over a red hot scanner and has sent me a TON of photos lately!
"I've heard that in the good old days, being a sweep was a great job"
ReplyDeleteNow I've got "Chim Chim Cheree" stuck in my head. (Autocorrect tried to change it to "Chin Chum Cheree.")
Mike, thanks for that info about the black and white pics. I have a pretty good memory, but I just couldn't remember why they were there. As I mentioned, I can only I.D. John F. Kennedy in my photo from Feb. 1985. And I forgot that the "American Gazette Parade" went on into (or was brought back) in 1985. I believe that I only saw it in '83 and '84, when it was a tribute to the Olympic athletes.
ReplyDeleteMajor, the link below includes quite few pics from that parade. I'm really hoping that Lou's parade pics that you mentioned, are of the same parade, because I REALLY liked that parade and I know that his pics will be far superior to mine!
https://meettheworldinprogressland.blogspot.com/2018/02/olympic-spirit-at-disneyland-1980s-mega.html
Not only the dormers, but the fancy decorative shingles in bands of different styles.
ReplyDeleteDisneyland Main Street was a tour-de-force of doing it right, and as soon as the old guard aged out, it started going downhill.
Thanks Mike Cozart for the info on the colors. I never saw the Park in this era, and returning in 1993 was such a shock.
Thanks Major, Lou and Sue!
JG
Major, to 'sort of' answer your question, sometimes my dad went to the park multiple days in a row, but sometimes he would be on a business trip and would get in only a couple hours at Disneyland. I don't know about this particular trip, though I'm sure my dad has notes somewhere, with the exact date(s) he was at Disneyland, back then.
ReplyDeleteThe parade that day (March 8, 1985) was the "Disneyland 30th Year" parade - at least that's what's on the parade 'banners' in the photos I scanned for the Major. I think it's different than the parade that you, TokyoMagic, had posted. I wonder if Disneyland had changed the parade in March, or did they ever do two different parades in one day?? When the Major posts those pictures, you folks will have to let me know . . .
I'm pretty sure that one of those black and white photos, in the patriotic bunting, had the Major's picture.
Thanks for all the interesting facts and nice comments, everyone!
Sue
Even though the tag line of THE AMERICAN GAZETTE PARADE was “a salute to the American hero” the parade was more about the fashion , music and fads of each decade from 1900 through 1980 ( 1985) there was a underlying song , but then each decade featured live bands on a float or vehicle playing the music typical of that time.
ReplyDeleteEach head float for each decade was a giant front page from the fictional “American Gazette” featuring headlines describing things popular for that decade like “ AMERICA CAKE WALKS INTO THE 20th CENTURY” , “WOMEN DEMAND THE VOTE! LET A SISTER VOTE LIKE A MISTER” , “JAZZERCISE IS TOTALY AWESOME : TAKES THE 80’s BY STORM!” Etc, etc.
Thru-out various decades, period garbed “Americans” handed out the newest “edition” of the American Gazette newspaper - a rolled souvenir copy featuring the headlines from each Decade title float shown in the parade. I still have mine handed to me by a marching 1910 Suffragette .
The parade wasn’t giant but it was fun. I believe it ran twice a day as did the Disneyland 30th Parade AND the Main Street Electrical Parade in the evening!!
Mike, it looks like maybe you were already typing your comments (that are directly above) BEFORE you saw mine and my questions regarding the parade(s)?? How 'cool,' if that's the case! :)
ReplyDelete