Town Square, 1996
We have previously looked at some of Mr. X's 1996 photos of the Canoes in Frontierland. Today I have a series of photos that he snapped while standing on the steps of Main Street Station as various vehicles passed by. Mr. X is particularly fond of those vehicles!
It's comforting to know that there is a Motorized Fire Truck at Disneyland; you never know when a popcorn wagon will burst into flames and potentially injure guests with red-hot popping kernels. Notice that the horse-drawn fire wagon is parked just outside the Firehouse.
Here comes the Omnibus! I love it, but dang, I miss the mini-posters that used to adorn the sides of that vehicle. Why can't they continue that tradition with nice new mini-posters? Did somebody decide that that feature was an unacceptable anachronism? That seems hard to believe, since themes are often "out the window" these days.
And finally, a Horse Drawn Streetcar, with no passengers! Being early in the day, it makes sense that nobody was ready to head toward the exit just yet. A large group of guests is gathered to our left, maybe waiting for a guided tour? Two tots sit in the driver's seat of the old fire wagon, I didn't know that people were allowed to climb on!
Thanks to Mr. X, as always!
25 comments:
In the 1st pic, I see a Disneyland 40th anniversary banner on the lamppost. What I don't see are the horses in front of the horse-drawn fire wagon. They must have borrowed the ghostly horses from the hearse outside the Haunted Mansion.
In the 3rd pic, There's another gaggle of people on the right of the photo. They're all looking at their (presumably) Disneyland maps. Maybe another tour group?
I'm struck by how small the vehicles, and everything else, look in these photos. Maybe Mr. X is using a wide-angle lens which makes things look farther away.
Thank you Mr. X, whoever you are. And thank you Mr. Pepperidge.
I miss the days when the park wasn’t crammed with millions of guests by 11am …. Everyone pushing strollers with 1 and 2 day old babies and everyone glued to their Cel phones …. Making reservations and checking exit times … or getting in line to buy Starbucks coffee they could have purchased in 30 million additional locations.
Recently with the extreme California heat and fire warnings fireworks and Fantasmic performances have been suspended and any other “shinny projection “ distractions as well. THE GOOD NEWS is that the all the Main Street Vehicles ( except the horsecars) have been operating into the evening . The Sailing Ship Columbia too has been sailing till about 9:15.
It’s sad and I feel the Disney theme park is going in a very bad direction . The pre shows and themed ques that imagineers spent so much time and money to create is wasted as guests pay extra to bypass the lines ….. and even then it doesn’t matter … everyone is on their Cel phone either ignoring everything in Disneyland or forced to miss things because Disney has its guests spending all their time checking wait times , making reservations and getting GENNIE fast passes ………
So many people in the parks but so many of them just ignore everything ….. and as Major said theming is increasingly being ignored by management as they find ways to jamb unrelated merchandise into the various lands. It’s getting bad. And then Disneyland is no longer DISNEYLAND …. But a amusement park .
Major : that’s a great question: all other Disney park Omnibuses feature add cards and they always have EXCEPT Disneyland after the first ones were removed when the buses were loaned to Epcot Center. When the new replacement omnibuses were built they were sans Ad cards .
Walt Disney World had attraction ad cards applied around 1972/1973. Sone were updated over time then in the late 90’s completely redesigned . And then about 10 years ago the attraction cards were replaced with period looking ad cards for business and restaurants along Main Street USA.
Tokyo Disneyland’s omnibuses have always featured attraction ad cards and still use them today.
Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland’s Omnibuses both used the Victorian style advertisements for Main Street shops.
Now on the other hand Disneyland’s horse drawn street cars have always featured period ad cards for shops and attractions in Disneyland while Walt Disney World’s Horsecars never did and use the clerestory windows for lighting.
Disneyland Paris’ enclosed horse cars also feature ad cards identical to their omnibus ad cards.
Vague memories of a family excursion to Disney World in the 80s. We stayed in what I think was the Dutch Americana, since rebranded. There were official WDW buses connecting to the parks, and my parents were very impressed by their cleanliness. I was impressed by the ads inside the buses: nice color cards for various Disney Afternoon shows and other Disney stuff.
There was a time when synergy was kind of cute rather than scary or annoying. The real immersion was the knowledge that everything you saw, touched, tasted, heard or smelled was somehow Disney; ridiculous and sublime simultaneously. On the home front the old Disney Channel was of course loaded with informercials for the parks and upcoming movies, and when they transitioned to a ordinary commercial channel there was a period of the ads being for Disney licensed products.
Real genius was in theming the hotel rooms. Even if you woke up in the middle of the night, you were reminded you were at Disney and not at some airport chain hostelry.
A few nights ago was digging about and flipped through a pile of old Disney comic digests. There you got not only Mickey and the Gang, but adaptations of features, Disney live action films, and even some TV episodes. One stop service.
First photo - is that a red fire alarm pull to the left of the chemical wagon?
The tree bocks the upstairs windows of the firehouse, so I’m not sure if Walt was there. If there were only some other indicator that might give us a clue…
Chuck, if we were to peek inside Walt's apartment, we would see that it's empty. However, if we were to take a picture of the empty apartment, the developed photograph would reveal a morose-looking Walt Disney, eating cake and ice cream off of the floor.
Tokyo, that is a sad thought.
I count at least five trash cans in these scenes, including the one inside the Emporium door.
I see this is after the sad reskinning of the Global Van Line facade. Still not sure why the good architectural look had to be sacrificed for the incorrect 80’s-90’s look we have here, just to add more room in the Emporium for plush toys.
DBenson, those comic digests were great. I had a big pile of them once…
JG
Reading Mike's comment made me sad, but I already knew the unfortunate facts. The fact that people are ignoring the myriad of wonderful things people took years and a lot of work to create. Cell phones & the new normal. I hate it.
One of the best parts of the Major's blog is we get to remember the real Disneyland, as it was intended by Walt and others. Not only remember, but GDBers who have had or still have a close relationship or were employed by DISNEYLAND, give invaluable information and experiences that they have had in their time with the park. Can't get that anywhere else, so thanks Major.
TM! That was a sobering scenario you laid out there.
Thanks Mr.X, looks like a great day to be at the park. You even get a little peek at the cannon in the first 2 photos.
And thanks to all the commenters.
Major-
MIKE's tale of woes is all too true - but this is the reality of the present day world... and counting.
As for that building "reskinning" JG points out, I think that took place in 1993, allowing the former locker space to become the home of Carriage Place Clothing Co. As 'nice' as the facades appear here, there's something a bit 'too perfect', just a bit 'off-putting' - kind of like many of the current-day guests'-! Oh, well.
@ Chuck-
That 'red thing' near the Fire Station is actually a ringdown telephone so children can speak directly to Santa Claus-!
Thanks to the Major & Mr. X.
@ Chuck-
Okay... LOOK HERE for that pull box. Thanks to Daveland... that $50 payment from the Major is "in the mail".
https://www.davelandweb.com/townsquare/images/DSC_4370.jpg
JB, they often pulled the horse-drawn fire wagon out for display, while the motorized fire truck would be used for guests. I do wonder if those groups are for tours, though I guess we will never know for sure. I doubt Mr. X was fancy enough to own a wide-angle lens, but I can ask him!
Mike Cozart, while people will certainly be looking at their cell phones, Disney does not help matters; you need various apps to make restaurant reservations, or to check on your fast passes (or whatever those are called now), etc. I once had a chance to talk to Tony B. (years ago) and he said that they were (at the time) considering putting in some features in It’s a Small World that would involve guests looking at their phones during the ride. I bit my tongue, but thought that it was a HORRIBLE idea. They were so focused on “interactivity”, without seeing the bigger picture. If possible, I would only use my phone for photos, and maybe texting other members of my party so that we could meet up in front of the castle, or whatever. I feel the same way when I go to see live music, and can’t see the band because everyone in front of me is holding their phones up over their heads to record the show. Just watch the damn thing! They aren’t even enjoying it. It’s very frustrating. I’d love it if they brought back the mini posters on the side of the Omnibus, but am not holding my breath.
DBenson, the “Dutch Americana”? You stayed in a CIGAR? Ha ha, I’m hilarious. I just watched some of the D23 parks panel, and man, it was not impressive, in my opinion. Lots of stuff that I did not care about at all, or else announcements that were vague and might not even happen. Meanwhile, all sorts of rumors about certain attractions have been swirling around the internet - there was no mention of those. I know that I am in the minority, but I am not thrilled with more Avengers Campus junk, and not really into more Star Wars stuff. Disney is about to celebrate their 100th anniversary, they have a century of wonderful films and characters that will never be used because folks don’t have memories longer than about two years. Yeah! Kids these days! Why don’t they get haircuts! I’m not familiar with Disney comics digests. Or maybe I am and have just forgotten?
Chuck, that red object is where you would order your cheeseburger, root beer, and onion rings. (Great, now I’m hungry). Walt was there, in his robot body, his brain floating in a jar of greenish fluid. You know it’s true.
TokyoMagic!, now now, you know that Walt would be eating a bowl of chili with some crackers while sitting on the floor! But he definitely would be morose. “What the hell is a Star Wars, anyway?”.
JG, It truly is a mystery to me why they had to change a very interesting Bekins/Global Van Lines building façade into something so generic that one doesn’t even see it. Did they add an upstairs? At least that would make sense from a functional point of view. Still… why so boring? I was more of a Mad Magazine kid, along with monster magazines. I do wish I’d had an older kid who was into comics in my life.
DrGoat, I’m sure it’s a function of my age, but I sure don’t feel the need to be glued to my phone at all times. I always wonder about folks who stop at a red light and immediately start looking at their texts. Can’t you go for five minutes without checking? Is it that important? Cell phones are a remarkable tool in many ways, but like anything, they can be abused and misused.
DrGoat, hey! I’m a commenter too!
Nanook, I’m not sure what the advantage would be in renaming that building “Carriage Place Clothing Co.”… maybe it’s not storage lockers anymore? Now that I think of it, the lockers might be off of East Center Street. I want to talk to Santa Claus, I never got my football or my chemistry set.
Nanook, as soon as I saw that link I knew it would be to Daveland…
"...a morose-looking Walt Disney, eating cake and ice cream off of the floor."
I needed that laugh today!
It really is weird to see no advertising on the Omnibus. You would think advertising would be the one thing that never goes out of style.
Looking at the feller with the big camcorder in the first picture, I can actually smell that sort of hot plastic smell ours always gave off. It really took commitment to carry one of those suckers around all day.
The way so much of your park day has to be arranged through phone apps just makes me sad. It's actively hostile toward older guests and guests with disabilities. If anyone had told me in 1996 that I'd be looking back on it as "the good old days," I would have laughed even harder than I did at the mental image of Walt's ghost eating cake off the floor.
Big thanks as always to Mr. X!
And many happy belateds to Stu! Sorry to have missed the virtual festivities yesterday!
Melissa, the fact that there is that big blank space where the mini-posters should go is strange. It’s like a missing tooth! I wonder if that guy with the camcorder managed to capture any video footage that would be considered rare and amazing today? It’s often those weird little things that we don’t expect at the time that turn out to be interesting years or decades later. I agree with you regarding phones and older guests; my mom got some USC football tickets to go to a game with friends, but they require an app for parking, and she doesn’t have a smart phone. Their response was basically, “Oh well!”.
Melissa, you’ve just extended the party!
Major-
Oh - you 'non-shopper', you-! The Carriage Place Clothing Co. was an extension of The Emporium - and I believe at the time of its opening, it featured tee shirts and sweatshirts - maybe even adorned with "Carriage Place Clothing Co." labels-!
I'm with Melissa; I got a laugh out of Tokyo!'s reference to his post from yesterday concerning the ghostly 'Children of the Damned' birthday photo. Thanks for the mental image, TM!
Thank you Major! I usually don't forget that you are the nexus and provider of this, my favorite blog.
That Emporium annex extension done in the late 1980’s has always bothered me. I know I’ve mentioned it before , but the exterior was not designed by WED/WDI. WDI was so busy with Splash Mountain, Disney MGM studios and some Epcot expansion it was farmed out to a Los Angeles architectural firm who had worked with Disney many times ….. many of its employees had started out as draftsmen ( drafts people) at WED. Now as to WHY this facade wasn’t art directed by WDI is beyond me. They’re had to be SOMEONE at Disneyland or WDI who signed off on it …… and it’s awful!!! I think it was the first time I ever was aware of a BAD design going into the parks at the time.
I don’t know if any of you remember, but the interior of “carriage place” was to accommodate the increasing popularity of Disney’s children fashions and adult character clothing - before this time only hats, a few high end ties and souvenir T shirts and sweat shirts were popular …. But in the 1980’s that began to change….. a reason the Disney Stores were born and Disney catalog sales. The emporium extension also added dressing rooms ( all removed in the early 2000’s because of shoplifting ) a enlarged emporium stockroom and the alteration of the Crystal Arcade and the relocation of the Disneyanna shop to its own space across the street.
The Childrens section of Carriage Place was done to look like a nursery and interiors group added portraits of Victorian children - sharp Disneyland guests would notice baby pictures of Walt Disney were secretly included.
The Emporium desperately needed space and the day lockers were being enlarged and relocated to where they are now on East Center Street….. but that new locker location started out to be a Segway tunnel to give guests access to a NEW TOMORROWLAND being designed …. And a temporary theme for the lockers was “TOONTOWN” and this locker retheme was expanded to a whole toon street behind Main Street …. Then a while TOONTOWN “land”.
Correction: Then evolved into a whole “TOONTOWN” land.
MAJOR: I speculate the reason the omnibus’s no longer have any exterior attraction Ad signs is because they were built along with a set of omnibuses for EPCOT’s World Showcase. Disneyland loaned our two original omnibuses to help out in carrying guests around World Showcase while a set of new Epcot buses were fabricated . The old Disneyland buses didn’t last long in the Florida humidity and rain and rusted away fast. WDW world added to replacement omnibuses to the Epcot bus order being built at the WDW central shops . Since the Epcot center buses had not attraction signs … I assume they built the 2 Disneyland replacement buses without a space for them - and maybe assumed Disneyland would add them on their own ( at Disneyland’s expense) a mistake that happened is that the Epcot Center World Showcase OMNIBUSES were built off of WDW 1971 Main Street USA Omnibus plans - these were MUCH larger than Disneyland’s reduced scale buses were. So when the new replacement buses arrived at Disneyland , oops!! BIG WDW MAIN STREET OMNIBUSES were now driving around Disneyland’s miniature Main Street. Everyone got over it , because they still operate today.
Dreamy crowd level.
@ MIKE-
Thanks for the date correction and for providing another 'experienced architectural point-of-view' confirming my feelings towards the "bad design" on those awful-looking facades - regrettably, only the beginning of such shortsighted decisions.
The redesigned buildings aren't bad, but are clearly not up to the standard of the rest of Main Street. They look like a single building with multiple facades applied (like some condo complexes these days) rather than separate adjoining buildings on the length of Main St. It wouldn't be so noticable if it weren't literally the first thing you're likely to see when you come out of the entrance tunnels.
@ Dean Finder-
Exactly my point: "They look like a single building with multiple facades applied (like some condo complexes these days)"
The Main Street Medical building ( first aide) added 10 years ago was also designed by an outside firm features very “un-Disneyland” and un- Main Street elements but doesn’t seem as cheap and tacky looking as the Emporium Annex …. But still doesn’t feel very Victorian or Disney.
"So when the new replacement buses arrived at Disneyland , oops!!"
It was a blunderbuss!
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