View from Walt's Apartment

I didn't take nearly as many photos of Disneyland while I was a Cast Member as I should have. Nevertheless, on a few occasions I did bring in my camera to take some photos before the Park opened or after the Park closed. Because I worked in Guest Relations, most of those photos are from Main Street, U.S.A. Luckily, there's something really timeless about seeing an empty Main Street. For reasons I'll explain in a future post, I also got to spend quite a bit of time in Walt's Apartment. While I'll likely share those photos here in the future, be aware that many turned out a slight bit overexposed. I think those of you who like the vintage photos will enjoy this one:

This is a view from Walt's Apartment window onto an empty Town Square, September 3, 2002. I can imagine Walt waking up and looking out... and then feeling anxious for the Guests to arrive so he could see their excitement and happiness!

As a super high-resolution bonus counterpart, I present this photo from the other side of Town Square:

It was taken from a moving Fire Engine on the morning of Friday, March 7, 2008, transporting me and others to the window dedication of one Bob Gurr. I had my family choose the Fire Engine because that was Bob's addition to Disneyland. The other vehicles were Walt's idea, but the fire truck was all Bob. Bob explained it to the Walt Disney Imagineering Fan Club in April 2000 as follows, after relating how Walt had earlier suggested an Omnibus for Main Street:

...one day in the spring of 1958, Walt comes into my office as he usually does and he just sort of sits there and I looked at him and I said, "Walt, you know there's one thing we haven't got in Disneyland! We don't have a fire engine on Main Street!" And he said, "Yeah, we don't have a fire engine." Privately, I wanted a fire engine and I knew that everybody else told me that the only thing that ever goes into Disneyland…those ideas come from Walt, they don't come from anybody else. But I wanted a fire engine. Anyway, he goes away and a little while later Accounting phones up and says, "The charge number for the Fire Engine is…" so I knew that Walt had gone to Accounting and had decided we're going to have a fire engine. That's the only attraction in Disneyland that's my attraction.