Edward T. Meck Window

This is a neat bit of trivia I just found out this week. Above the China Closet sits a window which reads "The Disneyland News / Edward T. Meck / Editor in Chief."

Meck headed up the Disneyland Publicity Department beginning a couple months before the Park opened and continuing in that capacity until his retirement in December 1972. (You can read more about him on the Disney Legends page.) He had a grand bash upon his retirement that included the Disneyland Band, a bunch of Disney characters, and over three hundred others. At that ceremony, he was presented with a model of his Main Street window, just as honorees today receive a replica.

But his (and this is the trivia part) was the first window added since the Park's opening! I'd always wondered about the chronology of the windows, and this is an important piece of that. I also learned that Meck's son worked at Disneyland, too. As of several years ago, he was an hourly in Resort Transportation and Parking, after retirement from his career.

The Photo Disneyland Doesn't Want You to See

After returning from a successful thesaurus networking trip (perhaps the first time such words were ever uttered), I'm still trying to catch up on, well, everything. The following photograph was taken Thursday morning in the Pinocchio parking lot. After parking in the structure (which I always do with much regret), I planned to walk to Downtown Disney. I snapped a couple photos of the Pinocchio lot from the structure itself, then one of the structure from the lot, and then this one of the parking marker.

At the time I marveled that these were now ten years old--and I remember parking in the lot when it was brand new. Just as I took this photo, however, a Security Cast Member in a patrol unit approached me (well, he stopped a ways away and shouted through a rolled-down window) and told me photography was not permitted there. Since that statement didn't make any sense, my first reaction was to question why that was. As I evaluated the possible responses, I thought "security" or "because I said so" would be what I'd get, so I complied and continued walking. I brought this up to appropriate people, who agreed there is no blanket prohibition of photography there. I wonder what secrets are hidden in this Pinocchio sign that are waiting to be discovered?

BMOD

Do you want to be a BMOD? Do you? This advertisement, from the April 26, 1958 Los Angeles Times, helpfully describes the steps required to be that Big Man on Dates. Oddly enough, it revolves around Disneyland! Even more oddly, it uses DateNite rather than Date Nite. Perhaps created by a rogue marketing Cast Member?

At any rate, I'm happy to throw in "a buck for hamburgers and cokes" to be home free!

You Might Have Parked Here

OK, show of hands: How many of you out there have a piece of the old parking lot? Above is my own sample, obtained personally in early summer 1997. At that time, most of the original parking lot remained open, but they had closed off Alice and Bambi (and perhaps a couple others?) to begin construction of the East Esplanade. I was with a sister and a friend; when we arrived I had us go over and take a look. There wasn't much to see through the green screen on the fence, but I did note several pieces of the parking lot. Of course, it would be silly to walk around Disneyland with a rock all day! But on our way out, I did pick up the biggest piece I could find.

But we had a problem: we hadn't the faintest idea where we parked. Well, we had a vague idea... maybe somewhere near the center, on the western side. We wandered around for at least fifteen minutes. I don't know that we had any particular strategy--just moseying 'round and 'round. When it felt like our search was futile, we finally spotted it in the next row over! Our journey its direction coincided with the arrival of Security. If you can believe this, they wanted to know what we teenagers were doing wandering around the parking lot with a giant rock! Well! I'm not sure the Security Officer entirely "bought" that I just wanted a piece of the parking lot. I think our saving grace was actually locating our car. He might have been satisfied with us driving off, whereas if we continued wandering, I might have had to forsake my souvenir.

But the post wouldn't be complete without a few shots of the destruction that made my traumatic experience possible. I'm unsure of the exact date of this photo, but it was taken around the time of my story:

I got my license on January 20, 1998. Two days later, they closed the parking lot!

Number Two!

Here's a bit of a treat (or maybe a letdown once you actually read through it...): Volume 1, Number 2 of the Disneyland Line, April 11, 1969. I'll only point out how obviously the Cast was like a family; the departure, marriage, and birth announcements feel like they should be in a small-town newspaper. If anybody has Vol. 1, No. 1, I'd love to see it!

Khrushchev at Disneyland (or Not)

This may warrant a fuller post when I have time to do more digging. I've recently begun to explore Disneyland at the National Archives and last Wednesday had the sudden realization that there must be a lot of material on Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's September 1959 visit to the United States. We Disneyland fans remember his non-visit to Disneyland (on September 19), but he had a full plate of activities across the country, including New York, Washington, D.C., and even Iowa. The State Department coordinated his visit with Soviet officials. Within Record Group 59 (General Records of the Department of State), I've managed to locate a fair amount of material on his visit in general, but not as much on the Disneyland visit as I would have liked. But, I still have some leads to trace.

In the meantime, you can lunch on this excerpt from a confidential "Summary of Planning for the Khrushchev Tour." The report itself is undated, but is attached to a memorandum from September 25, 1959. The following comes from the final pages (6 and 7) of the report:

Items Eliminated by Mutual Agreement

Florida
Texas (ranches and oil industry)
Oklahoma City (agricultural fair)
Auto trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco
Disneyland

Among the items that were eliminated from the Los Angeles program were a visit to the community of Anaheim and to Disneyland. The visit to Anaheim, which is an extremely rapid growing community, was first suggested to Ambassador Menshikov on August 21. The basis of this suggestion was on invitation from the City Manager of Anaheim [Keith Murdoch] dated August 7, 1959. In that invitation the City Manager suggested that Mr. Khrushchev would be very much interested in the awe-inspiring sights of Disneyland, which is located close to the community of Anaheim.

This item was retained on the tentative program until approximately the first week in September. It was eliminated following a survey of Disneyland made by security agents of both the Department of State and the Soviet Government. After returning from their survey of Los Angeles, Soveit security agents Zakharov and Bardin commented in a conversation with Protocol officers of the Department of State that Soviet security requirements precluded a visit to Disneyland by Mr. Khrushchev.

Two reasons led to the recommendation that Disneyland be eliminated. First, since the visit was to take place on a Saturday, extraordinary security problems would be involved. However, it was the judgment of the security officers that the security problems were not insurmountable. Nevertheless, this question, in conjunction with the time factor, strengthened their recommendation. It was estimated that it would take approximately an hour and a half to two hours to travel from the luncheon at 20th Century-Fox to Disneyland and return to the hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Because of the shortness of time, the inclusion of this item would have left little time to visit Disneyland, let alone inspect a housing development in the community of Anaheim. For these reasons, Disneyland was quietly dropped from the tentative program by mutual agreement on both sides. The Department has no record that Ambassador Menshikov registered any complaints regarding the elimination of this item.

Other accounts of his visit cite the involvment of the Los Angeles Police Department, but there's no hint of them in this report.

On the day that his visit might have occurred, Khrushchev apparently blew up in anger when he found out he couldn't go. Either he was grossly ill-informed over his travel schedule, or it was all an act. But it may also have been that he didn't really want to be in LA. Internal State Department conversations indicate that, of San Francisco or LA, Khrushchev strongly preferred San Francisco. He didn't have any desire to visit Hollywood, which he found unrepresentative of America!

I'd really love to find the records of the State Department office that coordinated the security--and especially find a written report on security at Disneyland. The recent post at Miscellainey reminds me that there could be other interesting State Department records related to Walt Disney. I'll share my discoveries, whatever they may be, here in the future!

Tomorrowland Autopia Demolition

Do you remember where you were on September 6, 1999? Yeah, I think we all do. I spent my day riding the Tomorrowland Autopia on its final day. I don't have many good demolition photos, but I'll try to cover that up with some nifty panoramas I made back in July and September 1999:

Immediately after closing the attraction, Disneyland boxed up the Cast Members for sale on eBay. In their haste, they left behind this jacket:

The cars took it upon themselves to offer the attraction a farewell salute...

...before they were driven over Backstage, to be boxed up and sold on eBay.

By September 24, without regular maintenance, nature began to reclaim the Autopia area:

Before Disney struck a deal with Caterpillar for Bountiful Valley Farm, they obviously investigated a tractor ride around Tomorrowland:

And one more panorama, from October 11: