Walt Disney based the concept of the original Main Street at Disneyland on his boyhood home of Marceline, Missouri. For him - and many others of his generation - it presented a nostalgic, small-town ideal that was beginning to vanish in America. He wanted the entrance to Disneyland to be, not only functional, but also comforting and familiar.
When Walt Disney World was being designed, the Imagineers decided to take a slightly different approach with Main Street. They felt the idea of a small Midwestern town wouldn't be as familiar to an East Coast audience - and the scale wouldn't quite match the much larger proportions of the Florida project.
So instead, they modeled Main Street at Walt Disney World on a more urban and upscale East Coast city from the turn of the 20th century - with taller buildings, wider streets and more ornate Victorian design. Apart from the different geographic setting, though, the sentiment captured here is the same as at Disneyland... nostalgia, comfort and familiarity in a common past.
For the next couple of weeks, we'll explore Main Street, U.S.A. in the Magic Kingdom in more detail. To get you started, here are some links to earlier articles on the blog:
Stay tuned... There's much more to come!
What a great blog!
ReplyDeleteI´m a Disney fan and it´s wonderful to find a place with so much information about the parks and the history.