Concept and construction
While many people wrote letters to Walt Disney about visiting the Disney Studio, he realized that a functional movie studio had little to offer to the visiting fans. This began to foster ideas of building a site near his Burbank studios for tourists to visit. His ideas then evolved to a small play park with a boat ride and other themed areas. Disney's initial concept, his "Mickey Mouse Park", started with an 8-acre (3.2 ha) plot across Riverside Drive. Disney started to visit other parks for inspiration and ideas, including Tivoli Gardens in Denmark, Efteling in The Netherlands and Greenfield Village, Playland, and Children's Fairyland in the USA. He started his designers working on concepts, but these would grow into a project much larger than could be contained in 8 acres (3.2 ha).[
Disney hired a consultant, Harrison Price from Stanford Research Institute, to gauge the proper area to locate the theme park based on the area's potential growth. With the report from Price, Disney acquired 160 acres (65 ha) of orange groves and walnut trees in Anaheim, southeast of Los Angeles in neighboring Orange County.
Difficulties in obtaining funding prompted Disney to investigate new methods of fundraising. He decided to use television, and created a show named Disneyland which was broadcast on the then-fledgling ABC television network. In return, the network agreed to help finance the new park. For the first five years of its operation, Disneyland was owned by Disneyland, Inc., which was jointly owned by Walt Disney Productions, Walt Disney, Western Publishing and ABC. In addition, Disney rented out many of the shops on Main Street, U.S.A. to outside companies. By 1960 Walt Disney Productions completely bought out ABC's, Western Publishing and Walt Disney's shares.
Construction began on July 16, 1954 and cost $17 million to complete. The park was opened one year and one day later. U.S. Route 101 (later Interstate 5) was under construction at the same time just to the north of the site; in preparation for the traffic Disneyland was expected to bring, two more lanes were added to the freeway before the park was finished.
July 1955: Dedication Day and Opening Day
The event did not go smoothly. The park was overcrowded as the by-invitation-only affair was plagued with counterfeit tickets. Only 11,000 people were expected to show up, but a staggering 28,154 was the eventual population. Movie stars and other famous figures scheduled to come every two hours showed up all at once. All major roads nearby were empty. The temperature was an unusually high 101 °F (38 °C), and a plumbers' strike left many of the park's drinking fountains dry. Disney was given a choice of having working fountains or running toilets and he chose the latter.
This generated negative publicity since Pepsi sponsored the park's opening; disappointed guests believed the inoperable fountains were a cynical way to sell soda. The asphalt that had been poured just that morning was so soft that ladies' high-heeled shoes sank into it. Vendors ran out of food. A gas leak in Fantasyland caused Adventureland, Frontierland, and Fantasyland to close for the afternoon. Some parents were seen throwing their children over the shoulders of crowds to get them onto rides such as the King Arthur Carrousel.
The park got such bad press for the "International Press Preview" that Walt Disney invited attendees back for a private "second day" to experience Disneyland properly. In later years Disney and his 1955 executives referred to July 17, 1955 as "Black Sunday". Today, cast members wear pin badges on July 17 in celebration of the park's anniversary, stating how many years it has been since the 1955 opening. But for the first decade or so, Disney officially stated that opening day was on July 18, 1955 and celebrated the 18th as its Anniversary. For example, a 1967 Disneyland press release referred to July 17, 1955, as "Dedication Day" and not "Opening Day."
On Opening Day, Monday July 18, crowds started to gather in line as early as 2 a.m., and the first person to buy a ticket and enter the park was David MacPherson with admission ticket number 2, as Roy O. Disney arranged to pre-purchase ticket number 1 from Curtis Lineberry, the manager of admissions. Walt Disney had an official photo taken with two children, Christine Vess Watkins (age 5) and Michael Schwartner (7); the photo of the three carries an inaccurate caption identifying the children as the first two guests of Disneyland. Watkins and Schwartner both received lifetime passes to Disneyland that day, and MacPherson was awarded one shortly thereafter, which was later expanded to every single Disney-owned park in the world. Approximately 50,000 guests attended the Monday Opening day.
The early years
In September 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev spent thirteen days in the United States. On his visit Khrushchev had two requests: to visit Disneyland and to meet John Wayne, Hollywood's top box-office draw. Due to the Cold War tension and security concerns, he was famously denied an excursion to Disneyland. The Shah of Iran and Empress Farah were invited to Disneyland by Walt Disney in early 1960s. The video of the Shah and Disney riding the Matterhorn roller coaster is available on YouTube.There was some controversy about the lack of African American employees at the park. Since 1963, civil rights activists were pressuring Disneyland to start hiring black people. The Disneyland executives said they would "consider" their requests. Despite a lack of Black employees, Disneyland had hired people of Asian descent like Ty Wong and Bob Kuwahara.
1990s transition: Park becomes Resort
In the late 1990s, work began to expand on the one-park, one-hotel property. Disneyland Park, the Disneyland Hotel and the site of the original parking lot as well as acquired surrounding properties were earmarked to become part of a greater vacation resort development. The new components of this resort were to be another theme park, Disney California Adventure Park; a shopping, dining and entertainment complex, Downtown Disney; a remodeled Disneyland Hotel; Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa; and the acquisition of the Pan Pacific Hotel (later to be remodeled and renamed Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel). Because the existing parking lot (south of Disneyland) was built upon by these projects, the six-level, 10,250-space Mickey and Friends parking structure was constructed in the northwest corner of the property. At the time of its completion in 2000, it was the largest parking structure in the United States.
HTML Comment Box is loading comments...
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar