I See Disney. . . Everywhere.

It’s been a few weeks since my last post. I hit a bit of a speed bump on the road of life. I Frequent readers of The Disney Connection will not be surprised if I say Disney can creep into my thoughts, even at times and in places where even I would think it couldn’t possibly find a way in.

On one of our frequent trips into Manhattan, my wife and I had finished our lunch on a bench outside Mamoun’s Falafel (opened in 1971, they lay claim to being one of the first Falafel restaurants in the country and first in NYC).  We wandered the quirky streets of the West Village, famous in story, song, TV and movies. If you haven’t visited “The Village”, then perhaps you’ve seen When Harry Met Sally, the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Barefoot in the Park, Glee and so many others where the Village is featured prominently. No, I did not see a Disney item in the window of a second hand store to add to my collection. And it wasn’t a child in a stroller wearing a Disney t-shirt. Before I get to the answer, I need to go back in time a bit. Hang in there.

NYU is one, if not, the largest tenant of the Village. My son is a recent graduate of Tisch School of the Arts and my wife earned one of her two graduate degrees from NYU’S Gallatin School of individualized Study. In our previous lives as actors, my wife and I spent long hours in this artsy part of NYC.

The community center of this world is Washington Square Park.  The park’s dominating features are the Washington Square Arch at the northern gateway to the park and the fountain which sits to its South.

The Park has a tradition of celebrating nonconformity and the buildings surrounding the park have, at one time, probably served as homes and studios for artists and other artistic rabble rousers.

Today they are primarily NYU owned buildings. On a beautiful weekend like the day we were there, there’s all kinds of people and activities going on. So, what about that Disney thing I started this with? Ok, here it comes.

So, my wife and I are strolling through the park, enjoying the day along with hundreds of others. At one point I had my back to the fountain and I’ looking towards the Arch, and what is it that strikes me? Take a look at this picture.

Look familiar? No, not the Empire State Building. Maybe it’s the angle. How about now?

It’s easy to see how the hub and spoke design in WSP made me think of Disney theme parks. If you enter through the Arch the fountain is a Weenie, drawing visitors inside the park.

Just like the Disney Castles or Epcot’s Spaceship Earth. For those of who aren’t familiar with the term Weenie, here’s how Diane Disney Miller explained it to Jim Korkis:

Dad would park his car in the garage and come in to the house through the kitchen. He would go to the refrigerator and pull out two uncooked hot dogs, one for himself and one for the dog. He would play with her, wiggling the hot dog around and she would go wherever he moved around and was so happy when she finally got her treat. It was part of an evening ritual and both of them loved it and looked forward to it.”

Walt saw that he could control where he wanted her to go by waving this treat around and the joy she had when she finally got her reward. So, Walt used the word “wienie” to explain to the WED designers of Disneyland of how he wanted to get guests to move to a certain area.

From the hub you choose a path to other parts of the Park. Looks very much the same in WSP.

The parallels don’t end with the Park layout.

Maybe you want a Fantasyland experience. Well to the West there’s a children’s playground, covered in turf.

Want an experience in Adventureland? Take on the many chess hustlers who take up residence every day. Why is it an adventure? Well, most of them want to play what’s known as speed chess. The entire match might be over in less than 10 minutes. And, your wallet will be lighter as well.

Or, you can watch the skateboarders put their limbs on the line wherever there’s an open or mostly open piece of concrete and steps. or you can be a true adventurer and try it out for yourself. Skateboard and insurance not included in your admission price.

There’s even a nod to Frontierland if you take a look at this statue of Garbaldi.

He’d be right at home alongside the Country Bears, right?

As for the World of Tomorrow? Well, all around you, is the urban sprawl of the NYU campus, educating future leaders, artists, lawyers  and scientists in Tomorrowland.

And, doesn’t this building remind you of a certain futuristic, A-frame building that overlooks the Magic Kingdom in Florida?

You can almost see the monorail blazing a path against the sky. What about the monorail, you say? Okay, the NYC subway is hardly the futuristic transportation of tomorrow Walt envisioned. But there are plenty of busses and even ferries that touch all points of Manhattan island.

No fast passes are required to partake of the parks activities. Read a book, have a picnic or take in some sun in the warm weather. There’s even streetmosphere and entertainment, like this wonderful singer of French songs and her accompanist we sat to listen to that day.

You might get to hear other kinds of music as well as see jugglers, comedians and performance artists, just like the Boardwalk. I’ll bet the keyboard player at Casey’s on Main St. at the Magic Kingdom would love to play a piano like this.

 

Disney Parks have parades, you say. Yes, WSP has them too. Granted the parades are not often for entertainment, but might be organized protest marches. The park has a long history of social activism. The first labor march occurred there in 1834 to protest the use of prisoners to clean building stones. And, 20,000 marched in 1912 to remember the lives lost in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in a surrounding building.

Even so, the WSP are still colorful and entertaining. This one, on the day we were there, even had a red umbrella theme. Most of the marches end up in the shadow of the Arch, where there is usually staged a kind of Castle forecourt event, with speakers and other activities that usually elicit cries and applause from the gathered crowds.

Scene from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel recreating the Jane Jacobs WSP protest

In some cases you will need your park pass or don’t expect admittance. In the spring of 1961, the NYC parks commissioner refused a permit to the folksingers for their Sunday afternoon gatherings, because “the folksingers have been bringing too many undesirable beatnik elements into the park.”That April, folk music pioneer Izzy Young, who had been trying to get permits for the folksingers, along with about 500 musicians and supporters gathered in the park and sang songs without a permit, then held a procession from the park through the arch at Fifth Avenue, and marched to the Judson Memorial Church on the other side of the park. At about the time the musicians and friends reached the church, the New York City Police Department Riot Squad was sent into the park, attacked civilians with billy clubs, and arrested 10 people. The incident made the front pages of newspapers as far away as Washington, DC. Security in the Big Apple is not always as understanding as those in the happiest place on Earth.

Any visitor to a Disney Park is expecting to eat something. Not only does WSP have food choices inside, but around the park are more options than you can find in the EPCOT World showcase. Standing on Bleeker street near the park, you can see, an Irish pub, Felafel, Belgian fries, Sushi and other international choices. I’m not even counting the chains like Starbucks. Alas, no food plans are offered, unless you’re an NYU student, and your parents took out a second mortgage to pay the tuition.

There are often vendors in place of the expected gift shops. And you don’t have to go through one to exit WSP. This one looks an awful lot like a pin station. Not sure your going to find plush toys. But mid town at the Disney Store you’ll find Disney priducts with NYC themes.

I think its important in our fast paced lives to, occasionally, stop, look around, notice whats right in front of you. After all, life is what happens when you’re doing other things. Drag your eyes away from your particular device obsession and be in the moment. You’d be surprised what you might find and where it will lead you. I hope you’ve enjoyed this flight of fancy as I’ve taken you for the nickel tour of the inside of my Disney imagination. See ya real soon!

Keeping Walt’s Vision of EPCOT Alive

October 1st of this year marked the 35th Anniversary of EPCOT’s opening day. Since there’s a lot out there on the web to help us relive or discover that landmark day in Walt Disney World history, I am going to stick to my mission statement and explore how one part of the redefinition of EPCOT’s mission statement still may carry some of Walt’s original ideas for what he called “The Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow”. For those who would like to learn about or explore some of the Park’s background which Walt had imagined and planned, take a look at my previous posts The Unfulfilled Promise of  E.P.C.O.T. which offers Walt’s original vision for EPCOT and The Legacy of Walt Disney’s E.P.C.O.T where I look at the parts of his plan that are still evident throughout Walt Disney World.

I’m not sure that we can find any of the actual prototyping that the Community Walt hoped would lure big thinkers to EPCOT and encourage the development of life changing creativity. It’s still has the vestiges of a community in the World Showcase. Visitors can interact with ambassadors from different countries who still bring a touch of far off places to the permanent world’s fair. Granted, they are mostly involved with selling something or showing us to a table and serving food. But, I’ve found it’s easy to strike up a conversation with the expat Cast Members who are usually happy to talk proudly about their home country and what it’s like to spend an extended time in the U.S. There aren’t too many places in the world where you can, if you take the time, immerse yourself in the culture, art and products of 11 different countries.

Disneyland Small World dedication

Walt didn’t pass up an opportunity to remind us we lived in a larger world, filled with different people. The Disneyland opening ceremony of It’s a Small World featured over 50 foreign consulate representatives along with children wearing the traditional dress of many countries. Some of these children helped Walt pour water collected from every ocean plus major rivers and bodies of water from around the world into the flume, truly symbolizing the attraction’s theme of global unity. That message was re-affirmed at EPCOT’s opening ceremony  with a special “International Ceremony of the Waters”. Cultural representatives from 29 nations traveled to Epcot from around the world. Each one brought with them a container of water from their nation and poured it into the Fountain of Nations.

EPCOT Fountain of Nations dedication

While the future of EPCOT is still up in the air and will continue to be redefined by 21st century Disney management and Disney Imagineering, I would be hard pressed to call EPCOT a view of tomorrow. That would have required more attention to the experimentation Walt had hoped would result in something that would change or improve people’s lives. The only real experimentation going on at EPCOT is trying Coca Cola products at Club Cool. That and Disney working on new things to keep visitors coming to the Park while they complete construction on new attractions in an effort to redefine the Park’s story.

However, I believe that Walt and the WED staff of the sixties and seventies, would not be unhappy with one growing part of EPCOT – the festivals that have become annual occurrences. Walt’s vision of EPCOT was shaped by his turn of the century birth and early 20th century life experience. It was filled confidence that science could solve many of the world’s problems.  Nascent space travel programs, the eradication of terrible diseases like polio were in the news every day, as were problems of poverty, hunger and a desire to move up the economic and social ladders in cities, here and around the world. Walt’s life was certainly defined by his generation’s versions of those changes and issues.

Herb Ryman Concept Art

It does seem, though, that Walt’s original vision of a community that would attract industry and people to solve problems, educate and improve the world by developing and testing new applications of science and technology is giving way to Park that uses technology, some of it created by the Disney company, to entertain. But, that spirit to open people’s eyes to possibilities for a better world is in full display at the three annual festivals that lure thousands to a park that some would ordinarily have passed on (“Too much walking”, “So many attractions are closed”, “The attractions are so old” “Nothing new to see”).

The oldest one is The EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival. F&W expands the on the menus of the permanent World Showcase restaurants and adds culinary offerings from additional countries, including Belgium, Australia, Brazil, Greece, India, Ireland and others. Visitors get the chance to sample foods from around the world without reservations, big meal prices or long time investments. Themed offerings like Brewer’s Collection, Cheese Studio, Chocolate Studio, or Coastal Eats, make it possible to sample and learn more about culinary, ingredients, beverages, styles and regions. The festival features more than 100 inventive chefs from many countries and the Disney World property, exposing us to ingredients and preparation techniques we might not have had an opportunity to try. As someone who loves to cook, I’ve come back from the Festival or seen reviews of dishes, ingredients or techniques that I can incorporate into my own cooking. Food has become an ambassador, perhaps encouraging or inspiring some to guests to visit other places in the world.

2015

The same spirit of invention and education can be seen at the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival. The Festival promotes the beautification our world. It’s also an opportunity to teach existing, new and innovative ways to translate professional landscape ideas and techniques to our homes and gardens. I would say anything that helps to reduce the destruction of green areas of our fragile planet is good for the Earth and good for us, its inhabitants. No one who visits Disneyland can miss the importance flowers, trees and other landscaping played in Walt’s vision for a modern them park. At the earliest stages of Disneyland construction, the team started planting, to insure Walt’s vision of a beautiful park would be realized on opening day.

Walt Disney World was an even bigger job to tackle, since much of the parks are built on what was once swampland. At WDW, trees and greenery are used to separate and keep the theming in place. Trees at the Wilderness Lodge, for example, keep guests glimpsing, close by, non-wilderness sites like the Future World architecture. In the Festival Center they present, they have a section called Horticulture Heritage which gives guests a peek into the importance Landscape had and has at The Magic Kingdom. To put a bow on things, Garden Rocks, a mini music festival, runs concurrently. Natural beauty and music are good ways to get us to disconnect from our devices and use our senses to rediscover the world around us.

The most recent addition to the EPCOT is the Epcot International Festival of the Arts.  First presented in January 2017 it featured pieces from Disney historical artist Mary Blair and Herb Ryman art of Epcot, to current Disney artists Joe Kaminski and Costa Alavezos. I think it’s great that guests are being introduced or reminded of the artistic legacy that helped to build the entire Disney empire. Guests are not only surrounded by incredible visions, they’ll watch the creative process live. New art is created and revealed each weekend, so guests can look forward to a new experience every time they go. Other presentations include music and food. Study after study has shown how important the arts are to children and our overall happiness. Since 2018 will be only the second year of this Festival, I’m sure much will change as it has for the other two, more mature events. I would expect, given the planning and thought that Disney puts into all of its projects, that the Arts Festival will offer guests more reasons to visit EPCOT. This is the only EPCOT festival that I haven’t had the chance to experience for myself.

We’ll never know whether Walt’s original vision and purpose for EPCOT would ever have been realized. Recent and announced changes will continue to take the park in new directions that indicate movement away from the prototype community Walt had hoped to create. The Disney organization still l has a lot of work ahead to re-imagine the Park so it remains relevant and popular with guests. Walt had hoped that the Magic Kingdom would help to pay for the development and operation of his Community of Tomorrow, which was where he wanted to focus time attention and the financial means of the Disney Company to change the way we live. That lofty goal will need to be replaced by a more traditional Disney theme park that needs to attract guests and their vacation dollars in a park with unique entertainment value. There has been a recent flurry of announcements about changes to EPCOT including an update to Mission Space, a new ride based on Ratatouille, and replacing The Universe of Energy with a Guardians of the Galaxy coaster. There have been hints and rumors at more changes. I look forward to seeing the new park succeed.

Walt presenting “The Florida Project” 1966