Disneyland Hotel
 

Let me rephrase this:

from

First west coast Hotel with its own radio station KEZY.

to
First West Coast Hotel with a radio station (KEZY) broadcasting on its grounds.

How's that?



www.magicalhotel.com

Yeah, its a quibble, but most of the Disneyland discussions that occur end up boiling down to quibbles. And I'd say that the "first" part of this trivia only gains interest for it actually being the hotel's radio station.

Lacking that, it really isn't all that more interesting a bit of trivia than knowing where the first church with a radio station on the premises was. Or the first downtown high rise. Or the first whatever building type. And it isn't like it sparked a trend of hotels housing radio stations (so far as I know).

But it is interesting to learn that there used to be a radio station on the premises, which I did not know.

Sorry. I wasn't trying to make a big deal about it. Just the way I read it and was trying to make a clarification.

I don't so much care about the firsts. It's old, and there's bound to be a lot of firsts.

The book was great ... I enjoyed thumbing through it and checking out all the cool photos. I dig the story of the Disneyland Hotel .... alas, I've had to stop purchasing books I look through once and have no shelf room for.


In other words ...Sorry I put no money in your pocket, but I enjoyed your work. At least I didn't steal it over the internet.

Hello original dh! I just need to put this out there: if you have any say in this, could you encourage the powers that be to think about the "new" DLH design to look, well, vintagey? I know, it's rather contradictory to make what IS a vintage hotel even more vintage, but they could take some cues from classic Mid-Century modern design and swankify it up! But please, they just CAN'T make it "generic lux", like a Radisson or some such. I pray for the soul of the DLH!!!

Disneyland Hotel
 

My friend Werner Weiss and I were discussing this very same idea one day. Here are his thoughts which by the way, mirror my feelings almost exactly:

"Instead of imploding the existing buildings and starting over, I'd like to see The Walt Disney Company make the Disneyland Hotel's mid-century modern architecture into a virtue rather than a liability.

Today, it seems that Disney is saying, "Don't looking up at the ugly buildings. Keep your eyes low and enjoy the 'Magical' Disney-ish things we've done at ground level. Try to forget that the buildings scream 1960's (even though some are newer than that)."

Instead, I'd like to see the Disneyland Hotel adopt a strong late-1950's/early-1960's theme, with signs, colors, restaurants, furniture, uniforms, decor, artwork, and landscaping that immerse guests in the era when the Disneyland Monorail first began serving the Disneyland Hotel. By the way, the buildings aren't ugly; they're actually very nicely designed examples of the era. The Hotel should take guests back in time, just as most of Disney's deluxe hotels in Florida do. Only it would be a different time period.

Take a look at the website of the Renaissance Hollywood at http://www.renaissancehollywood.com/ -- you'll find pictures of the rooms, with their wild mid-century modern colors and furniture. With its more spacious grounds and its multiple buildings, the Disneyland Hotel could way outdo the Renaissance Hollywood.

Think about the possibilities for restaurants. Think about tiki revival. Think about the "space age." Think about the Googie style. "Retro" is fun. In fact, look to Tomorrowland in the 1950's for inspiration.

The 900-or-so rooms, the restaurants, and the convention facilities are valuable assets. It would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to replace them. There's no reason to tear them down.

As they say, when you have a lemon, make lemonade. The Disneyland Hotel isn't a lemon. But Disney guests expect immersive, themed hotels—and the Disneyland Hotel fails to meet that expectation in its current form.

Let the Imagineers have fun immersing guests in another era!

(Hmmmm... Maybe I should expand on what I've written here as the subject of a future article for Yesterland.)"

He basically took the words right out of my mouth but they were his words entirely.

www.magicalhotel.com

Welcome original_dh! I love all the ideas you've posted above.

Alas, I don't think the Disney company is hip enough to go retro to a fairly recent earlier age, especially one (the 50's and 60's) so
reminiscent of Disneyland's youth (and more beloved era).


And, while it's always a matter of personal taste, the box buildings of the Hotel are ugly, as is most box architecture of the 60's. Some things were cool and some things were duds. Box architecture was a dud.

But unless they adopt the retro swank period as a theme, there is nothing to make the Disneyland Hotel into what's guest-expected as an integrated themed environment.

Wouldn't a "Retro" look become dated in a few years? The cool aspect of a previous time-frame would become quickly less cool in a relatively short period of time.

I'm not willing to bet money on it, but I believe the MCM designs will be appreciated even more in the future than they even currently are. I think the rise in popularity and interest in the "Arts and Crafts" style has set a good precedent for what ahead for Mid-Century Modernism. I see interest in all things MCM growing by leaps and bounds.