Friday, August 14, 2009

Christmas in August: Main Street U.S.A., December 1962



With some of these temperatures lately, Christmas is really not at the forefront of my mind these days, however, this is a purty nice set of images so maybe by posting them things might start to cool off in anticipation of the holidays. We’ll begin (as we so often do here) at Main Street U.S.A., or more specifically, the Main Street Train Station. In December 1962, the Baggage Room sign is still posted on the right side of the station.

Things seem positively sleepy over in Town Square; with a wee bit of fog, this shot looks more like San Francisco than Anaheim.



In this closeup, you can see the shoe-shine stand in front of the Toy Store:



This vintage shot (probably from 1963/64) shows the same stand; the striped structure on the left is part of the Mickey Mouse Club that was housed inside the Opera House for a brief time before Mr. Lincoln came to town.



More from the Disney Family Museum: Here is a preview of the next Gallery:



Gallery 5 — New Success and Greater Ambitions:

The worldwide success of Snow White let Disney Studios create new studio buildings in Burbank, CA, and produce even more ambitious features, such as Bambi, Pinocchio and Fantasia. The last film featured classical music and an orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski. Although well regarded by critics, none of the films was immediately financially successful, in part because overseas revenues were affected by World War II.

Highlights of the gallery will include one of the studio’s original multiplane camera cranes, an animator’s desk, and rare production art.







Download a factsheet on the museum here.

See more Disneyland Main Street, U.S.A. photos at my website.

5 comments:

Doug said...

With "Halloween stores" opening now in May and June and some specialty stores carrying Christmas decor items in August..."Christmas in July" does not seem like such a far out concept anymore. Happy Holidays!

Major Pepperidge said...

That shoe shine photo is amazing; it's a great picture, but man... it feels so wrong today!

CoxPilot said...

The Shoeshiners were great entertainers and terrific dancers. AND you could get a good shine (important in those days).

TokyoMagic! said...

Was the front of the Opera House being used for storage? Looks like there are wooden boxes or risers in front of the doors along with sheet music stands. Maybe the DL band just threw their stuff over there when they weren't actively playing in Town Square?

Dreemfinder said...

In the trolley shot those are music stands for the DL Band's town square cocert.

The striped structure in the shoe shine shot was the sentry box from Babes in Toyland.