(07/25/2011) Anaheim, California – Back in February 2001, The Disneyland Resort’s admittedly-failed second theme park, Disney’s California Adventure, opened with a unique twist on a theme park entrance: guests would “walk through” a giant California postcard. Included in this set up were giant block letters which spelled out “California”, a stylized version of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, and a giant sun icon. This idea may have worked well on paper, but it didn’t execute effectively in actual practice. The rest of the park, for the most part, equally failed.
Disney’s answer? An unprecedented entire re-construction of the park’s main entrance and main entrance land. Gone is the “in your face, tongue-in-cheek” California and Hollywood references, gone is the tacky architecture (or at least it’s going … it’s being dismantled as we speak). Sunshine Plaza will be giving way over the next year to Buena Vista Street, a highly-detailed main entrance land stylized after 1920′s Los Angeles – as Walt himself would have experienced it.
To accomplish this, the largest postcard-architecture remnant had to be removed – the park’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge recreation. Constructed to disguise the monorail beam that runs through the park, the International Orange-colored bridge marked the park’s entrance as guests made their way in to Sunshine Plaza. The last pieces of the bridge’s towers came down Monday; the base is expected to be removed by this week.
While the Golden Gate is gone, the monorail beam won’t be uncovered for long – it will soon traverse another historic bridge, this time the Glendale-Hyperion Bridge. A historical bridge from L.A’s golden day of architecture – and still in use today – this bridge (in real life) is located near the original location of The Walt Disney Studios, making a bridge that Walt would have used on a regular basis.
The recreation of the Glendale-Hyperion Bridge will open as part of Buena Vista Street in Summer 2012.
-Report by Tim Trainor