Disney California Adventure has unveiled a huge overhaul of its Sunshine Plaza entry zone, which made the area into a Disneyfied version of Los Angeles between the years 1923 and 1937 (from when Walt Disney moved here to the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). It's now called Buena Vista Street and includes elements of Art Deco, Streamline Moderne, and Craftsman architecture--according to the OC Register, the design team "not only pored over countless archival photographs of buildings from libraries and private collections but also drove around L.A. County looking for historical buildings from that period that were still standing." Here's where some of that inspiration ended up:
-- A Red Car trolley line based on the old Pacific Electric system.
-- A Streamline Moderne entrance based on the old Pan Pacific Auditorium in Fairfax (it was built in 1935 and burned down in 1989 after years of neglect).
-- The Los Feliz Five and Dime, "a shop modeled after the mom-and-pop stores" and named after one of Walt Disney's home neighborhoods.
-- An elevated monorail track (formerly the Golden Gate Bridge) called the Hyperion Bridge and based on the Glendale-Hyperion Bridge between Silver Lake and Atwater Village.
-- Elias & Co., a department store inspired by stores like Bullocks Wilshire and others built along Wilshire in the twenties and thirties.
-- Atwater Ink & Paint, "a Hollywood-style shop for coffee, tea and treats" named for Atwater Village, where Disney used to hang out.
-- Kingswell Camera Shop, named for the street Disney first lived on when he moved to LA.
-- Carthay Circle, an area named for the neighborhood in Mid-City West, and the Carthay Circle Theatre (which houses a restaurant and lounge), based on the theater where Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered.
-- A fountain in Carthay Circle is "an amalgam of the design of L.A. Department of Water and Power fountains."
· Buena Vista Street tells a chapter of Walt Disney's story [OC Register]
· Disney California Adventure Archives [Curbed LA]
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