Main Street is busy and noisy. It's packed with people, strolling by the classic old-time storefronts. Horse-drawn trolleys and old jalopies carry camera-clad visitors. If you're blind, it's hard to tell what's going on. That's why the Disneyland today unveiled a free, handheld audio device, which uses GPS to trigger descriptions of the park's outdoor areas. "The central plaza near Sleeping Beauty ...

This month, I shall be comparing the Main Street, U.S.A.'s which can be found in the Disneylands closest to my heart (California and Paris). Both are based loosely on Walt's home town of Marceline Missouri. Anaheim's is set in 1910, as part of the original idea that various Lands were set in years when Halley's Comet could be visible from Earth. According to themed studs in the pavement, Main Street ...

Disneyland employees who work on Main Street, U.S.A., got an unusual request: How'd you like to be in a Tom Hanks movie? "I said, "Attaboy! Put me down,'" said Steve Finley, a 40-year Disneyland employee. Two Main Street drivers and a balloon vendor were among the handful of Disneyland employees who served as extras in "Saving Mr. Banks," released this month. The movie, starring Hanks as ...

Oh, boy! The Disneyland Resort Diamond Celebration begins today! Disneyland Park opened in Anaheim, Calif., on July 17, 1955, and ever since, it has entertained millions of guests from all over the world. That's no small feat! "It's amazing to contemplate all that Disneyland has come to mean to so many people around the world," Tom Staggs, COO of the Walt Disney Company, recently told the ...

The final stop on my lovely tour of Disneyland, at least until "Star Wars Land" is completed, is the entrance to the entire park. Said to be inspired by Walt's hometown of Marceline, Missouri, "Main Street, U.S.A" is designed to look like the idealized center of a town at around 1910. One of the designers, Harper Goff, showed Walt some pictures of his childhood home in Colorado and Walt liked the ...

Clip clop. Clip clop. In case you've been missing the sound of hooves on pavement, the horses are back at Disneyland. The horse-drawn trolley is one of the few Disneyland attractions that's been operating since opening day in 1955, carrying park visitors up and down Main Street USA nearly every day for more than 60 years. That was until Jan. 8, when they went on hiatus while Disney workers repaired ...

I spent a delightful afternoon recently at Disneyland chowing down on a corn dog and riding on every antique vehicle along Main Street USA. I've been to Disneyland at least 100 times and I'm always surprised when I come across something at the park I've never tried. So on this day, I decided to skip all the roller coasters and dark rides and stick to Main Street. I'd often heard that the ...

My regular week-day job as a designer at Channing Wallace Gilson Industrial Design in Hollywood, just a mile from where Walt and Roy first set up camp in the 1920's no longer seemed like fun. Not when I could draw car sketches at night, then spend all day Saturdays at the Studio in Burbank caught up in the excitement of "Designing Disneyland". Walt wanted an antique car for Main Street.....maybe a ...

Disneyland was built on a dream. And it was Walt Disney's dream that has made millions of wishes come true during the past 50 years. Hundreds of millions of wishes, really. And also special moments - first dates and honeymoons, birthdays and anniversaries, and fun days spent with kids and later with grandkids. Several weeks ago, we asked readers to recall their favorite Disneyland memories. ...

Would you believe it? An amusement park has hung up the nation's record as "the best-planned city in America" in meeting the needs of people. It has demolished the "architectural barriers" we know to our cost in every city and town: streets that stretch non-stop with no spot to sit and rest... flights of stairs too steep for the handicapped or very aged ...bus steps too high for easy ...

In just about any sporting event, there often comes a key moment in the game when the outcome hangs in the balance. A baseball player strokes a key hit in the late innings, a football player dives head-long for a crucial catch, a basketball player makes a seemingly impossible shot with the clock winding down. They call these moments game-changers. At the Walt Disney Company, the advent of ...

In 1954, Bob Gurr was in the fast lane -- albeit a scaled-down version -- to success. The man who would go on to become a Disney Legend five decades later was hired by Walt Disney months before the opening of Disneyland to take part in the creation of the Autopia car attraction in the Tomorrowland section of the park. Gurr had worked previously for the Ford Motor Company, so Disney figured Gurr ...

One would never think that Disneyland, the most fabulous entertainment center in the world, would feature an interwoven complex of nearly every kind of transportation conceived. There are transportation systems of the past, vehicles of the present day and transporters of the future. The first vehicles Disneyland visitors come in contact with are the Main Gate trams, a series of bench-seat ...

Hop aboard the horse-drawn trolley (or if you prefer a surrey, a double-decked bus, a "horseless carriage" or fire wagon) and let's begin a tour through Disneyland with a jaunt down 1900 Main Street. To our right as we leave Town Square is the Santa Fe and Disneyland Railroad Station, where passenger and freight trains depart for a trip around Disneyland. Facing the square are a bank, in ...