I grew up in Pasadena and Eagle Rock and when I was a kid I went to Eagle Rock Park a lot. I had no idea the park clubhouse was designed by famous architect Richard Neutra. The mid-century modernist style building opened in 1953 with its sleek horizontal lines, cantilevered roof overhangs, and thin supporting columns allowing an unimpeded view of the Eagle Rock and surrounding hills. Unfortunately, after 71 years the building needs some restoration work.
Oh shit, Neuromancer is coming to Apple TV as a 10 episode series. A Neuromancer movie’s been in development for years, I remember hearing rumors about it way back in the 2000s. A series seems like a better fit cause the book is so dense that it’ll be hard to cram everything into a 2 hour movie. As a huge fan of the book I’m cautiously optimistic that they can do it justice. The book came out in 1984 so at this point its vision of the future is almost retro-futuristic. But Apple TV’s become the go-to streaming service for sci-fi (they’ve done Foundation, Silo, For All Mankind, Severance, Monarch, and they also adapted The Peripheral, William Gibson’s most recent novel) so this might be the best chance the show would have.
I’ve been getting nostalgic about old malls lately. All the malls that I used to go to have been remodeled in the current sleek, “minimalist” style and they all look so boring and sterile. It’s a very fine line between minimalist and boring and these places all cross it. I look at these photos of the Plaza Pasadena from 1981 and it looks so warm and inviting with the brick and indoor trees and fountains. And those indoor streetlamps — gorgeous! This mall had a huge central atrium with these massive murals of the surrounding landscape and it looked so cool. Even the food court looks like a nice place to have a meal and hang out. Maybe I’m just looking at these photos with rose-tinted glasses but I do miss the 80s mall aesthetic. The Plaza Pasadena was turned into an outdoor mall in 2001 and it doesn’t look nearly as cool. I wish I’d been into photography when I was a kid so I could’ve taken photos before things changed.
WestCOT was Disney’s plan for a second theme park in LA back in the 90s. It would’ve stood where California Adventure is today. They essentially took the World’s Fair idea of Epcot and transferred it across the country, however it would’ve been scaled down due to lack of available space in Anaheim (Epcot itself is bigger than Disneyland and California Adventure combined).
The central area was called Ventureport and it featured a golden sphere almost twice the size of Epcot’s Spaceship Earth. Inside the sphere would’ve been an updated version of the Spaceship Earth ride. Instead of a World Showcase focusing on individual countries, here they had the Four Corners of the World (Europe, Asia, Africa, and America) and they were connected by a long boat ride that cruised through all four regions. Future World would’ve been three pavilions containing new versions of the Epcot rides like Horizons, Universe of Energy, World of Motion, etc.
The WestCOT plan also included developing the rest of the Anaheim resort — at the time there was just Disneyland and the Disneyland Hotel. It included an amphitheater, new hotels, a shopping district, updated local infrastructure, and three massive parking structures that were connected by people movers to the central plaza. The monorail would be extended to go around the sphere, and the new route also included stops at the new hotels.
Unfortunately the plan was scrapped. The failure of Euro Disney led to big financial problems, so Disney had to reconsider spending so much money on a second Anaheim park (it was estimated to cost up to $3 billion) and they ended up building California Adventure on a much smaller budget.
I loved Epcot when I went there as a kid, so having a similar version locally would’ve been awesome. I remember reading about it in the LA Times and getting really excited. This was after they cancelled the Port Disney idea in Long Beach, parts of which would later be incorporated into Tokyo DisneySea. SamLand’s Disney Adventures has a great series of posts about WestCOT.
The entire Back to the Future: The Ride video and queue videos are on YouTube, upscaled to 4k. It’s been a long time since I went on the ride, I don’t even remember the queue video. And I’m a huge Simpsons fan but the ride isn’t as good.
Japanese industrial tourism — also known as kojo moe, roughly translated as factory passion or factory infatuation — was a smallish fad in Japan a couple years ago. Factories and oil refineries became tourist attractions and people would take night trips to experience and photograph the industrial sights of heavy industry. This kind of stuff is right up my alley, I love the rough, brutal, functional aesthetic of factories, and nighttime lighting adds a whole other dimension.
The fad started in 2007 after the publication of a book called Kojo Moe by Ken Oyama. It’s hard to find in the US but I got a copy off Ebay along with the follow-up book. They’re filled with fantastic photos of factories, lots of pipes, scaffolding, chimneys, furnaces, smokestacks, railings, etc. They have a certain industrial, cyberpunk beauty which I love. And they’re just dense with so much factory stuff.
When I was in Tokyo a few years ago I tried to book a Yokohama night cruise which passed through some industrial zones along Tokyo Bay, but I couldn’t go because it’s only for Japanese. Apparently the boat captain gives emergency instructions in Japanese only, so as a safety precaution you have to be able to understand the instructions. Oh well.
Mickey Mouse Park was Walt Disney’s unbuilt idea for a theme park that pre-dates Disneyland. It was a compact park envisioned for the vacant lot across the street from Disney Studios in Burbank. Back in the ’30s, as Disney movies became more popular fans would send letters asking to meet characters and tour the studios like at nearby Universal Studios. Mickey Mouse Park was Walt’s idea to satisfy people who wanted to visit the studios.
On this small plot of land they managed to fit a narrow-gauge railway, a lake and an island, a Main St and Town Square, a farm, a Western-themed town, a carnival, a railroad station, shops, restaurants, and some small rides. Ultimately, Disney’s ambition outgrew the small site, and, along with opposition from Burbank, led to abandoning the idea. Instead he built the Disneyland that we all know today. As for the Burbank land, they built office buildings instead and it can still be seen on Google Maps today (image below). It looks like they built the 134 freeway across the bottom part of the land.
I really like the small-scale of the concept, it seems quaint and relaxing and good for spontaneous spur-of-the-moment visits, unlike modern Disney resorts where you’re encouraged to plan everything weeks or months ahead. Mickey Mouse Park seems more like your neighborhood park (with a $100 million budget.)
I’m digging these limited edition Lego sets that will be open for pre-order tomorrow. These are the winners of Series 1 of the Bricklink Designer Program, where Lego fans design sets that are voted on. Winning sets go into limited production and apparently the winners get 5% of the proceeds. There’s Parisian Street, Mountain Fortress, Old Train Shed, General Store, and Snack Shack. They’re really cool and highly detailed, I especially like the Western-themed General Store, the weathering of the mismatched wood planks and missing shingles are a great touch. And the Snack Shack is so cute, that palm tree’s so awesome!
And related to the last post is Lost Epcot, a website dedicated to documenting the lost and changed pieces of Epcot history. It looks really comprehensive, they cover old attractions, renamed attractions, old souvenirs, restaurants, etc. Lots of vintage pictures too.
I should’ve done some more digging when I posted that World of Motion recreation video. Turns out it’s from Futureport ’82, a digital recreation of the Future World part of Epcot Center as it was on opening day in 1982. It’s built in Unreal Engine and available for download. It looks really impressive.
I went to Epcot when I was 8 years old and the park has changed so much now that it’s a total nostalgia trip to be able to (digitally) walk around Epcot like it was when I was a kid. For example the Communicore buildings were turned into shopping/restaurants, and just recently they’ve torn down half of Communicore West and built a garden, so it’s awesome to see the science and technology exhibits that used to be in there. And I distinctly remember watching the “Backstage Magic” show in the little theater but I forgot where it was actually located.