News: Umbrella Added to Smoking Area (UPDATE: Umbrella removed)

George Lucas on a Bench

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
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thenerdbaker

Well-Known Member
Dear god, I don't know how this was even approved. This is a travesty, a trainwreck, why I have half a mind to never visit the parks again. An umbrella over a smoking area? What's next? An umbrella over the castle?
Umbrella gate confirmed. We must get to the bottom of this asap.
 

TP2000

Well-Known Member
Tragic!!! Walt would have insisted it be a darker shade of green! Shows just how much Disney is slipping in quality! That lighter shade of green is clearly a budget cut!!! Less green ink = more green cash for Iger!!!

You're actually not seeing the artistry and beauty of this space. In 1997, Paul Pressler hired famous Boston landscape designer Martha Schwartz to design and create what we now know as the East Esplanade Loading Zone. It was brilliant design, and thankfully she still features it on her company website. Ms. Schwartz is a proud woman! https://msp.world/disneyland-east-esplanade-anaheim-ca-usa/#

In the designer's own grand sweep of words...

The Theme Park Entry Esplanade project is composed of three distinct areas: the Central Plaza Area, the East Tram Area or “Hyper-Highway”, and the West Tram Area. The three distinct spaces are organized in a linear fashion, inspired by gardens of the classical Baroque Period, where episodic events or spaces are joined through a linear progression of the pedestrian through the spaces.

The bollards, shaped as oversized traffic cones, painted green, allude to clipped topiaries in the European Garden Tradition.


Disneyland-East-Esplanade-4.jpg


Personally, I think the new umbrella is a nice touch. Slightly crooked, it alludes to, um, a slightly crooked umbrella in a smoking area.

I'm just assuming that Ms. Schwartz was flown out from Boston so she could personally apply the bird crap to the umbrella. Stunning!
 

TP2000

Well-Known Member
Please tell me you made this quote up and it’s not actually on the designers description! Lol

You can't make that up. This was on Martha Schwartz's website in 1998 and it still sits there over two decades later. Here's the link, then click "details" to get the text. https://msp.world/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Disneyland-East-Esplanade-4.jpg

What's funny after the last few days of silliness is that this was one of those things that we all knew about because of Al Lutz. I remember he totally skewered this woman and this ugly bus loading zone on his D-I-G website back in 1998. I've never forgotten it, and now you won't forget it either.

It didn't even take me a split second to remember "Oh yeah, that Martha Schwartz woman that Al Lutz made fun of! I wonder if her website still has that ridiculous blather about European gardens?" Yup, 21 years later and she's still proud of it and thinks it's a normal thing to say.
 

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