What do they expect? These buildings are over fifty years old. They don't want to do a "The Old House" on the existing buildings. Why not level them and start over? Why do we need to be stuck with outdated and unsafe buildings from 60s?
It's even worse than that. The main fairway of Tomorrowland's buildings are still from 1955.
They kept their frames and footprints largely intact in 1966 during construction of New Tomorrowland, and just reskinned them for 1967's rides and shops.
The buildings that Buzz Lightyear, Star Tours, and Star Trader are in turn 68 years old next week. They were built in early 1955 in a rush trying to get the park open by July.
Here's a construction shot of New Tomorrowland in 1966. They are saving the original 1955 American Motors Circarama and Art Corner building to be turned into the Bell System's larger CircleVision exhibit/theater complex, which then became the Rocket Rods pre-show in 1997, which then became Buzz Lightyear in 2005 while keeping the same 1955 building frame and roofline and footprint intact. The only true from-scratch construction in 1966 on this flank was for Tomorrowland Terrace and it's underground stage entrance.
On the backside of the American Motors theater in 1966, between the Matterhorn and Tomorrowland, they are just going to tack on the upcoming Goodyear PeopleMover track to its northern flank and then shoot the PeopleMover through the original lobby building and out towards the Plaza.
Across the way from the American Motors/Bell System theater complex,
through all the smog, you can see they've kept the original 1955 display building that housed 20,000 Leagues, Monsanto Hall of Chemistry, Dutch Boy Color Gallery, etc. They are using that original 1955 framing and footprint to contain the new Monsanto Adventure Thru (No one caught that in editing?) Inner Space complex, and the big new Character Shop, plus threading the PeopleMover tracks along the backside of the 1955 structure for 1967. This 1955 building and much of its framework and footprint remain today in 2023 as Star Tours and the Star Trader.
From real satellite images today, not that phony Space Station X-1 stuff, you can still see the original 1955 circular roof form of the American Motors CirCarAma theater. The construction of Star Tours in 1986 used new roofing elevations, so at least the roof on that side of the land is only from the Reagan Administration and not the Eisenhower Administration.
And finally, a smoggy aerial shot of 1966 construction showing those original 1955 buildings retained while New Tomorrowland 1967 gets built around them.
Tomorrowland 2023 may be in a very sad state of affairs, but at least we got rid of the smog 30 years ago. So the exotic future of the 21st century isn't entirely a total loss for Americans, it's just Tomorrowland really.
