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(Flikr photo by Matt Pasant.)
The little drawbridge that takes you through the arched entryway of Sleeping Beauty Castle and into Fantasyland is the bridge that gets the majority of photographs, teary-eyed reminiscing, and sheer foot traffic. But there's another little bridge that sits just a few paces to the left that has been around almost as long, and it was beautiful in its own right. It doesn't have a name; it's simply "the bridge that leads you to the Carnation Plaza Gardens" (not to be confused with a narrower arched bridge nestled into the greenery nearby).
If you take a look at today's Dateline Disneyland update, you'll see that the entrance of Carnation Plaza Gardens has reopened after the bridge got some work done to it. I want to do a comparison of how it looks before and after, and a little history behind this little bridge.
Last week, on Friday the 13th of November, I tweeted the news:
Originally posted by @DLtoday
I also tweeted two photos, which you can see here below. One is of the front, showing construction walls blocking the entrance..
..and the other is of the back, shamelessly peeking through a tiny space where the green screen was stapled to the eight-foot construction wall.
As you can see, the wooden planks of the bridge floor were swapped out with fresh ones and, to my dismay, the charming white wooden handrails were removed and replaced with taller, statelier wrought iron railing, in between new rock pillars.
Compare and contrast the two photos below:
I will go so far as to say that this is a decline by degrees. The new railing is charmless and visually distracting compared to the charm and simplicity of the white wooden handrailing. The increased height of the bridge railing is completely unnecessary; it is even taller than the surrounding green fence for the planters. I can't fathom that kids managed to fall into the waterway below.
If the wood was rotting, then the handrails could have simply been replaced. That's exactly what happened to the smaller, more curved wood bridge just across the way when it was deteriorating a few months ago; why couldn't this bridge get the same treatment?
It's a sad change. I'm not sure exactly how long the Carnation Plaza entry bridge has been around, but it sat unchanged from its original form for at least 50 years. Yesterland has a picture of it from the 1950s in one of their "Then and Now" photo series:
What I love about this picture is that you can see that the railing of the bridge once matched the wood fencing that surrounded it. It shows the original context of those isosceles and right triangles formed by the old bridge. It's a familiar, understated country feel.
Here's a Davelandweb photo of the bridge, dated February 1960. It gives you a sense of the height of the old railing - tall enough for Daddy to sit on, but not short enough for the kids to inadvertently fall off or through.
If the wood was rotting, then the handrails could have simply been replaced. That's exactly what happened to the smaller, more curved wood bridge just across the way when it was deteriorating a few months ago; why couldn't this bridge get the same treatment?
It's a sad change. I'm not sure exactly how long the Carnation Plaza entry bridge has been around, but it sat unchanged from its original form for at least 50 years. Yesterland has a picture of it from the 1950s in one of their "Then and Now" photo series:
What I love about this picture is that you can see that the railing of the bridge once matched the wood fencing that surrounded it. It shows the original context of those isosceles and right triangles formed by the old bridge. It's a familiar, understated country feel.
Here's a Davelandweb photo of the bridge, dated February 1960. It gives you a sense of the height of the old railing - tall enough for Daddy to sit on, but not short enough for the kids to inadvertently fall off or through.
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I think this bridge, given its close proximity to the center of Disneyland, deserved some attention. It's no castle drawbridge, but it lived through half a century of Disneyland history virtually unchanged, even as Partner Statues, path widening and all sorts of other cosmetic and logistical changes were made nearby over the decades - until now. Now, it's still a bridge, but one that tries too hard to prevent guest stupidity.
It's hard to explain what charm looks like, but even understated charm is missed once it's gone.
It's hard to explain what charm looks like, but even understated charm is missed once it's gone.
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