Free The Disneyland Book of Secrets 2014: One Local's Unauthorized, Rapturous and Indispensable Guide to the Happiest Places on Earth by Leslie Le Mon Page A

Nicola Tesla and Thomas Edison, P.T. Barnum and Buffalo Bill Cody, David O. Selznick and Louis B. Mayer.
    That’s why his theme park blends the enchantment of Santa’s Castle and Wonka’s candy factory, the innovative spirit of both Tesla and Edison, the spectacles of Barnum’s living cabinets of curiosities, the pageantry of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows, and the cinematic virtuosity of the film moguls of Hollywood’s golden days.
    Disneyland most definitely is a small-town and it is mythically sacred.  That’s the paradox.  That’s Walt ’s best hat trick.  Disneyland is a shared space where almost anything can happen, but within the channels of a scrupulously mapped fantasy landscape.
    Main Street is the gateway to the rest of the park. Main Street always welcomes us home, to that intangible, ever-now moment that fascinated Walt , that “wonder moment” of becoming.  It’s no accident that we find Main Street in a state of transition from horse-drawn streetcars to horseless carriages, from gas light to electric light, from “Our Town” to urbanization.
    Near the end of his life, Walt was developing plans for a utopian community, based on a blend of warm neighborliness and cutting-edge technology.  This Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow ( EPCOT ) was built after his death, but took a far different form than the futuristic Marceline he’d envisioned.
    Walt had had in mind a pragmatic paradise, an ever-evolving world where real people lived and worked in an ideal combination of cityscape and green belt. Folks would be as friendly and civilized as Rockwell characters; nature and leisure activities would be readily accessible; and constantly upgraded transportation and largely invisible, ecologically sound public utilities would make the community greener and more efficient than anything known before.  It was to be Main Street meets Tomorrowland .
    Main Street at Disneyland is the germ of that concept.  It’s the place we always feel both safe, and rooted, and at the same time inspired to move forward to even better things, and a better self.
    Fantasyland has famously been called the heart of the park and the heart of our dreams.  It’s the land Walt built to house our fairy tale fears and wishes and archetypes.  It speaks to a part of ourselves that’s older and deeper, and darker and brighter, than the part Main Street connects with.  Fantasyland communicates with the part of us that believes we can fly, and knows that there are monsters lurking in the woods.
    Adventureland , although the most mysterious district within the park, is perhaps easiest to comprehend; it embodies our primal yearnings for exploration, discovery, and danger.
    Frontierland speaks to our contradictory cravings to explore, but then to settle and “civilize” whatever wilderness lies over the next horizon.
    Critter Country celebrates our instinctive ingenuity, grit, and sense of community, through metaphors of the backwoods.
    New Orleans Square presents our nightmares of mortality and greed in a darkly comic, vastly entertaining rendering of the elegant and decadent Deep South.
    Tomorrowland remains the home of our aspirations for the future, though its focus has largely evolved from one of Walt ’s favorite disciplines, transportation, to our modern fascination with and longing for ever more advanced entertainment and human communication.
    Mickey’s Toontown , the park’s newest land, is home to our deepest sense of play, an oasis for our toddler selves that are comfortable in a world brimming with color and humor and guileless literality, gags, and more gags, and the opportunity to touch everything we see, and not a single straight line in sight.
    Disneyland is all of these things, and more than the sum of its parts.  It’s completely unreal, in a deeply truthful manner, and thoroughly true in a fantastic way that touches our hearts and spirits.
    It’s a sparkling, whirling, bounteous feast of the