Usually, when historic landmarks fall to the wrecking ball, they are lost forever, preserved only in our memory—and in our region's archives. But soon memory will once again take physical form when several historic landmarks from L.A.'s past reappear thirty miles to the south, at Disney California Adventure in Anaheim.
The eleven-year-old theme park is in the midst of a multi-year, $1.1 billion renovation that has placed its entrance plaza behind construction walls. When it reopens later this year, the plaza—renamed Buena Vista Street—will resemble Los Angeles of the 1920s and 1930s, when a budding animator named Walt Disney arrived in town and began building his media and entertainment empire.
Turnstiles have been styled to resemble the façade of the Pan-Pacific Auditorium, while a replica of the Carthay Circle Theater will stand at the opposite end of the plaza. Trolleys modeled after the Pacific Electric's fabled red cars will whisk park visitors to other sections of the park, and the Disneyland Monorail will glide over the tourists below on a replica of the iconic Glendale-Hyperion Bridge. On the street itself, retail shops will evoke the architecture of the period.