Disney World at 50: Main Street windows are clear honor

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Disney World executives and creative types loom above us thanks to tribute windows Main Street at Magic Kingdom.

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Disney World at 50: Main Street windows are clear honor

Select Disney executives and creative types will loom above us always, thanks to the tribute windows along the upper level of Main Street, U.S.A. at Magic Kingdom.

For this week’s installment of Disney World at 50 series, which publishes Wednesdays at OrlandoSentinel.com/wdw50, we’ll look at names that represent folks who molded the theme parks and the resort.

The shout-outs fit into the turn-of-the-century theming of Main Street. Each one advertises a fictional business with a location along the theme park’s main drag.

Magic Kingdom recently honored four more folks. Getting the window treatment were Phil Holmes, Trevor Larsen, Jim MacPhee and Djuan Rivers, a foursome of high-level retirees with Disney VP on their resumes. They are bundled as “faculty” for the Academy of Talent Education and Training on the window, which includes the slogan “inspiring success for a new century.”

A legacy window honors General Joe Potter over the Main Street Confectionery in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. Potter was instrumental in the transformation of the waterways and lakes at Walt Disney World in the 1960s. (Joe Burbank / Orlando Sentinel)

“It seems like once you have this window as a part of your legacy, the responsibility is of continuing to lead the way and to pave the way for those in the future, so the words on this plaque are apropos for us all,” Rivers said in a video posted on social media.

Their window addition is on the left side of the street as you walk toward Cinderella Castle. Their names are seen above the Emporium.

The tradition is a carry-over from Disneyland, although honorees don’t always appear on the panes of both coasts.

There are dozens of names along Magic Kingdom’s Main Street to examine, but here are a few to note.

➤ Main Street visitors may recognize names of Imagineers and well-known leaders, but windows have also been designated for people with behind-the-scenes roles, including everyday topics such as accounting, land acquisition and operations. A colorful example that straddles backstage planning and onstage atmosphere goes to Lonnie Lindley, head of the Walt Disney World paint shop, and someone who actually knew Walt Disney while working at Disneyland. He transferred to Florida before WDW opened.

The window for Rainbow Paint Co., with colors diving into a pot of gold, salutes Lindley and has included the phrase “world’s largest collection of color samples.” It’s above the Emporium but facing City Hall, near the Harmony Barber Shop.

➤ Donn Tatum was CEO of Walt Disney Co. in the 1970s, and his window also references the dummy corporations created to buy the land where Disney World stands. The window is punny: Tatum is presented as president of M.T. Lott Real Estate Investments. It can be seen at a jaunty angle on Main Street above the Crystal Arts shop.

➤ Mary Blair’s reputation revolves around her sense of color, the styling of “it’s a small world” and the jumbo mosaic inside Disney’s Contemporary Hotel. Her window — which also salutes Collin Campbell, Herbert Ryman, Blaine Gibson and Dorothea Redmond — makes reference to painting and sculpture. It’s on Center Street, the cul-de-sac about halfway down Main Street. Window honorees are heavily male, with way more Bobs, Toms and Jacks than Marys and Dorotheas. A female executive fairly recently honored is Meg Crofton, former president of Walt Disney Parks & Resorts. Her window is nearby, adjacent to the Holmes-Larsen-MacPhee-Rivers pane.

➤ Frank Wells was president of Walt Disney Co. for 10 years as well as an avid mountain climber. His Main Street window, above Crystal Arts, lists him as president of Seven Summits Expeditions. Wells has a similar window at Disneyland, but on a Disneyland Paris window, he’s listed as a conductor — along with Michael Eisner — of the Main Street Marching Band.

➤ Walt Disney, naturally, appears on a window, although it might not be as prominent as expected. He’s part of the Graduate School of Design & Master Planning, which is above the Plaza restaurant and faces Cinderella Castle. Other “instructors” and “deans” on the window include Howard Brummitt, Marvin Davis, Fred Hope, Vic Greene, Bill Martin, Chuck Myall, John Hench and Richard Irvine. There are other Disney relatives up there, including Walt’s father, Elias, who appears as a contractor above Uptown Jewelers on Center Street.

 

Dewayne Bevil

Orlando Sentinel