Defunctland: Walt Disney's City of the Future, E.P.C.O.T.

oh [Music] [Laughter] [Music] and god a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for everyone who participates speaking for myself and the entire disney organization we're ready to go right now wasn't that a dream doesn't that stagger you our corporation is dedicated to making walt disney's dream a reality but it cannot be done without the help of you people here in florida we must have this is roy disney on february 2nd 1967 he is speaking to an audience of over 900 people in winter park florida this group of business leaders politicians and members of the press had just sat through the first public screening of what would become known as the epcot film this 25-minute film was the final notable on-screen appearance of walter elias disney walt had passed less than two months before the first screening of the film on december 15 1966 at the age of 65. the project that he was proposing in the epcot film was his most ambitious dream it was the culmination of his life's work 65 years of a man's life that's a lot to try to get into a presentation but it's not enough to listen to what walt disney said it is important to understand who he was what was the last thing that he planned maybe epcot his last project would reveal something about him the world was still mourning the loss of the storyteller the loss of the character the death of uncle walt all they saw was a big american one of the biggest but how was he any different than ford or hearst or john doe he was as loved and as hated and as talked about as any person in his time but when he came to die he had something on his mind called epcot what does it mean it deserves investigation epcot its origins and its fate certainly it must turn out to be a very simple thing [Music] for most of its development walt's epcot project was top secret with only a select few people within walt disney productions aware of its existence one of these people was harrison buzz price price first met walt disney in 1953 when price was employed at the stanford research institute an economic development research firm price conducted the initial feasibility study for walt's amusement park concept disneyland and walton price maintained a great working relationship throughout the process this was largely due to the way in which price communicated with walt about his ideas price quickly learned that walt hated to be told no many of walt's ideas were risky and some saw them as ridiculous and impossible his older brother roy who was in charge of the company's finances was often put in the position of pushing back on walt's ambition which put a constant strain on their relationship price knew to always say yes to walt's ideas first before diving into the project's constraints this simple yet ingenious strategy led to a partnership between the two that would last over a decade and any time walt was considering a new construction project he would call upon price to do a feasibility study in 1957 two years after disneyland opened walt hired price to do a study for a new project that he was calling the city of the arts or seven art city the city of the arts would be a combination of a shopping district an art school and most interestingly a planned community the city of the arts would be a functioning city of artists and art students living working and showcasing their creations to visitors it would feature restaurants shops and model homes price was tasked once again with determining a location while walt began planning his community of artists walt believed that one of his best abilities was to bring people especially creative people together he often thought that he knew what was best for the people that worked for him and that he had the answers to their problems for instance when walt built his new animation studio in burbank in 1939 he designed every aspect of the space to create a perfect creative environment walt even considered placing apartments at his burbank studio for his animators to live in because he believed that they would enjoy the convenience and that it would result in better work this was an objectively terrible idea even without living on the lot many of walt's animators grew frustrated with walt's philosophy and business practices and his resistance to this criticism led to the infamous studio strike in 1941. this did not dissuade walt from his city of the arts project and the idea of building a community of artists something walt felt that he was already good at minus that one time that it went horribly wrong despite walt's confidence in himself over time the city of the arts concept was reduced to an innovative art school dropping the planned community aspect the city of the arts would eventually evolve into the california institute of the arts or as it is popularly known calarts walt shepherded the project both financially and creatively with price at his side price watched walt designed his university with a level of vigor that matched and at times surpassed his effort to build disneyland at one point walt explained to price quote this is the thing that i'm going to be remembered for it was clear to price that even in 1958 at the age of 57 walt had legacy on his mind death however was not on one occasion price presented some statistics that walt had not requested related to mortality rates walt exploded on price for bringing up the subject of death afterward imagineer herb ryman explained to price quote death is not an acceptable topic [Music] if walt was ever satisfied with staking his legacy in cal arts the feeling was fleeting as the 1950s came to a close walt was conflicted with the public image that he had created he was the great storyteller the great distractor but walt was not content with this his personal heroes were titans of industry such as henry ford he wanted to be remembered in a similar vein as a contributor to the great american society he wanted to do something that would change people's everyday lives more than a cartoon more than an amusement park and even more than a university walt wanted to do something incredible and as always he had just the idea he wanted to build a city a planned community to be located in florida palm beach florida in 1959 walt was pursuing nbc to take over the distribution of his television show nbc was eager to distribute while it's hit show but they were interested in even more nbc and their parent company rca wanted an agreement closer to walt's original deal with abc in which walt created a show for the network in exchange for financing for the construction of disneyland nbc and rca wanted to build a second disneyland on the east coast near new york city walt was interested and he hired price to do a study on the area price's report was not stellar the weather in new york would force the park to operate seasonally rather than year round there were few plots with enough space and suitable land to build the park and most of new york's tourists were on business-related trips as opposed to visiting for leisure for all of these reasons walt turned down the new york proposal but this would not be the end of the talks with rca and nbc shortly after new york was rejected a man named john d macarthur entered the conversation macarthur was a billionaire businessman and real estate investor who owned around 6 000 acres of land in palm beach florida he was looking for developers and there was none more lucrative than walt disney walt was thrilled by the amount of land macarthur was offering disneyland consisted of 160 acres total which included the park parking lot and other facilities there was little room for disneyland to grow inside the land that disney owned and after the park opened anaheim saw a development boom it was especially noticeable directly outside the park where cheap motels and tourist traps boxed disneyland in on all sides this outraged walt and it made macarthur's 6 000 acres over 30 times the amount used for disneyland all the more attractive of course 6 000 acres was far too much for just a theme park which allowed walt to dream bigger than he ever had before walt began to outline his plans he would use 400 acres of the land for a new theme park and resort space and the rest would be used for a new planned community or as walt called it a city of tomorrow this would solve the anaheim problem by surrounding the new theme park and resorts with a development of his own design it would also address another more broad frustration of waltz walt disney like many people in the late 1950s was worried about the state of many major american cities he was concerned about crime poverty education and other issues but more than anything walt disney was obsessed with traffic throughout his life walt had seen the automobile go from a futuristic technology to a constant nuisance cars had flooded american cities and the pedestrian had become secondary to the automobile attempts to mitigate traffic within major cities had not worked and while wondered how the problem might be eliminated should a city be built from scratch with the automobile in mind another consideration was the effects of white flight on cities in which middle and upper class white populations moved in mass out of the city and into suburbs often to escape integration and the civil rights movements of the era this diverted vital resources out of inner city communities leaving them in a state of disarray the problems that cities faced were in the forefront of many americans minds and it would soon consume the mind of walt who took to the idea of developing his own community despite having no urban planning experience he once again believed that he was the best person for the job and he was not alone in this belief many prominent urban designers had been pointing to disneyland's radial design with its hub and spoke layout as a brilliant piece of urban planning walt's popularity and influence among the public was also seen as a major advantage one that had often led people to encourage him to run for some sort of office futurist author ray bradbury a friend of waltz once suggested that he run for mayor of los angeles because he believed that only walt could solve the city's traffic issues walt responded quote why would i run for mayor when i am already king it was a joke but not entirely untrue walt was used to having control something he would not have in the political sphere if he wanted to solve the problems of the urban environment it needed to be a private venture palm beach presented this opportunity walt planned for a city that would use state-of-the-art technology and groundbreaking urban design techniques it was at this point that he began referring to the project as epcot an acronym for experimental prototype community of tomorrow price was once again asked to do a feasibility study as initial plans were drafted one study proposed the use of 12 000 acres to accommodate 65 000 residents it would include 23 schools 21 churches 15 playgrounds two parks two golf courses and three waterfront hotels price's studies were extensive doing the lion's share of the work in determining what a city of this size would need to function properly more importantly through these studies price concluded that an east coast entertainment complex would not compete with disneyland in fact two-thirds of the u.s population lived east of the mississippi but they accounted for less than 10 percent of disneyland's guests the east coast was an untapped market and price's study showed the promise of such a venture despite the heavy research and positive conclusions the palm beach project quickly fell apart reportedly due to roy disney clashing with macarthur unsurprisingly the ambitious city of tomorrow proposal for palm beach concerned roy and the deal fell through but now walt wanted to build a city and there was nothing that could stop the idea from growing in his mind [Music] by 1960 with the palm beach plans abandoned walt was beginning the early stages of work on pavilions for the 1964 new york world's fair another major step toward epcot while the east was an untapped market it was unclear if the population was open to being tapped by walt disney plus disney was building pavilions for major corporations like general electric and ford and he believed that these type of corporate partnerships would be the only way for a project as big as epcot to work walt hoped that major american companies would help construct epcot set up a facility within the city and employ the city's residents the fair also gave him the chance to work with the man that was considered the most influential city planner in the world at the time the fair's president robert moses when walt showed moses his early plans for epcot moses was amazed he believed that walt's plans would lead to the first accident-free noise-free and pollution-free city this was ironic as moses's approach to city planning was the opposite of waltz moses had focused on adding more and more expressways and highways to the densely populated new york city creating many of the problems walt was trying to rectify with epcot walt would not have to worry about moses though as new york had already been crossed off of the list of potential locations by 1963 walt was deep in production on the world's fair pavilions but he was making time to search for a location for epcot walt had price study numerous potential venues washington dc colorado baltimore and new jersey among others price was also busy studying a spot for a ski resort in the sequoia national forest in california and walt was in talks to construct an indoor theme park in st louis walt was adding projects at a rate faster than ever before he mentioned to price that all of their projects would quote keep the organization busy for 40 years longevity bred legacy and legacy was on his mind in november of 1963 walt and other executives hopped from location to location before traveling to the prime candidate for epcot florida however walt was no longer eyeing palm beach he was not even considering the state south early feasibility studies had revealed that central florida would be the prime location for a development in the state based on tourism trends on november 22 1963 walt and his team flew low above the city of orlando and the outlying areas walt noticed a large undeveloped swamp area near the intersection of florida's turnpike and i-4 which at the time was under construction and still is today he pointed to the swamp and decided that this would be the location for his project walt could be convinced by his instinct roy needed to see the numbers once again this is where price came in five days after walt's flight price gave a presentation to walt roy and a select few others including vice presidents dan tatum and card walker on what was being referred to as project x or project winter price's presentation was convincing the location was set disney then embarked on the complicated process of acquiring the thousands of acres of land this was done in complete secrecy to ensure that the land owners would not inflate their prices locals soon noticed that a large amount of land was being bought leading to wild speculation on who the buyer might be in june of 1965 the orlando sentinel concluded that it was disney that was purchasing the land walt's plan had been exposed so he decided to officially announce his florida project on november 15 1965 he held a press conference alongside florida governor hayden burns the press conference was rushed and walt was clearly in the early stages of development on the project he announced very little but he did note that he intended to build a new theme park and a city of tomorrow although i'd love to be a part of building the model community whereas the city of tomorrow as you might say uh i'm i'm not against the automobile but i just feel that the automobile has moved into communities too too much and i feel the design so that the automobile is there but still put people back as pedestrians again walt mentioned he was considering two communities one to be named yesterday a nostalgic town and another to be named tomorrow which would be his city of the future this concept was rarely mentioned again and walt explained it almost as if it were a joke it might come one time and they stay in tomorrow and their friends will say but have you stayed in yesterday and they'll have to come back with the land acquired and the project announced it was finally time for walt to outline his city street by street [Music] another key figure in the florida project and arguably the one man besides waltz that was closest to epcot was marvin davis davis had worked at 20th century fox for over a decade before being recruited to walt's amusement design firm wed enterprises in 1953. davis was given the immense task of master planning disneyland alongside walt together the two pioneered the single gate concept as well as the hub and spoke layout of the park over a decade later walt was calling on davis once again this time to help him with his master plan for his florida project similar to price davis learned how to work with walt walt more or less knew what he wanted but he did not have the artistic or architectural experience necessary to illustrate it davis had this expertise so his role was to take the ideas that were in walt's head and put them on paper the first master plan for the florida project was drawn in 1965 crudely by walt himself on a piece of tissue paper the plan had dropped the tomorrow and yesterday concept instead only showcasing one large planned community in the center of the development with a theme park resort area to the north and an airport and entrance center to the south a monorail line ran through the entire complex and it was to be similar to the one that had been entertaining guests at disneyland since 1959 the project as a whole was now being referred to as disney world a whole new disney world walt continued to sketch plan after plan sometimes handing them to davis when he was done other times throwing them into the trash forcing davis to rush to the bin to view walt's progress walt took in many inspirations for his designs he was fascinated by stockholm sweden's satellite towns which were planned developments with a high density center surrounded by a low-density belt with a central rail line running through it walt also read books from prominent city planners such as victor gruins the heart of our cities and ada louise huxtables article out of the fair the latter of which studied the proposed plan for a world's fair in washington with a unique design walt read garden cities of tomorrow by ebenezer howard and it was believed that walt was influenced by the chicago architect daniel burnham who had famously designed the 1893 clumping exposition in chicago and sparked the city beautiful movement which emphasized the importance of the visual nature of a city along with its practical functions walt was also heavily influenced by the world's fairs that he had visited and contributed to taking notes not only from their architecture and layout but their attractions and accommodations as well throughout 1965 and early 1966 walt davis and a few other imagineers worked to create the preliminary plans for walt's experimental city a special room was set aside at wet enterprises in glendale with a 16 foot ceiling davis plastered his massive renderings like wallpaper throughout the room the plans that the small team drafted for epcot throughout 1966 were not concrete and walt expected many aspects of the designs to change but what was planned drafted and mocked up were certainly the most bold stunning and unbelievable ideas that walt had ever dreamed according to walt's plans visitors would enter disney world through the grand entrance complex this complex had short-term parking for 11 000 cars and was connected to an airport of the future via monorail the airport would have been the world's first operational jetport with a radial design the airport of the future would have also used an experimental baggage handling system and other state-of-the-art technologies a custom communications network later named wedcom and to be built and sponsored by rca would keep track of everything on property from utility management to pollution control in the entrance complex it would allow receptionists to pull up guest resort reservations and billing information which would have been groundbreaking in 1966 outside of the entrance complex would be motels trailer parks and campsites one of which would be located in the property's west swamp and was referred to as wilderness camping after checking in guests would board a monorail and head north to start their vacation the first stop would be the disney world industrial complex also radially designed this 1 000 acre complex would provide employment for many of epcot's residents in the renderings done by davis and his team one complex with six branches was featured yester residents would leave the monorail station and board a people mover car the people mover was a transportation system developed by wet enterprises inspired by the unique system that was used to move forward cars at the ford pavilion that disney designed for the 1964 new york world's fair the people mover went through many different designs but it was eventually decided to have trains consisting of four cars each with each car carrying four people wed enterprises planned to test the technology at disneyland and a 5 8 scale people mover system would be installed during the 1967 tomorrowland renovation as one of the area's new signature attractions in disney world's industrial park there will be a different people mover track for each branch taking residents from the monorail line to their place of work or taking guests on a tour of the facilities each branch would feature multiple buildings surrounding the people mover station with parking behind each for commuters the facilities would be run by major american corporations with ge westinghouse monsanto and rca approach to use the space in attractive park-like settings the six million people who visit disney world each year will look behind the scenes at experimental prototype plants research and development laboratories and computer centers for major corporations visitors would be able to view the inner workings of these companies seeing them developing new technology that would be installed in epcot after the disney world industrial park the monorail line would approach the main attraction of disney world the experimental prototype community of tomorrow this impressive 5 000 acre city would unsurprisingly be radially designed the city would have been three miles in diameter and divided into four sections the center of epcot would be the city's business and commerce center epcot's dynamic urban center will offer the excitement and variety of activities found only in metropolitan cities cultural social business and entertainment [Music] this consisted of the city's icon the cosmopolitan hotel and convention center a 30-story 600 room hotel that would have been the highest point in the city the hotel and convention center would rest on top of epcot's 50-acre business and commerce center an entirely enclosed climate-controlled shopping district and commercial space which would have included offices banks service shops warehouses retail space hospitality services and a television studio the shopping district would prominently feature an international showcase in which disney world guests and epcot residents could shop dine and watch shows in various country pavilions depicted with themed facades such as a british square an asian marketplace and a south american plaza this was inspired by similar areas found at numerous worlds fairs as well as a cancelled concept for disneyland named international street epcot's international pavilions would feature roaming entertainers from each of the countries teaching guests about their customs walt hopes that the commercial center and international pavilions would ensure that vacationers would visit the city rather than just passing it by on their way to the theme park going even further walt floated the idea of placing an indoor theme park in epcot's center skylights would be placed on the roof of the enclosed district to allow for natural light on top of the structure a seven acre recreation deck would feature outdoor activities primarily for hotel guests there would also be additional towers for commercial use mainly for corporate sponsors to use as offices at the center of the structure immediately below the hotel would have been epcot's transportation lobby not only was epcot to be separated into four sections but its transportation would be split between multiple layers let's look at another view of epcot's transportation hub and see how traffic flows through the heart of the city on three separate levels at the bottom of the stack is the truck route reserved for supply vehicles the middle level is the automobile throughway exclusively for cars adjacent to the roadway are parking areas for the convenience of hotel guests a key feature of epcot would be its lack of stoplights which walt believed were a major cause of traffic the parking below the city was reserved for hotel guests and apartment residents but it would have been made prohibitively expensive to encourage residents not to own cars one idea was to have an extensive electric car rental service for residents wanting to leave on the weekends pedestrians would roam above the automobile layer above pedestrians people movers and monorails would zip by the transportation lobby was the central hub for all of these modes of transportation immediately outside of the central shopping district were high-density apartments as well as other non-retail buildings such as administration fire stations post offices sports stadiums libraries and hospitals the hospitals would have tapped into wedcom which would have easily stored and quickly distributed medical research and patient data there was also to be a center of the arts borrowing concept from walt city of the arts after high density housing was epcot's green belt which would have featured parks and playgrounds as well as the city's churches and schools walt had ambitious plans for epcot's education he wanted to reimagine the school curriculum replacing lectures and tests with a game-like learning environment i would love to be a part of building up a school of tomorrow with the teaching aids with what i feel we could contribute which we have been doing in a way but this might become a pilot operation for uh teaching aids that could go out across the country and across the world children would take courses on a computer which would tap into wedcom's network allowing them to take classes from nearby colleges remotely there would have also been a closed circuit television that would have allowed corporations to teach classes from the industrial park the greenbelt would also feature two large auto dealerships and service areas finally the green belt would boast a teen center a feature that walt was personally passionate about teenage crime was a major problem in cities and walt felt that the best way to control the wayward rebellious youth was to give them their own dedicated supervised space davis recalled that quote walt had great hopes of using this community as a model form of treating the teenage problem and his idea was to devise a system by which youths would judge their peers monitoring their behavior because the teens of the 60s loved nothing more than a hanging out with a bunch of narcs in a building designed by a 60 year old man it is worth noting that the unruly generation walt was attempting to corral was in fact the baby boomers finally after the green belt would be epcot's low density housing neighborhoods where the majority of citizens would live like the industrial park people mover tracks would take epcot's residence from the city center to their homes each of these tracks would have four or five stations along them one in the center of each cul-de-sac the pupil mover would only stop at a station if signaled by someone in the train or someone at the station and the maximum amount of time before a train would arrive was said to be three minutes unlike most cul-de-sacs epcot's neighborhoods were free of streets in order for children to play and walk safely the space in the middle of the cul-de-sac would have been used for leisure space with the road system instead wrapping around the back of the homes the homes of epcot would have little to no private lawn space with most of the greenery surrounding the home reserved for the public the house itself would be quote completely self-sufficient according to admiral joe fowler a long-time collaborator of waltz every house in epcot would have been self-powered possibly by some form of renewable energy much of the house would have been automated similar to the monsanto house of the future that was constructed for disneyland's tomorrowland also throughout epcot a series of underground tubes would carry trash from each home and building and transport it directly to waste management services a technology called automated vacuum collection or avac this was inspired by walt growing annoyed with the garbage trucks outside of his own home waking him up at night closed circuit television would also be wired into the homes allowing residents to watch sports entertainment and school activities taking place on the green belt the key component of epcot was walt's requirement that every resident have a job walt said quote there will be no retirees because everyone must be employed according to their ability one of our requirements is that people who live in epcot must keep it alive everyone who lives here will have a responsibility to keep this community an exciting living blueprint of the future sometimes a second satellite community of epcot was depicted in the background of concept art or to the east on master plans at one point walt was considering the second community to be a place for epcot's residents to live once they had retired the final section of disney world was of course the theme parks and resorts on most master plans the new park was represented by a map that looked nearly identical to that of disneyland bay lake a natural lake near the proposed theme park would have been extended with a man-made portion that would have surrounded the city other features of the theme park resort were an ice rink and a roller rink and multiple golf courses walt viewed the theme park as a necessity to get funding for the project and to get vacationers into the complex but his passion for the second theme park only went as far as it could help the development of epcot when pressed about making plans for the new theme park walt reportedly said quote i want to do epcot the plans for disney world and epcot were staggering as the team came up with more and more ideas the budget was significantly increased it was estimated that the theme park resort to the north would cost 100 million dollars and the rest of disney world would cost 520 million with just the city of epcot costing around 75 million walt planned for epcot to have 20 000 residents but he eventually wanted to grow the city to as many as 100 000 residents it was also projected that disney world would see 6 million vacationers per year walt davis and the rest of the epcot team continued research throughout 1966. with walt constantly coming up with new ideas for the city sometimes the radial plan was perfect and rigid other times it was depicted as a natural spiral like a flower on a factory tour with davis walt saw a photoelectric sensor used to assist blind people this gave waltz an idea telling davis quote we'll have one little village that will have an underground trolley like they have in france we won't have a motor man except one of those devices this device will detect somebody in front and it will either slow down or stop the trolley walt was obsessed and his team was inspired davis said quote i spent weeks and weeks developing this plan that i thought was damn good and maybe it was maybe epcot was possible a final person with insight to epcot and a person particularly close with walt himself was imagineer marty scar scar had first come to disney in 1955 to write for the disneyland news newspaper while he was still a student at ucla he soon worked his way into wed enterprises helping with attractions for the 1964 new york world's fair and becoming one of walt's main writers for his presentations and on-screen appearances some refer to skar as the voice of walt scar had been close to the florida project's development and he was working on the photo plan of epcot he also got to see firsthand a changing walt disney throughout 1966 walt's age was showing and his health was declining he was not doing himself any favors for a man designing an ideal community of people he rarely socialized and spent most of his time at the studio working on epcot he drank more than he ever had when he received formal dinner invitations he would write large underlined nose and red ink on the page he had few hobbies and seemed to be happiest when entertaining his grandchildren walt was quieter than usual and was acting rather strangely he frequently called the in-house songwriting duo the sherman brothers to his office demanding that they play him the mary poppins number feed the birds always tearing up at the music why is unclear walt might have been tired after all those decades of work maybe he knew that his time was coming to an end and he was worried about his legacy or maybe he just liked the song no matter the sherman brothers sang and walt listened staring out of his office window the time spent drinking or playing with his grandkids or just thinking off into space were the breaks from a life otherwise dedicated to a single project epcot skar noted that disney's mind was further from the studio in disneyland than it had ever been skar said quote he had already done everything he wanted to do in storytelling and creating motion-pictured entertainment in disneyland in the spring of 1966 walt was in good spirits traveling throughout the country meeting with companies to sponsor epcot walt and his team met with nearly 100 major american corporations most of which were interested in sponsoring the project walt also viewed interesting concepts that major cities were implementing such as an interesting garbage recycling project in tampa and new shopping malls in new york and pennsylvania but as the plans progressed and spring gave way to summer and then summer gave way to fall ideation was turning into desperation buzz price described epcot as a project created quote in the last stages of a man's life in a hurry to do what he said he wanted to do which is to leave 25 years of work for his organization and that organization had concerns with walt's proposal most pressing was walt's insistence that he had complete control over the city the team had been able to create the reedy creek drainage district a special district that gave disney more powers to govern their land and the team was courting the florida legislature to create the reedy creek improvement district which would give disney autonomy from nearly all local and county oversight the efforts to establish autonomy from the various levels of government was only half of the battle the other half was avoiding epcot residents from self-governing walt wanted epcot to have permanent residence however his attorneys pushed back on this idea explaining that permanent residents would want to vote on matters related to the city and hold elected positions of power within epcot this was unacceptable walt felt that he knew what was best for his residents and if they were able to vote they could only make matters worse for his experimental community walt needed control not just over epcot but the lives of his residents as well the plans outlined for epcot claim that everything from appliances to light bulbs would be constantly refreshed with experimental technology and it is implied that the residents would not have a choice as to whether or not they were testing out the products walt immediately shifted to the idea of having temporary rotating residents leasing property with no one staying longer than nine months this would prevent epcot from becoming a democracy instead walt's epcot would be run not by the people or by the elite but by walt disney alone he knew what was best for his people it was his community first and foremost the concerns raised by the attorneys prompted more discussion from within the team epcot was going to be both a functioning city and an attraction for the visitors of disney world a premise that brought up privacy concerns disney advisor ray watson pressed walt on the issue saying quote now you're not going to go out and get milk in your pajamas you're going to have to dress up and put on a tie because these people that live there are now on exhibit watson continued explaining quote you need to decide whether you are indeed building a community that is a natural community where people will come raise their families form their own city government grow and so forth but if you're doing this as a place for an exhibit then you need to separate that on top of privacy concerns the residents would lack basic freedoms which some imagineers saw as a non-starter for the project imagineer carl bongiorno said quote everyone knew that you couldn't have 25 000 people living in a community and constantly change upgrade move innovate go into people's homes take out appliances put new ones in control everything about the project when you have a one-man one-vote democracy while the community in epcot was under scrutiny others doubted the prototype aspect as companies were rarely interested in showing off products when they were in the development stage disney imagineer john hench brought up this concern hence recalled that walt didn't understand how jealous people are of keeping it secret and not exposing it and then there was the issue of the t in epcot tomorrow tomorrow was always fast approaching and as proved by disneyland's tomorrowland it was expensive to keep up with the future walt's goal was for epcot to always be 25 years ahead of its time a costly proposition if possible at all these were the voices of dissent within the epcot team outside the collaborative bubble opinions toward the project were much more cynical many people at the animation studio thought that the project was a terrible idea possibly because it was distracting walt from animation but also maybe because it was just a terrible idea longtime friend of walt ward kimball said quote you can't experiment with people's lives as with palm beach walt's brother roy was wary of epcot and he was especially worried at its scale but for many within the company and outside of it walt had earned the benefit of the doubt no one believed that a feature-length animated film would be successful and just as few thought waltz could pull off a project like disneyland by this point everyone had learned their lesson do not underestimate walt disney however the proposition of epcot was on an entirely different level epcot was unlike anything ever imagined except it also wasn't at its core the idea of a company constructing and owning a town full of citizens whose residency was dependent on their employment was not new in 1884 industrialist george pullman created pullman a 4 000 acre town on the south side of chicago with over 1 000 homes and 12 000 residents pullman was initially a huge success thanks to its innovative design and amenities however like the plans for epcot workers were only allowed to rent and were evicted if fired and everything from saloons to libraries were at the full discretion of pullman underlying issues came to a head after the economic downturn of 1894 and after only a decade pullman succumbed to a workers strike after government intervention the strike turned violent killing 30 people pullman was then annexed back into chicago in 1928 henry ford created a rubber factory and town named fordlandia in the amazon jungle in which he tried to impose his personal ideals on indigenous workers dictating their diet and banning alcohol tobacco and women to increase productivity riots and strikes ensued and ultimately no rubber was manufactured company towns such as these were once a common practice especially for long-term remote jobs such as mining but these cities rarely lasted for long especially under the ownership of a single company two of the most common reasons for the demise of a company town were lack of property ownership or the enforcement of a social ideology both things that epcot would have epcot was different from other company towns in many ways but it was alarmingly similar and it very well could have experienced the same unrest that other experimental towns did if the historical examples of company towns were not concerning enough then one could look to the disney studio itself as a cautionary tale it is true that walt had not failed with his first feature film or with his theme park but it could be argued that he had already tried and failed to build a community the 1941 strike at the disney studio occurred for many reasons but most animators recalled that the moment that everything changed was when the company moved from the hyperion to the burbank studio as afer mentioned walt had designed the space himself trying to anticipate every need and accommodate each individual in this he undoubtedly failed despite all of walt's planning and innovation the new environment had none of the charm of the previous studio and the transition set the stage for tensions among the staff there's a possibility the epcot would have experienced the same problems walt felt he knew best best for his animators best for his audience and now best for his citizens he had been right in the past but he had also been very wrong and as epcot progressed more doubters emerged with increasing merit walt briefly considered a merger with ge wondering if epcot might work better in the hands of a company in the urban design space the merger could have also separated the project from its detractors at the studio but ultimately nothing would come of these talks skar described the plans for epcot as quote scene one walt was just getting started who knew how it was going to end up it is difficult to scrutinize plans that are clearly preliminary and make a value or efficacy judgment on them walt's 1966 plans for epcot were surface level he accounted for the citizens convenience and nothing more there were little to no plans to deal with any of the difficult or complex issues that cities faced and in most cases the solution would have likely been to expel them from the city walt said there would be quote no slum areas because we won't let them develop which probably would have been true as everyone needed to have a job and if they didn't they would have likely been evicted from the city but this was not a scalable idea in fact epcot as a whole would not have been replicable the project was only viable because it was an attraction the city's primary industry would have been tourism so it needed to remain unique walt knew this and he was not looking to build a perfect city that could be reproduced throughout the country but rather an environment to test smaller ideas and technology davis said quote it was his philosophy not to build a city that would solve all the urban problems all over the world but to give a chance to american industry to experiment and show to the world just how the problems of traffic and housing could be solved still even if epcot was not intended to be utopia many wondered how disney would deal with human behavior what would happen when a sponsor moved or laid off their workforce would this result in mass evictions how would epcot deal with the repercussions of a serious crime like murder how would disney handle racial integration and race relations any follow-up questions to the epcot proposal did not have any answers despite the lack of depth and comprehensiveness walt was suddenly turning his attention from planning the city to announcing it in the fall of 1966 walt was racing to get as many of his epcot ideas distributed as possible with unprecedented speed and determination epcot would keep disney alive it would be his legacy it had to be walt confided in one employee quote fancy being remembered around the world for the invention of a mouse walt disney was more the world needed to remember him as more he was showing his feelings now more than ever on one occasion walt pointed to a section of an epcot map saying quote this is where the park bench will be where lily and i are going to sit at night and watch all the people people that would be happy people that would be a community his community in october of 1966 walt approached marvin davis about constructing a model of the city and he asked scar to write a film explaining epcot the film was to star walt who would explain the purpose ideals and concepts of the florida project there would be two films both the same barring their endings in which walt would address the audience directly with one spiel being directed toward the florida legislature and the other being directed toward corporations walt shot the film on october 27 1966 he donned the uncle walt persona that he had grown to dislike over the years the persona he feared would consume his legacy but despite it being a character it was a character that could sell and sell he did and epcot will always be a showcase to the world for the ingenuity and imagination of american free enterprise walk gave an overview of the florida project as well as the plans for epcot in the background an instrumental of the carousel of progress's theme song there's a great big beautiful tomorrow played scar said that the film was quote not just a sales job epcot was his blueprint coming out of his head a blueprint of what was on his mind before walt introduced a narrated tour of the city concept he stressed that these plans were still in their preliminary phases and that they would change many times and boy was he right [Music] just three weeks after filming the epcot film walt was admitted to the hospital to undergo surgery to stop pain he had been having in his neck and leg but the doctors found something much more concerning spots and a lump on walt's left lung it was cancer those that knew walt knew that he was a heavy smoker the cause of the cancer was not surprising but nothing could have prepared anyone for the death of walt disney walt was the least prepared of all complaining that the operation would take time away from his work on epcot before he went in for the surgery he yelled at davis and vp joe potter quote why are you dragging your feet is it because of the money have you been talking to roy roy thinks epcot is a loser but don't take any notice of him disney world will make all the profits we need for this operation on november 21st after a seemingly successful surgery walt left the hospital early to return to the studio walt was in denial claiming that he was ready to get back to work some of his staff were optimistic others knew the truth this would be the last day that walt disney visited his studio on november 25th walt flew to his ranch in palm springs to rest but just five days later he flew back to burbank and was admitted to the hospital right across the street from his studio in what would ultimately be his deathbed walt continued his work when his son-in-law ron miller a producer at the studio visited him walt explained that when he got out of the hospital he would leave the studio to miller and other executives such as card walker and dan tatum walt didn't have time for the studio anymore he needed to focus on epcot it was the greatest thing that he would ever do he told miller in the hospital walt would draw the seventh preliminary master plot plan of disney world he worked on it until the day before he died when his brother roy visited him in the hospital walt pointed to the tiled ceiling above his bed using it as a grid for a blueprint that he traced with a finger he said quote now there is where the highway will run there is the route for the monorail walt disney would die the next day december 15 1966 just 10 days after his 65th birthday [Music] the world properly mourned the loss of the entertainment giant and his company was left with a media empire and 27 000 acres of nothing but scenery and statutes davis approached roy after walt's passing bringing with him the most recent plans for walt's experimental city after davis presented walt's final project roy simply said quote marvin walt's dead he need not say anything more walt disney productions would not build a city especially not without walt disney roy instead invested all of the resources into bringing part of his brother's dream to reality the theme park and resort area roy presented the epcot film for the first time on february 2nd 1967 to a group of officials in winter park florida the epcot city concept remained in conversation over the years and was especially helpful in obtaining favorable political agreements such as the reedy creek improvement district and other powers that may not have been granted to a theme park resort alone roy would rename disney world to walt disney world to honor his brother the resort opened with the magic kingdom theme park and two resort hotels epcot was nowhere to be found however elements were present such as the utilidors a tunnel system on top of which the park was built and an avat garbage collection system similar to the one that walt proposed the map that walt drew was the foundation for the resort's planning and the contemporary hotel one of two disney world hotels that davis would help design would resemble many of the epcot renderings both aesthetically and with its signature feature a monorail that passed through the structure walt disney world resort opened on october 1st 1971. roy would pass less than three months later on december 20th 1971. walt disney productions was left in the hands of walt's son-in-law ron miller executives card walker and dan tatum as well as the countless other artists that had worked on the company's projects these would be the people left to grapple with what would become of epcot if it wasn't to be a city what would it be the company kept putting it off placing it in a second phase category that was 10 or so years away it was not until 1974 that disney president card walker confirmed that epcot was going to happen although it would be far different than a city and thus walt's dream his final and most intense passion project was officially dead but what as he often wondered would become of his legacy in the wake of its cancellation walt's nephew roy e disney once said quote if you get 40 people in a room together and ask each one of them to write down who walt was you'd get 40 different walts it is impossible to define a person in a word especially walt disney walt was a simple man and at the same time he was a very complicated one he was a futurist that traded in nostalgia a conservative obsessed with progress a gentle mentor with an impatient temper many of walt's qualities and contradictions can be found in epcot but it does not make the picture any more clear maybe a single project cannot explain a person's life or hold their legacy maybe to walt epcot was about more than just legacy or urban planning or futurism why did walt try so desperately for decades to build a community maybe epcot was something that walt lost something that he wanted to get back walt disney left behind a complicated legacy and epcot was just a piece in that puzzle a missing piece [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Defunctland

Views: 4,717,652

Keywords: defunctland, kevin perjurer, theme park, extinct, abandoned, defunct, history, disney, disneyland, disney world, previous, attractions, on ride, lights on, walt disney, epcot, experimental prototype community of tomorrow, city of the future, epcot history, walt disney world epcot history, walt disney world history, disney world history, city of tomorrow, walt disney future city, tomorrowland, tomorrowland history, florida, orlando, orlando history, disneyland history, walt disney stories

Id: tKYEXjMlKKQ

Length: 49min 39sec (2979 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 13 2020