Snapshot: Great Southern Craft Company

Let's take a quick trip back in time to visit one of the Village's many distinct shops: the Great Southern Craft Company. You can picture the scene: a peaceful blue spring morning in Lake Buena Vista. Near the Captain's Tower, flowers are arrayed on steps leading to the reflection pond. The only sound is that of the lagoon's waves gently lapping the dock from a passing boater.


Around the side of the Cane, Rattan, Wicker & Suns shop, sandwiched between it and the Toledo Arts spanish antiques store, is the shopper's mecca for anybody at Walt Disney World who needed to buy a basket - the Southern Craft Company itself.

A brief word about the Craft Company. It opened in 1977 or early 1978, and replaced one of the Village's earliest disappearances, along with the Collonadde des Artes: Von Otto's Antiques. In contrast to the Magic Kingdom's antique shop, Von Otto's store was neither as artfully cluttered nor as interesting, but the name of his shop was printed on a coffee grinder (!). Nobody knows what happened to Von Otto or his antiques, but the Craft Company did stay in business for almost twenty years.


Those familiar with the Downtown Disney Marketplace today may have trouble placing this structure on account of her shaded veranda; this space is currently occupied by the Marketplace Guest Relations. Disney cut off the veranda in the mid 1990's, when she was removing all of the Village's original breezeways, terraces and porches. One of the decorative medterranian statues which once littered the Village is visible in front of the Craft Company.


As you can see, nobody had anything on the Southern Craft Company for clutter. A 1981 Village guidemap boasts of the Craft Company's "assortment of kits and supplies for quilting, macrame, latch hook and needlepoint; leathersmith and silversmith; a variety of other handmade crafts; plus Lillie Langtry's old-fashioned photo studio". And yes, that's right, for many years Village guests could get their old-timey photo taken here, just like in the hospitality house on Main Street. Except instead of a Polariod 8 1/2 x 11 camera, Lillie Langtry used a real antique camera and setting.

a 1980 brochure - enlarge for details!

In the late 1980's or early 1990's, the Southern Craft Company moved a few yards West, occupying the space which originally housed 2R's - Read'n & Rite'n, on the endcap of that building. Here is a picture taken in that second location, where once again baskets and stained glass are on display, this time in a more open and bright environment with a memorable skylight and central wooden crossbeams. Lillie Langtry failed to make the migration.


By the mid-1990's, the Southern Craft Company was gone and the space housed a number of temporary tenants, including Discover, one of those "conservation" themed stores that were popular in the 1990's.


In 1996, Basin, a London-based specialty soap company, moved into this second Craft Company location and has remained for the last 14 years. The skylight and central wooden crossbeams from which baskets once hung can still be observed today.

Mr. Franklin's Travels

Sometimes in the course of gathering up information about a certain ride or show, I end up with an excess of information with no good way to organize it, unless it be in the form of a collection of trivia bullet points. This sort of stuff generally goes unpublished here, inevitably relegated to "hey, did you know" sorts of moments I can have with friends while in the parks discussing such matters. The following case involving a certain Mr. Ben Franklin is one such example wherein I discovered something quite by accident but which I had no real good way of presenting online. however, thanks to a few serendipitous discoveries, I can make a case for relating the story of Mr. Franklin.

For those who aren't fully up to speed on the design and creation of WED's 1971 "One Nation Under God" Hall of Presidents attraction, the bulk of the show comprised a 70mm, five-screen film detailing the difficulties the United States Constitution faced, from her ratification through the nullification crisis and the Civil War. This story was told employing an astonishing number of original paintings created by WED artists led by John De Cuir, a Hollywood art designer whose most famous - and last - credit was Ghostbusters. De Cuir led a team of a dozen artists who worked daily for two years to create almost one hundred pieces of art which reflected historical reality and the dominant artistic temperament of the day. The signing of the Constitution was seen in European style burnished realistic tones, Washington putting down the Whiskey Rebellion in the style of New England folk art, Lincoln's brooding soliloquy in the flowing style of Winslow Homer, and the 20th century's progress in the style of modern art. That more of these remarkable pieces are not used in the new version of the show is the absolute only complaint I can make against it.

These paintings were as much the show as the presidents, the WED placed many of them in the waiting area for the show - not the originals, mind you, but photographic reproductions mounted on plywood and framed. Some of these made their way into other areas of the Magic Kingdom as well - City Hall on Main Street still has a version of the WED painting of the driving of the golden spike to complete the transcontinental railroad, and the Penny Arcade on Main Street had a few others.

All of these images were removed from the Hall of Presidents rotunda in 2000, to make way for the display of presidential portraits and artifacts which it currently houses. Three framed pictures do remain however, two of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln/Douglas debates, and another of Ben Franklin, in the exit hallway for the show.


This picture is unique in two ways. One, it is an actual painting executed on wood, which can clearly be seen in my flash photo above. Secondly, it is not the picture used in the original two Hall of Presidents shows, which was executed in a far more polished style and did originally hang in the Hall of Presidents rotunda. This painting came from somewhere else. Now one of the strange things about Walt Disney World is how certain props seem to hang around forever, appearing and disappearing and showing up in new places unexpectedly. This Ben Franklin portrait is one such example.

This is an image scanned out of a 1973 Walt Disney World guidebook.


If you look carefully above the fireplace in what is now the George & Martha Washington Room inside the Liberty Tree Tavern, you can see a framed portrait of Ben Franklin, and I am 99% certain that it is the exact same portrait that hangs in the Hall of Presidents today. When the Liberty Tree Tavern's interior was redone in the 1990's to give each of its' rooms a specific theme, for whatever reason this painting was selected to migrate across the street to the Hall of Presidents, where it remains to this day.

Now why this particular portrait was selected to be saved is somewhat mysterious. Liberty Tree Tavern does have a Ben Franklin room and you can go look yourself at the two portraits of the famed statesman which hang in it, both of which are photographic reproductions of commonly seen portraits of the man. I do, however, have it on reasonably good authority that this portrait of Ben Franklin is a Marc Davis original. I can't confirm it but we do know that Davis would, on occasion, contribute original art to the theme parks, such as the famous "pirate wench" in Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean and also supposedly the original stretching portraits in the Disneyland Haunted Mansion. I would not be surprised if, in 1971, those portraits of the performers in the Country Bear Jamboree lobby were painted by Davis as well. So we're not out of the realm of established fact here.

Whether it is a Davis original or not, be sure to stop by the Franklin portrait on your next jaunt through the Hall of Presidents. I don't think I need to mention that even if it is an authentic Davis piece, which many of us will never be able to see in our lives, don't paw all over it - it's amazing that it hasn't been more abused than it is, being in direct reach of guests. Pay your respects to a real survivor, a real remnant of a theme park that opened in a very different state some 40 years ago.

Buena Vista Obscura / I'm Not Dead Yet

So I just realized that it's been, like, two months since I've done anything with this blog. Sorry. Life really caught up with me, but I haven't been entirely inactive on the Disney front. Aside from my usual ephemera hunting I've been busy with trips to places that aren't Disney related and so on. Of course, in the middle of all that, I wrote and posted a series of four articles for 2719 Hyperion that amount to something like 9500 words and a year and a half of research - and it's still too short!!

I'm the famous "least prolific", "token girl" of the group at 2719 Hyperion, possibly because I'm very careful about what I post there, but I like to think of the informal series I've started there as being something of the crown jewel of my history efforts - the most polished, researched, carefully collected stuff I have to show for myself. All too often I find history articles about Disney that are easy to read but fail to actually inspire an understanding of the past. With Buena Vista Obscura I hope to bring the past to life in a way that makes things that are fairly esoteric and obscure obvious and understandable to an audience which hasn't been going to Disney for very long at all. This means lots of pictures and lots of evocative information and solid reporting I can stand behind. This is also why it took me nearly a year between articles - I couldn't even tell a Vacation Villa from a Fairway Villa on sight until recently.

Buena Vista Obscura Index
The Golf Resort
Lake Buena Vista: Part One
Lake Buena Vista: Part Two
Lake Buena Vista: Part Three
Lake Buena Vista: Part Four

Next I hope to cover the Polynesian's nightclub, Captain Cook's Hideaway, which was replete with alcohol and folk music. And if anybody else has a particularly obscure facet of WDW history worth elaborating on in more detail, I'm up for suggestions.

I'm going to close out with an awesomely awkward image from the Village Restaurant - because I can - which I have posted here before but can only now explain properly. In the article it originally appeared in, See the Village. Tonight. Part Two..., I joked that these two 1970's vacation-goers were being treated to an impromptu fashion show.


As it turns out, that's actually what is going on here, confirmed by a 1977 Walt Disney World News which touts "tea room modeling, 2 - 5" as one of the many attractions of the Village Restaurant.

Honestly.

Who Knew?

An Aesthetic Profile of Caribbean Plaza

New to this? Click here.


Caribbean Plaza is thematically one of the most complex areas of the Magic Kingdom, not often commented on (except by me, of course...). This grouping shows two of the most distinctive features of the Plaza evident as you first enter, the tile roofs (how often have you overlooked the little flying bird on all of the ends of the tile roofs?) and the sudden introduction of planters which hold back the jungle with formalized iron boxes and rails. The illusion of a fortress just on the outskirts of a jungle is very strongly felt in the transitory area from the Jungle Cruise to the Plaza, aided in no small measure by the Jungle Cruise just next door.


Caribbean Plaza is basically a labyrinth of earthtone plaster walls, many accented with dark aged stains or tropical-colored accents. Although the vegetation around the plaza has grown in quite a lot in the last thirty-seven years and so the effect of being massive and sunbleached has been greatly diminished, the little tile accents and placemarkers still retain much of their charm. Supposedly these tiles were imported especially for the project.


The plaza uses dark woodtones to contrast the plaster, exposed rafters under the tile roofs and intricate carved woodwork designs on doors and walls. All this dark wood creates interiors as dim and romantic as the exteriors are sunsplashed and dramatic - a fitting prelude to the dark, dim Pirates of the Caribbean anchoring attraction. Few areas of the Magic Kingdom are as receptive to a slowly setting sun or a bright twilight.


I don't think any area of the Magic Kingdom has such an impressive array of paving details, from the odd little lines which run through the streets to the richly detailed cobblestone effects achieved elsewhere. Because much of the Magic Kingdom is finished with plain red concrete paving tiles, the use and variety of paving details here is especially noteworthy. A paving flourish right past the Tiki Room even announces the arrival of the area, and an intricate design below the large signature arch which is the back of the area heralds its departure. In later years Disney would contribute significant attention to the paving treatments in their parks, an effort Caribbean Plaza would predate by nearly 25 years.


Few areas of the Magic Kingdom are as lavishly detailed, as these final few groupings demonstrate. Such an amazing variety of lighting fixtures, with no two almost ever re-used!

If there is a complaint about Caribbean Plaza, it is that it is a little too clearly an afterthought to the Magic Kingdom - it could have benefitted from not only a better location, but a better spread of buildings to allow the small alleys and courtyards it contains, which are its true pleasures, to be better appreciated.

One thing I would like to point out here is that although the aesthetic profile of Caribbean Plaza never changes - unlike Adventureland, which changes at least four times - I had much more to photograph in Caribbean Plaza, which to me suggests a superior treatment. Go back to the Adventureland analysis and you'll notice that there simply isn't as much to the area despite the great diversity of visuals. Caribbean Plaza may have been done sort of on the cheap, but anybody who takes the time to wander through there and on through the queue of Pirates of the Caribbean one balmy summer evening will have little to complain about... it's one of Walt Disney World's most distinctive and gorgeous areas.

One If By Land, Two If By Sea ~ Now it's 1973!

You all are looking forward to a lot of reading, right? That's good, because I've got a lot of writing that's currently in "test and adjust". Yes, that's a lot of writing by *my* standards... I may not be prolific, but when I write something, I write it up BIG. :)

But never mind that. Let's peek into the Columbia Harbour House! Yaay!


It's 1973 and everybody is enjoying their fish, chips, and "fried specialties". This restaurant wasn't ready for opening day or even opening year, bowing in early 1972, and was to be called The Nantucket Harbour House at first. Harbour House-o-philes know immediately that this is the second floor seating area right near the bay that looks down into the main service kitchen, so I don't need to tell you that. Let's check in on what Disney says about this place:

"The Columbia Harbour House, specializing in seafood dishes, is filled with the atmosphere of an 18th-century seaport meeting place, where whalers fresh from long months at sea ate hot food with gusto and downed mugs of steaming tea."

- Walt Disney World Vacationland, Spring 1974

...Really? Steaming, hot tea? Did somebody make a typo? Isn't this a little risque for Disney? Did Roy O. okay this? Yikes.