The junction of Disneyland Drive and Ball Road, looking south along the elevated roadway in the center of Disneyland Drive.
This is a general area with its own character that I named myself ("DBJ"). I define this as the area around the junction of Disneyland Drive and Ball Road and extending up to the Mickey & Friends Parking Structure. This area is characterized by a significant amount of walkers, joggers, glimpses of backstage Disneyland through the fence, many bird-of-paradise flowers along the road, hummingbirds, melaleuca trees along Disneyland's fence, a sloping bank ending in a culvert alongside Disneyland's fence, and an elevated roadway whose concrete walls are covered with vines. It's not quite Disneyland, not quite MFPS, and not quite typical Anaheim, so it truly is an "inbetween place" with its own character.
If you like bird-of-paradise flowers (Strelitzia reginae), you should like this long sidewalk because whoever landscaped this region seems to have had a bird-of-paradise obsession. There are entire flower beds of this plant in the center of Disneyland Drive, near the Mickey & Friends Parking Structure, and they line the long sidewalk along Disneyland Drive. Maybe this flower was used because of the Tiki Room connection, since the lyrics to the song "The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room" mention that particular flower: "The bird-of-paradise is an elegant bird. It likes to be seen, and it loves to be heard...".
These is also a new, elevated roadway down the center of Disneyland Drive that I believe has no name, other than being one of the forks of Disneyland Drive. The signs at the ends of this elevated road merely call it "Express Lane". This is a one-way road, but it changes direction depending on the time of day: by changing the lighted signs at the ends of the road, traffic is either directed toward or away from the Mickey & Friends Parking Structure, toward or away from I-5.
Ficus pumila vines were planted on the sides of this elevated roadway to dampen noise, as is standard usage for this species of vine, according to the Internet. These vines also make the walls look more natural and attractive, and probably keep the temperatures reduced, too. It intrigues me that the gardeners are able to keep the top edge of the vines so neatly trimmed. Maybe they trim it very frequently, and/or they have a device that makes it easy to trim wall vines. These Ficus pumila vines are very common throughout Anaheim. For example, they're used in the topiary animals in front of It's A Small World, on the walls of Candy Cane Inn on Harbor Boulevard, and on the undersides of rock-pillared porticos of The Jolly Roger on Katella Avenue. This species of vine is rather unique, since it's in the genus of fig trees, yet is a vine instead of a tree. Also, it greatly increases size and appearance when allowed to grow freely and upon reaching maturity, whereupon it bears tiny fig-like fruit that is not edible.
This extensive vine-covered wall isn't completely featureless, however. A sign protruding from the side tactfully informs motorists that they've just passed by the theme parks area and have to turn around if they want to see them. Then there is the Mysterious Door. It probably is just a tiny electrical room that controls the street lights on the elevated roadway, but one can imagine there is an entire labyrinth of mysterious tunnels all throughout the massive base of the roadway, with secret portholes, like a castle. I imagine when Disneyland closes, guest traffic creates a slow-moving jam along this road. It would be amusing to camouflage oneself against the vine-covered wall and every so often jump out from the wall to scare the bejeezus out of little kids in the back seats of cars. (Sorry, but my imagination runs away with me sometimes.)
There is a concrete culvert along the bottom of the sidewalk embankment that slopes gently downwards. Too bad The Walt Disney Company didn't seize the opportunity to turn this incidental feature into an unofficial attraction instead of apologetically hiding it. If the culvert and been longer and steeper, skateboarders could've turned it into a free "Disneyland ride" that I suspect would've become a popular folk sport. By sitting on a skateboard at the top of the culvert and slowly rolling down the culvert, it would have provided an unofficial tour of Disneyland's backstage areas, viewed through the bottom of Disneyland's chain link fence.
A sidewalk for Cast Members leads away from the Mickey & Friends Parking Structure, runs under Disneyland Drive, and through a gate in Disneyland's fence. Just inside the gate along the sidewalk is bicycle parking.
Unlike earlier years, there is now a sidewalk only on the east side of Disneyland Drive. Foot traffic is controlled by "no pedestrians" iconic signs and by the lack of sidewalks, all the way up to Downtown Disney, which itself is not readily accessible from Disneyland Drive. The same is true of the new trams. The old trams ran through parking lots and on roads where guests could freely walk, but the new trams go down roads where pedestrians cannot walk. To me all this creates an overly controlled and alienated feeling, like being among herded cattle, and not being free to travel on foot at will. Another change from 1978-1980 is that the small motels along Disneyland Drive are gone. There used to be one or two motels on Disneyland's block, just south of Ball Road, although I've forgotten their names.
Nowadays there are no hotels along this road north of Magic Way and south of Ball Road, except for Days Inn on the corner of Ball Road, which faces Ball Road and has no access to or from Disneyland Drive. This lack of buildings and parking lots along this part of Disneyland Drive partly contributes to DBJ's peaceful, somewhat garden-like nature, which gives it a quiet character unlike any other peripheral part of Disneyland.
Circa 1978, however, I remember there were about two motels on Disneyland's block just south of Ball Road on the east side of Disneyland Drive (then called West Street). DBJ has been changed so much that it's difficult for me to even visualize where those two motels could have been. The address range required to be in this stretch of road is 1031-1579, which by old address books implies that the two motels I remember are Flamingo Motel and Dunes Motel. This is corroborated by the apparent convention that even-numbered addresses are on the east side of West Street.
There used to be many more businesses in this vicinity than there are now, not even counting the individual businesses on the DLH grounds. Some other former West Street addresses in this vicinity are listed below.
The way it used to be... Flamingo Motel was just south of Ball Road on what is now Disneyland Drive, on Disneyland's block, per address data. Photo courtesy of Synthetrix [3-28-07].
Flamingo Motel [1978]
 Dunes Motel was just south of Flamingo Motel, and also on Disneyland's block, according to address data. Photo courtesy of Synthetrix [3-28-07].
Dunes Motel [1978] |
Along the sidewalk leading away from DBJ is a large, two-part delivery gate for only ABM, almost always closed. Although this gate has an obscuring cloth draped over it, the guard shack immediately inside and other backstage buildings can be partially seen through the cloth. Better yet for photographers is that there are vertical gaps between the bars of the gate that are large enough to take good backstage photos with a telephoto lens.
For those who are really interested in views of backstage Disneyland, rare views can be obtained by peeking through vertical gaps between fence poles at other locations south of the ABM gate, while standing in the culvert, which lies several feet below the level of the Disneyland Drive sidewalk. So far I have not had sufficient interest to do this. A greenhouse for the nursery, stacked pallets, parking tram engine cars, and various buildings are some of the things that lie backstage in that backstage Adventureland area.
Created: February 24, 2007
Updated: April 25, 2007