Main Street, U.S.A. Windows

From the new book, The Hidden Secrets & Stories of Disneyland, available at www.Amazon.com.

You’ll often hear that Walt designed the storefront windows of Main Street, U.S.A. to be low so that even small children could easily look inside and see their magical displays, but this is actually a “Disneyland urban legend.” Instead, the low window displays are another example of the Imagineers’ attention to detail.

Main Street, U.S.A. represents turn-of-the-20th-century America. In this era, before the Internet, television and even radio, shop owners had to rely upon their window displays as their primary means of advertising. As a result, they typically built them as large as possible, often reaching nearly to the sidewalk so as to show off as much merchandise as possible to passing customers, as evidenced in the attached Victorian era photo.

My thanks to Steve DeGaetano for contributing this information.