Submitted by jdward01 t3_126m75p in todayilearned
I learned recently their first choice was near New Orleans, but as soon as officials got wind of it it, they started demanding more and more fees. That might explain some of the secrecy.
I think it’s safe to say they made the right choice. Not sure if NOLA would have been the right spot with the hindsight we have now.
Honestly it's pretty possible that Disney would not have let New Orleans fall into such disrepair. They can lobby with the best of them and would have had those levies fixed pronto in 1970 when the issues were discovered.
Someone, write an alternate history novel where Mickey Mouse stops Katrina.
You are talking about fixing the levies, but honestly The house of mouse sending its legions against hurricanes doesn't strike me as impossible.
This reminds me of this classic copypasta
> It is actual Muppets canon that Kermit the Frog, in some way, had a role in bringing down the Twin Towers in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
> In a Muppets Christmas film released in late 2002, Kermit is shown a glimpse of what New York City might look like if he had never been born. Among the scenery of this alternate reality NYC, we find none other than the Twin Towers proudly standing in the background. They were, of course, long destroyed in Kermit's normal reality. And yet, in the world without Kermit, the war on terror is missing its powder keg spark. Who would've thought that green piece of fuck could kermit a terror attack on US soil, but there it stands unimpeachable... We have concrete, canon proof of involvement. Why the world hasn't stopped and asked further questions is only further proof of a media cabal keeping this conversation away from the masses.
> The Twin Towers would still be standing if it weren't for Kermit the Frog. Al Qaeda was the puppet this time, and Kermit the hand within.
Ninja Turtles can also be blamed. There is and episode of the show where they stop Shredder from putting a force field around the twin towers
Spaceship Earth opens up and it’s just a really big fan.
[removed]
And Florida has become a rotting, gangrenous skin tag the rest of America is desperate to forget.
Walt Disney was not one to mince words when it came to matters of life and death. As he stood before Gerald Ford, the President of the United States, he made it clear that there was no room for half-measures. "Mr. President," he said, his voice filled with urgency, "we are running out of time. The levees must be strengthened, and they must be strengthened now. Lives are at stake, and we cannot afford to wait any longer."
Ford listened intently, his expression grave. "Walt, I understand your concerns, but the reality is that we are doing everything we can. We have engineers working around the clock, and we are dedicating more resources to this effort than ever before."
But Walt was not satisfied. "With all due respect, Mr. President, 'doing everything we can' is not good enough. We need a real commitment, a real investment in the future of this city. If we don't act now, lives will be lost, and the consequences will be catastrophic. I urge you to think of the people of New Orleans, of their families and their futures. We cannot afford to let them down."
The conversation went on for hours, but in the end, Walt's passion and conviction won out. Ford agreed to dedicate more resources to the levee project, and to work with Disney to ensure that the city was fully prepared for whatever the future might hold. Lives were saved, and the people of New Orleans breathed a little easier, knowing that they had a powerful ally in Walt Disney.
Yeah I was thinking the same when I wrote my last comment. We will never know! Interesting to think about what could have (potentially) been.
What could POSSIBLY go wrong, opening an amusement park in New Orleans???
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Flags_New_Orleans
...oh.
What I remember hearing was that when he built Disneyland everyone and their mother knew it was happening and bought up a ton of the space around the park and crowded it up, so he didn’t want to repeat that with Disneyworld so that they could expand as they desired.
The legend is only true if a) one means the ownership of orchards around what is now Disneyland changed hands and b) if “crowded” means the orchards being replace by single family homes
I grew up in Anaheim. Being near a theme park or sports stadium sounds lucrative but it doesn’t always pay off if one lives near those “amenities”. Traffic and crowds rarely help the people living in neighborhoods near traffic and crowds.
It’s lucrative for businesses not for the people that live there. Hotels can make a ton of money being near big attractions
It was more so to keep the tourist traps and cheep motels out of site or at arms length, so to speak. Also, when Orlando sentinel broke the story, it was Disney buying up land the surrounding properties quadrupled in price.
Did NOLA remember to charge them a "leaving town" fee?
Watch out, Radioactive Man!
Up. And. At them.
Yeah but Walt had a time machine, and knew about Katrina.
So he avoided it.
Similar thing happened with Star Wars, during the production of The Empire Strikes Back everyone tried squeezing them for more money. That's why Return of the Jedi was produced under the code name "Blue Harvest".
Look at what happened to Six Flags New Orleans, after Katrina. The park was underwater for weeks. The initial assessment was that it would be closed for the rest of '06 and through the '07 season. but they then realized the damage was far too significant to fix.
They salvaged what rides they could but most of them are still standing and rotting.
Closed for storm sign was still up last year
Yup, apparently they're finally going to redevelop that land, but we'll see if it actually happens
Geez. Did Walt just want families to die in the heat? What was his other alternate site? King Ranch?
The house of the most magical place on earth
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