January 10 - Walt Disney World Preview Center

On this day, in 1970, the Walt Disney World Preview Center opened its doors. Interest in the Florida Project was pretty high in those months leading up to Walt Disney World actually opening. To keep the interest high, and relieve some of the pressure that was building up surrounding the whole project, Disney built a small structure to house a sneak peek for curious future guests. They located it on Preview Boulevard, now known as Hotel Plaza Boulevard, near the spot I-4 crosses over State Road 535. If you’re vaguely familiar with the place, it’s where the Crossroads Shopping Center has been for decades (even that won’t be true for much longer, but I digress). Imagine, if you can, that the only thing in that area is a modern looking steel, concrete and glass building, just one story high. Given the current look of the place, it might be hard to believe, but for the first 19 months of its existence, this was the only public building that existed at Walt Disney World.

The concept was simple. Inside the Preview Center, visitors could see photographs of on-going construction, artist’s concept drawings of key attractions, a huge model of everything that was being built in phase one and, every fifteen minutes, a movie about all the things planned for the first five years after the official opening. The property’s very first souvenir counter was located off to one side (of course there was a gift shop, where would the movie let out if there wasn’t?) and a snack bar. And don’t forget the counter where you could make reservations to stay at the being-built-as-you-sign Contemporary or Polynesian Resorts. All of this was available to anyone who cared to stop by, free of charge (except for the souvenirs and snacks naturally), seven days a week from 9 until 5.

To staff the Preview Center, Disney hired 19 of the most beautiful women they could find and I’m not kidding when I say that. 400 ladies applied and the company unabashedly went on record as saying they were chosen based primarily on their looks. They didn’t use the word beautiful, of course, but instead threw around adjectives like ‘fresh’ and ‘natural’ to describe it. At any rate, they were also all very friendly and the Preview Center became one of the highest attended attractions in Florida. Over 800,000 people had visited by April of 1971. Those kinds of numbers would be incredible for a place where there was actually something to do in Central Florida in 1970, but for a few pictures and a fifteen minute movie they’re crazy.

Once the Magic Kingdom and its accompanying resorts actually opened, the Preview Center closed. Most of the women who had worked there moved into other jobs around property (one, Debbie Dane, became WDW’s first ambassador). The building itself lingers on. For a while it was where guests staying at hotels along Preview Boulevard went to check in. It’s also housed a post office and currently supports the headquarters for the Amateur Athletic Union. I like to imagine that if you visited and listened really hard you would be able to hear a cranky old man’s voice coming from the concrete, saying “I don’t know where all this noise came from, or where those pretty girls went, but back in my day…”