Wednesday, June 13, 2001
by Kevin Yee
As many of you probably know, Disneyland was built on sandy, loamy soil that was used for orange groves. In other words, it's very flat. Because Walt Disney didn't have much money to spend on the park — it was grossly over budget as it was — there were never any plans to dig and build an underground infrastructure.
In later years, Walt fretted about the resulting lack of onstage space on his small parcel of land, and Walt Disney World would eventually take this issue to heart by building all of its infrastructure underground. What feels like the ground floor at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando is actually the second story. The real ground floor is below you; a massive system of storerooms, dressing rooms, and corridors connect via the famous Utilidor. This way the maximum amount of space could be utilized onstage.
During Walt's lifetime, there was only one land added to Disneyland, and this land featured a two-story layout such as would be used five years later in Walt Disney World. I'm speaking, of course, of New Orleans Square. This unique land would require a system of elevators to connect the shops to their storerooms, the restaurants to their kitchens, and the Pirates of the Caribbean was partly situated under the supposed "ground" floor.
Pirates entrance
So where are the elevators and stairs? There's a set of stairs over by the New Orleans Square bathrooms (near the train station), and this is what most of the CMs in the area use to access the breakroom and cafeteria downstairs (more on that place some other time).
Another set of stairs is opposite the Pieces of Eight shop, though this one leads into the heart of the New Orleans Main Kitchen (NOMK), so it's typically used most heavily by Food's CMs than other departments.
As for elevators, the big freight elevator is by the train station stairs. This is used whenever tables and chairs need to be brought out into the area, such as when the land is hosting an Enchanted Evening (a private party in just one land), and in general whenever something big has to make it upstairs.
The Blue Bayou has an elevator from its small upstairs kitchen to the NOMK below. It's a horrible all-metal affair that moves so slowly, a walk up the nearby tightly-circular staircase gets you into the Bayou just as quickly.
There's an elevator at the Royal Courtyard (cleverly hidden behind an otherwise dummy door) which we always called the Verandah elevator that serviced NOMK and Club 33's kitchen as well. Typically only Club 33 uses this elevator.
Cafˇ Orleans
All my stories today revolve around the last remaining elevator: the Cafˇ Orleans elevator. This was, and is, a particularly foul-smelling elevator. All lifts develop gunk at their base, frequently in conjunction with stagnant water at the hydraulic base. The situation is worsened here by the fact that this elevator services a restaurant, with food particles, soup, and water from clean (or dirty!) dishes constantly spilling down the crack and into the shaft. The odor is distinctive. Not a completely trashy smell, but one which makes its presence known.
Like all odors, it fades for each person with time. As the months turned into years for me, the elevator ceased to have any smell at all — my nose had acclimated itself entirely to the scent and I could no longer detect it. I would thus puzzle over the monthly ministrations done to the elevator shaft to reduce the odor. What ministrations? Facilities would come out every so often and spray a liquid that was designed to eat the odor, at least in theory. In reality, all it would do is overpower the odor by being a stronger odor itself, in this case the odor of oranges.
Formula 114, it was called. I remember it so clearly because one day, the stuff was poured so liberally into the shaft it could only be called a hazardous chemical spill. It happened during business hours: all of a sudden, this noxious cloud of sharply biting, orange disinfectant reached our noses and we had to air the place out. It was bad. Several CMs ended up being sent to Central First Aid because they developed headaches. While the smell burned itself into my nasal passageways, the name of the chemical naturally etched itself into my memory.
No surprise, then, that my trip to Walt Disney World a few years later with fellow Cafˇ CMs resulted in our unanimous exclamation of "Formula 114!" when we passed by the orange groves in Horizons. If you remember the ride, which has since been removed from EPCOT, guests passed by a futuristic orange grove and were treated to a "smellizer" that emitted the odor of oranges. It smelled identical to the Formula 114, though less strong.
Similarly, the Soarin' Over California attraction at California Adventure (DCA) uses smell technology, and specifically oranges. This particular odor is reminiscent of Formula 114, but it isn't exact. It evokes the scent without mimicking it. Now I'll be real embarrassed if it turns out they use the same chemical!
But smell was by no means the problem with the elevator. The problem was reliability. I never realized how often elevators break until I had to rely on this one over time. Frequently, the elevator got stuck between levels, and you'd have to call Central Communications to have them send out a machinist to fix it. They'd always ask if anyone was trapped inside, because if there was, our problem became a priority. Otherwise it might take hours to get any attention at all, and we'd be stuck using the other elevators mentioned previously. The problem with them was that we'd have to cart our clean (or dirty!) dishes across the onstage area to reach those elevators, plus it was very inefficient.
A few elevator breakdowns stick out in my memory. I recall several uneventful ones where people were stuck with cheesecakes inside. It happened often enough that an unwritten rule was in effect; being trapped for more than 30 minutes meant you could dig into the food or drink you were transporting and not face any repercussions. That could easily have been an urban legend among our crew, but in this case, perception became reality and that often occurred.
One woman was trapped for several hours with no food or drink. I recall watching sympathetic CMs insert straws into other straws, end over end, until they had created a massive pipeline of straws. They then lowered it down to her and sent her soda. I still think of that to this day whenever I see people absently linking straws in a fast food joint. Why they didn't just hand her a coke is a bit of a mystery to me; I think perhaps in this one instance the hatch wouldn't open all the way.
(As an aside, it was in dealing with this elevator and its many breakdowns that I learned the topside hatches are always opened from the outside, and any Hollywood movie which tells you otherwise is taking dramatic license.)
By far, though, the clearest incident of elevator dysfunction came late in my Disneyland career. The elevator had been acting up all day, bouncing a little bit as it came to rest on its destination floor. I called it up on this occasion, and it bucked repeatedly as it opened the door for me. I decided to send it down unmanned as a test, resolving to call for it again as soon as it departed. A few seconds after the doors closed, we heard a tremendous crash. Prying open the door to the shaft from our level, we peered down and saw that the metal walls of the elevator had violently caved in on themselves. Had I stayed in there, I might easily have been knocked unconscious or worse. Certainly I'd have been knocked to the floor and pinned down; it had squashed itself flat. On this occasion our elevator was "down" for a very long time while we got a new one. Total cost: $36,000. And the new one, we soon discovered, was built on the same hydraulic drive as the old one — only the car itself was new.
Spills in the kitchens below go everywhere
Like any workhorse elevator, ours was subject to its share of shenanigans. The fact that the emergency stop would not trigger any sort of alarm meant that such stops were much more frequent than they should have been, with reports of inappropriate male / female activity (you get the point) reaching my ears now and then. Stockers bringing up food would routinely sample it illegally. Folks having an argument might use a mid-shaft stop as a private office. And so on.
The worst consequence of having the E-stop, from my perspective at least, was the graffiti. You see, it was child's play to open the car door in mid-shaft if you engaged the emergency stop, and you'd be faced with an extremely grimy elevator shaft wall. People often used this wall to scrawl witticisms or obscenities. I'm both proud and offended to say that my name is featured prominently in one such unprintable example — I guess I rubbed someone the wrong way at some point. Oh well. On the bright side of things I suppose I'm now a permanent part of the Cafˇ Orleans!
The next time you're in New Orleans Square, why not take a minute to ponder the fact that you are in the only spot in Disneyland to make such heavy use of elevators to transition between levels. To be sure, there are elevators all over the park, though many of them are for guest use to provide disability access to the rides. Fantasyland has a small underground, but it's not as heavily trafficked or used. Only in New Orleans is there an entire complex below ground that necessitates so many elevators ... and each has its own story to tell.
Next up: More from the Cast Member point of view
|
Are you a CM or a former CM? I would love to hear and share your stories! E-mail me! Stories and comments you submit become property of and may be published on this site; we normally don't publish last names of current CMs, but if you wish to remain anonymous altogether or do not want me to share your stories, please let me know when you e-mail me. — Shoshana NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in reader-contributed stories do not reflect those of Cast Place or MousePlanet. CM – Cast member; company lingo for “employee.” Empowerment Evolution – The 1995 attempt by newer park management to introduce modern accountability and market forces into the stodgy Disneyland methodology and power hierarchies. The name was meant to “empower” rank and file employees by removing layers of their management, though now there are more managers than ever. TPO – Theme Park Operations; the division of the Disneyland hierarchy that actually works in the theme park itself. TDA – Team Disney Anaheim; the name of the on-site administration building. Area manager – used to be responsible for an entire land, with all business divisions in the area reporting to him. Area supervisor – the immediate boss for location supervisors who divide up a department of intelligently grouped locations. The area supervisors in turn reported to the area manager. Nowadays all supervisors and area supervisors have been replaced by managers and assistant managers — the same idea, but smaller “business units" than a department; usually just one location in fact. RFT – “A” status; a full-time hourly employee. RPT – “B” status; an hourly employee five days a week but just not quite 40 hours usually. CR – “C” status; an hourly employee who works weekends year-round and five days a week during all school holiday periods (including summer and Christmas break). CT – a part-time hourly employee who works five days a week during all school holiday periods (including summer and Christmas break). No seniority, so shifts worked are usually quite short. Locate the employment center to fill out an application, and they will call you for an interview (dress nicely, just shy of an actual suit). Once there, follow these rules, in this order of importance: 1. Smile and be very friendly. They want outgoing people.
2. Do not let the group interview throw you off balance. They want outgoing people who can “perform” a little bit.
3. Do not worry about job (in)experience. They don't care. They want friendly people, not experienced and/or hardened people.
4. Do your best to convince them you already have a Disney attitude: you want to work with people, you're a team player, and you would consider this a dream job (however, don't overdo it on the crazy-Disney-fan side either). Strike a nice balance.
5. Did I mention the importance of a smile? 
|
