Leave a legacy

There are images in our individual pasts with Walt Disney World that are forever ingrained into our memories. Sometimes they aren’t entirely accurate, while other times they are so incredibly precise that it is as if we are standing there right now. Such is the case for me with the entrance plaza for EPCOT Center.

Once upon a time, before the Leave A Legacy tile walls cropped up, the arcade featured a number of raised plant beds leading towards Spaceship Earth. Each bed was framed by a pinkish concrete border with tiny pebbles imbedded in it, which had lights inserted into its lower section to illuminate the pathway at night. As a child in the 1980s these linings were good for three things. One, the sit on while my parents rented strollers or planned where we were going to go first. Two, rubbing my hand on as we walk into the park and I gawked at Spaceship Earth. And three, jumping up onto and tearing off on and around like a crazy person before leaping high into the air and landing back on the pavement.

After making our way through the planters, you would come to the fountain, which has also had a facelift since the park opened. Three clear monoliths arched inward and then reached towards the sky, each with the interlocking circles icon of EPCOT Center emblazoned at their top. The fountain was wrapped in a ring of bright blue tiles. I threw any a coin into that incarnation of the fountain, mostly quarters as I thought that would multiple my wishes by 25 (it would have been a dollar bill if I thought I could have gotten away with it).

All of this is to say that the plaza was simple, yet incredibly cool. The image for today comes from a vintage (I’m holding to Imaginerding’s wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey use of the word here) postcard from EPCOT Center. I have seen this gorgeous image of the glowing moon rising up over the plaza in many a Walt Disney World publication, but it is rare to find it in its original, postal, form.