Originally Posted By TP2000 Bob Paris 1 >>"I really wish there was a way shareholders could hold the former management team responsible for the shortsighted financial decisions that have forced the current regime to have to spend a billion or so dollars."<< Bob, I thought of you today when I read this interesting news.... Cynthia Harriss, former Disneyland President from 1999-2003, has a new job two years after being let go from The Gap. She is the CEO of.... wait for it.... Metropark. (Metropark is a small chain of 70 shops in malls that sell trendy clothes that 20somethings wear when they go to a singles bar.) Here's the press release. <a href="http://www.pr-inside.com/metropark-appoints-cynthia-t-harriss-chief-r1924542.htm" target="_blank">http://www.pr-inside.com/metro...4542.htm</a> Cynthia went from President of Disneyland with 20,000 employees, to President of The Gap with 1,300 stores and 45,000 employees, to CEO of Metropark with 70 stores. The Metropark corporate office combination supply warehouse is in a gritty industrial park off Whittier Blvd. in a rough and decidedly unglamorous part of East Los Angeles. I think I'll have to think about this exciting new career move for Cynthia the next time I ride Silly Symphony Swings. And then chuckle. ;-)
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Poor thing. I would have thought that with her previous salaries and glowing credentials that she wouldn't really need to work at all at this point in her career.
Originally Posted By TP2000 No, not Madoff, Harriss. ;-) I had remembered your theory Hans that Cynthia may never return to the workplace and just retire early at 50something. Instead, it looks like she's thrown herself back into the workplace at a very, very different place on the retailing food chain from where she came from. According to Google Maps, the warehouse next door to the Metropark office is the distribution center for Mission Foods. Maybe Cynthia will stroll next door and re-introduce herself as the gal who helped get them the tortilla factory gig at DCA a decade ago?
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "Maybe Cynthia will stroll next door and re-introduce herself as the gal who helped get them the tortilla factory gig at DCA a decade ago?" LMAO!! OMG... I cannot stop laughing at this.
Originally Posted By TP2000 It's only funny because it is now a reality for her, the poor dear. When I had my 350Z a few years ago, Nissan paid me 300 bucks to attend a focus group and look at upcoming sports car concepts in a warehouse in this very neighborhood. Good thing the focus group was on a Saturday afternoon, as it was certainly not where you'd want to be once the sun went down. The ladies running the Nissan check-in process apologized profusely for the neighborhood and said their "normal venue" wasn't available and so they were sent to this industrial park in East LA. The Metropark corporate offices are right there too, and I hope Cynthia has a good car alarm as Google Earth shows just a few dozen spaces in a surface lot next to the warehouse.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones It sounds like Cynthia Harris did not invest her money right. There's no way she could have not retired if she invested her money well. "The ladies running the Nissan check-in process apologized profusely for the neighborhood and said their "normal venue" wasn't available and so they were sent to this industrial park in East LA." Nothing to apologize about. The odds of anything happen are very slim, yes, even in East LA. Violence tends to confront those who are looking for violence, and the random acts of violence we are so fond of reading/hearing about are rare, yes, even in those areas. Suffice to say, if crime is occurring, it's probably happening to residents, not *you*. Criminals in these areas prey on those who don't have the means to help themselves and/or those who would receive little attention or concern from the police, politicians or the media.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones As far as Paradise Pier goes, Disney is, for the most part, correcting the imbalance between off the shelf spinny rides and bona fide Disney attractions. Though Toy Story Mania's content is not my preferred cup of tea, it's still more advanced than the Orange Stinger and remains a welcome, fun addition. Little Mermaid and World of Color will enrich the area further.
Originally Posted By TP2000 It wasn't like there were roving bands of thugs in that gritty East LA industrial park area surrounded by 1950's working class tract homes. But it was not a pretty neighborhood, and it had a vibe of dinginess and urban decay and it just looked rather sad and pathetic. Seriously, Cynthia is going to need a good car alarm when she parks in that surface lot next to the Metropark warehouse/office. The woman is in her 50's. She had a job at a bank (Vineyard National) for about a month back in '08, but the bank failed and was taken over by the FDIC and the man who hired her was undergoing investigation for securities fraud and was trying to stack the deck of the bank's Board with people who wouldn't question him. That quick chapter of her post-Gap career didn't end well, and flamed out very quickly. And now cheeseball and minor Metropark? I'll say it again... The poor dear. Back to Paradise Pier, the overall skyline of the Pier is looking great. Interestingly, the Maliboomer is really looking bad now in contrast. It just looks too modern and cheaply detailed compared to the more period and more intricate looking Swings and Fun Wheel and Midway Mania/Midway Games buildings. The Maliboomer really does need to go. It just doesn't look right or mesh with the rest of the stuff any more.
Originally Posted By TP2000 Correction, Vineyard National Bank failed in '09, not '08. Cynthia was booted from the bank's Board with the failure, and then when the man who hired her was indicted by the Securities & Exchange Commission, that pretty much ended her budding banking career.
Originally Posted By disneywatcher Paradise Pier now a very slapdash quality about it. For example, the more professionally designed Silly Symphonies structure is right next to the very tacky Jumpin' Jellyfish towers. They may not loom over the park the way the Mailboomer does, but they're truly tacky in their own right. The color of the vinyl awnings over each chair and the design of those seats scream "SHODDY, SHODDY, SHODDY!" As for Cynthia Harriss, she can be considered an innocent bystander to the flop of DCA 2001. While she had a clueless, silly quality in the way she handled her job (and the new park in particular), she's not guilty of creating the mess in the first place. That honor goes to Michael Eisner and Barry Braverman. Even more so the latter, since the former schoolteacher continues to argue the public didn't understand his masterpiece of a theme park. With Harriss working at a small clothing business in East LA, I think it's only fair that Braverman be teaching at a school in South-Central LA or Compton, and the Mailboomer tower -- when it's dismantled (God willing!) -- be sent in a million pieces to the front yard of Eisner's mansion in West LA.
Originally Posted By WorldDisney <<With Harriss working at a small clothing business in East LA, I think it's only fair that Braverman be teaching at a school in South-Central LA or Compton, and the Mailboomer tower -- when it's dismantled (God willing!) -- be sent in a million pieces to the front yard of Eisner's mansion in West LA.>> LOL, watch it there DW...you are looking at someone who grew up in the hood and a product of the Compton public school system. I'm a proud graduate from Compton High School . Braverman can only be so lucky to teach a teenage version of me! ;D It is funny listening to how bad the hood is though when I read about it from people on the internet like this thread, but understandable. Totally agree with you about throwing Maliboomers parts on Eisners lawn though . But I never really understood the bitterness of Cynthia Harris. She didnt DESIGN or approve DCA, it was laid at her feet. She did her job of promoting and managing it and making the best of it, but I'm guessing majority of the stuff we hate about this park all came high above her. But I dont really know exactly what power a DLR President has other than managing the park itself. Those issues you can argue against her, certainly, but like I said, I think the overriding issue for many IS the park itself. I can't blame her for that. I just dont know how much of a hand she had in any of that, including the quick changes they made after they saw it flopping. Do DLR presidents have any say of what goes in a theme park?? I'm really asking here. But I think she probably gets it hard here because she is considered Pressler's lackey (and he obviously had a BIG hand) and basically her career was tied to his...or use to be . I dont wish the woman or ANYONE any illwill at the end of the day though. Yeah they designed a crappy theme park. They all either quit or got fired because of it and they are FINALLY trying to correct their wrongs, but I dont wish them decades of failure because of it, just something better suited for them. Building theme parks is clearly not it. She's not everyone warm cup of tea, I get that, but she seems like a decent person. Maybe her employees have a different view of her, but I just saw someone trying to make the best of a bad situation for the most part.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones "But it was not a pretty neighborhood, and it had a vibe of dinginess and urban decay and it just looked rather sad and pathetic." It is a region that has historically been denied investment. It is full of communities that had to endure harassment from the police over many decades. Several freeways were forced through the area, which blight neighborhoods and force down property values. What incentive is there to fix up your home if it's going to suffer from a low property value because 1) it's next to a freeway and 2) it's in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood? You can't really win in that situation. Even the Anaheim core, which has remained solidly middle class and has experienced reduced crime rates year over year, has seen increased derision over the years as it becomes more and more Latino. Anaslime. Anacrime. They are calling it that because they see more brown faces every year, in my opinion. Disneyland annual passholders see increasingly amounts of brown faces in the parks (TDA is actually advertising heavily in Latino communities, by the way), and we have also seen more concerns over "riff-raff" and "ghetto-ness" in the park. You don't have to go or live anywhere you don't want to, but the areas you don't like are the way they are for a reason. More info about Anaheim crime rates. <a href="http://anaheimpd.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/fbi-crime-in-anaheim-dips-at-twice-the-rate-of-national-average/" target="_blank">http://anaheimpd.wordpress.com...average/</a> More information on Anaheim's transformation to middle-class Latino city. <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/09/local/me-anaheim-latinos9" target="_blank">http://articles.latimes.com/20...latinos9</a>
Originally Posted By disneywatcher >> but the areas you don't like are the way they are for a reason. << Walt Disney himself never cared for the way Anaheim grew up around his park. The area was tacky and unimpressive from the beginning. The blame for that is largely due to the -- here's a good on-topic segue again! -- bad decisions (and poor tastes) of people similar to the incompetents who created DCA.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones Tacky and unimpressive just outside the berm. The neighborhoods within Anaheim were doing just fine. The tacky and unimpressive part was a failure of Disney (yes, even Walt Disney) and the City of Anaheim to form a coherent plan together. The company and the city did so for a brief period that put up homogenized signage and better landscaping. They suck on transportation issues, though. It was a failure of the powers that be. I'm just standing up for residents. To me, what's most interesting is that after Disneyland was built, the area that is now the "Resort" had no restrictions placed on it (so much for the free market determining the best outcome, eh?). If they had put some thought into it from the start, it would look even better than it does today. The improvements that happened when DCA was built were welcome, but they nothing but a band-aid. If Disneyland were built today, it would benefit from a lot of urban planning principles.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "Walt Disney himself never cared for the way Anaheim grew up around his park. The area was tacky and unimpressive from the beginning." Oh the irony. Many people consider Disneyland to be tacky and unimpressive.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "If Disneyland were built today, it would benefit from a lot of urban planning principles." You mean like WDW? LOL. That place had such promise in the begining, and then they just started building stuff willy-nilly, which was completely different from the original urban utopia vision that Walt Disney had.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones Well, if Walt Disney hadn't died, WDW would probably look very different. EPCOT was really going to be a lab for the progressive urban planning ideas of today.
