Just continuing on this and sidetracking, I think a lot of people aren't aware just how much of Florida's Disney World (specifically Magic Kingdom) played a part in Main Street's design.
Magic Kingdom's.
Dreamworld's back in 1981.
Dreamworld's (in 2018).
Magic Kingdom's.
Dreamworld's.
Magic Kingdom's.
Dreamworld's (in 1981).
Dreamworld's (in 2018).
You'd think you'd only find amazing stores like this only in the Magic Kingdom.
But actually Dreamworld did cool stuff like this too.
Here's Disneyland's Market House from the air.
Here's Dreamworld.
From the ground back in 1956 at Disneyland.
From the ground back in 2012-ish at Dreamworld.
And this is what Disney have done to theirs.
Now i'm not saying Dreamworld needs to somehow procure the money Disney has to continually drop millions on facade additions, that's unreasonable and even John Longhurst recognised that was impossible, but I do think management has done a lot of bad with the money they had by tacking on cheap lights, painting facades garish colours and in the case of the main entrance, actually knocking out a part of the building to put in a bland, cream, textured wall with barred windows. I mean talk about a jarring and hostile first impression. Disney have looked after what they had and now, some several decades later, a thousand tiny improvements have resulted in untouchable quality and finish.
That's not to say that was never the case either with Dreamworld - Village Oval is a fantastic example of an addition where the facades and buildings were simply second to none.
This was Village Oval.
It got a lot worse.
But it did get better.
But we did lose amazing little buildings like this.
Sometimes I feel like just they seem to get it wrong more then they do get it right, and that's where people irk up, because when you destroy something the expectation is that whatever replaces it is as good, if not better, and that hasn't been the case for so very many things at Dreamworld. Despite that, refurbishments like Green Bean, the ice cream parlour & the Dough Bros end of the plaza are all actually really well great examples in Main Street of bringing something into the 21st century without cocking it up completely (although in the case of the central plaza, removing the chandelier in the main tower and putting lino over the Dreamworld mosaic are both sins in their own right.) The Dreamworks area is another example of bringing a higher level of quality into the mix and is really great overall and Tiger Island is dead set the park's biggest asset and provided you ignore the gigantic tin cage down the end that shouldn't exist it's honestly one of the world's best Tiger exhibits.
In the case of Green Bean as a Main Street facade example, when they renovated it they used softer, more realistic colours, the interior aesthetic is muted but fun and detailed, and there's plenty of nice places to sit - that kind of execution is how the entirety of the park is how the whole park should be in my mind and that's why folks like me are so judgey - it's not because we're anal theme park nerds, it's that Dreamworld used to be shit hot, and since Ardent came along a lot of things have fallen well below the bar that John Longhurst had set.
With all of that said, bulldozing the Dreamworld Cinema facade would be an utter shame and frankly speaking I doubt there's anything better you could put in its place given just how iconic the design itself is.