By the early 1950s Walt Disney's great achievements in animation were behind him, and he was increasingly bored by the two-dimensional film medium. He wanted to work in three, to build an entirely new sort of amusement park, one that relied more on cinematic techniques than on thrill rides ... Disneyland's Main Street sparked an architectural preservation movement that touched every American downtown--and remains controversial: many see it as a retreat from life itself. What is beyond argument is that Disneyland was something new, both in public entertainment and in the way its 'lands' managed to chime with how millions of Americans wanted to view their country.