As you walk up Yesterland’s Main Street, enjoy the colorful Main Street Flower Mart. All the flowers are perfect. There’s not a wilted petal anywhere.

Don’t worry about damaging the bouquet that you just purchased. The flowers are made of durable plastic.

It’s so colorful, it ought to be sponsored by GAF or Kodak.

For over two decades, the Main Street Flower Mart occupied West Center Street, a narrow street between Main Street’s Upjohn Pharmacy and Carnation Ice Cream Parlor. In 1977, the Carnation Ice Cream Parlor’s outdoor dining area expanded to fill all of West Center Street. The Flower Mart moved across Main Street to East Center Street, where the 1977 photograph at the top of this article was taken.

The Flower Mart is long gone.

East Center Street, the second home of the Flower Mart, is still somewhat like an outdoor street market. Although not a colorful as the massive display of bogus blooms, the more recent market serves the needs of thirsty guests, while adding liveliness of Main Street, U.S.A.

West Center Street, the original site of the Flower Mart, has been the Carnation Café since 1997. This table-service eatery adds to the old-fashioned charm of the street.

The Magic Kingdom in Florida also had a Flower Mart on West Center Street. Now, for all practical purposes, the park no longer even has a West Center Street. A 2001 expansion of the Emporium left only the slightest remnant of it.

The good news for guests is that they can completely avoid Central Florida’s frequent rain storms on one side of Main Street. The good news for the managers of the Emporium is that they have more retail space. But the Magic Kingdom’s Main Street became more mall-like in the process.

If you want an outdoor flower market with real flowers, you’ll have to go to a real city.

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© 1996-2010 Werner Weiss — Disclaimers, Copyright, and Trademarks

Updated April 9, 2010.

Photograph of Main Street Flower Mart on East Center Street: 1977 by Dennis Caswell.
Photograph of Main Street Flower Mart on West Center Street, with woman in blue dress: 1960 by Roger J. Runck, courtesy of Robin Runck.
Photograph of Main Street Flower Mart on East Center Street, with woman in black dress: 1961 by Roger J. Runck, courtesy of Robin Runck.
Photograph of East Center Street at Disneyland (street market with green umbrellas): 2007 by Harald Weiss.
Photograph of West Center Street at DIsneyland (Carnation Café): 2007 by Harald Weiss.
Photograph of West Center Street at the Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World: 2006 by Allen Huffman.
Photograph of an outdoor flower market in Dublin, Ireland: 2003 by Werner Weiss.