Here is an interesting article about the coolest place as a kid in D-town in the 80's. Well worth reading.
Disney concept and owned by (for KIDZ of course). Run by weirdos, including some military dude. A Barnes and Noble now sits in its spot.
Behold! Celebrity Sports Center.
The opening of the swimming pool marked the completion of the $6 million Celebrity Lanes as called for in the original plans. The addition of Tom Murphy as pool director completed the management team at Celebrity. At the beginning of May 1961 the owners had hired retired general Eugene Mussett, the commander of Lowry Air Force Base from 1956 to 1960, as vice president of operations. This freed Richard Fletcher to focus solely on recreational activities at Celebrity, which was what he had wanted to do all along. He was assisted in this job by Spike Cleysens and Jasper Perry. Frank Shumway oversaw food operations, which, in addition to the lounge and restaurant, included a Hofbrau room where diners enjoyed beer and sandwiches along with a soda bar for the children.
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Plenty of visitors, from the famous to the not-so-famous, had fun at Celebrity during its first years, but management was not having quite as good a time. Both Diane Disney Miller and Roy E. Disney remember management problems as being one of the major difficulties plaguing Celebrity Lanes from the beginning. As one indication of the problems the business faced, General Mussett resigned as vice president of operations in October 1961, just six months after taking the position. Mussett said he was “not at liberty” to comment any further on the subject and quickly devoted himself to his new position as president of a fallout shelter manufacturer. Still, Mussett’s son Gerry remembered his father’s short tenure at Celebrity as “good times.”
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Employees at Celebrity were expected to follow the same rules. Celebrity staff watched a training film starring Walt Disney, in which he explained his expectations. Management continued to use the film even after his death, for as long as the Disney Company owned Celebrity. While the rules were strict, there were exceptions for certain workers. Pool employees were the only staff at Celebrity during the Disney years who were allowed to shout at customers. This one exception was due, largely, to the fact that the pool’s one-dollar admission charge made it an inexpensive place for parents to leave their sometimes unruly children all day during summer vacations. In all other areas of Celebrity, employees were expected to treat visitors as guests, just as they did at the Disney theme parks.
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As he outlined it in his last filmed appearance in 1966, EPCOT would be laid out like a wheel, with a thirty-acre, glass-domed, air-conditioned hub offering a thirty-story hotel and convention center, stores, offices, and restaurants. Mass transit would be the main form of transportation, with roads for cars and trucks buried underground. Outside the dome would be residential and greenbelt areas. EPCOT would be a self-contained city that could control its climate, recycle waste, and feed its own citizens. It would be a “showcase for American industry and research, schools, cultural and education opportunities.” There would be no crime, no slum areas, and if at all possible, no disease, hunger, or want. With EPCOT, Walt Disney was providing the ultimate answer to the social problems he had confronted with projects such as Disneyland and Celebrity.
With planning for Walt Disney World under way, Celebrity Sports Center took on a new role as a training ground for future management of the Florida park. The center trained people at managing a family resort in order to guarantee a pool of experienced staff when Walt Disney World opened. The only experience they did not gain at Celebrity was in hotel management, which would be a crucial part of Walt Disney World. Company executives solved that problem by leasing a Hilton hotel in Florida and then turning over management of it to Disney staff until Disney’s Contemporary Hotel at the resort was nearing completion. A number of notable Disney executives had their first managerial experience at Celebrity, including Bob Allen, who was credited with making Celebrity a financial success; David Jaskiewicz, who retired as vice president of human resources at Walt Disney World Resort in 2001; and Ralph Kent, a Walt Disney “Imagineer.”
http://buckfifty.org/2009/02/04/celebrity/


My church would have "lock-in" nights here for the kids. A bunch of churches would get together and rent the place out. They'd lock the doors and then you'd run around all night. Swim, bowl, go to the arcade, you name it.
Strange.
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi