View allAll Photos Tagged Googie
The image above appears courtesy my friend Victor Stapf... AKA Synthetrix. If you have not seen Vic's "Postcards of the Past" site yet, you really need to take a look...
www.synthetrix.com/apc/potp3.html
Probably the best collection of Anaheim motel postcards around.
I found a group of Polaroid photographs that were taken by an employee of a sign company. All of the signs are/were in Washington.
Googie-styled Waialae Bowl around the time of its opening on Kilauea Avenue at Pahoa in Waialae Shopping Center in the east Honolulu area now known as Waialae Kahala. Built 1958 and closed 2008 although the building is still up looking at Google Streetview. 1960 trade magazine advertisement for Butler Manufacturing customized pre-fab buildings.
2011 streetview
Albert C Martin and SA Marx's 1939-40 May Company Wilshire was still bustling.here, and by this time it even had its own gasoline station. Like most of the prominent stores on the Miracle Mile and the Wilshire District, the store's main entrance was in the rear, the easier to accomodate shoppers who parked their cars in the vast lots. In 1993 May Department Stores absorbed the venerable JW Robinson's chain, and so this store was shuttered in favor of the Beverly Hills Robinson's.. Fortunately, it wasn't long afterward that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art annexed the building and took great care to preserve it. It is Los Angeles Historical-Cultural Monument #566. In October 2011 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in a joint project with LACMA, announced that the building would be the site for a new motion-picture museum,.
Johnies, built in 1955 as Romeo's Times Square and later the Rams Cafe, is always near the top of the list of Googie coffee-shop classics. It closed a decade ago, but it still attracts as much attention as if it were still operating. it looks the same and is, as is often said in Los Angeles, "available for filming."
Back of postcard reads:
TOD MOTOR MOTEL
On the Fabulous Strip
1508 Las Vegas Blvd. So. - Las Vegas, Nevada
85 Air conditioned units, halfway between the "Fabulous Strip" and "Downtown Casino Center." Enclosed Tubs or showers. Wall-to-wall carpeting. Telephone and TV in every room. Swimming Pool. Daily and Weekly rates. All major credit cards accepted.
Pub. by H. & H. Advertising Specialties, Las Vegas, Nevada
Year built: 1962
Down the road from Swoosh Restaurant, next to the motel, you'll find Gabe's. The new building that also make the roof over the gas pumps were a big investment, but it surely has made his business more visible for the travelers on Googie Highway.
See more photos and read about the interesting history about the North Penn Twin theater here:
(photo from the OPUBCO collection at the Oklahoma History Center)
The El Camino in Socorro, New Mexico is a great diner with good food, including excellent New Mexico food.
But the fun part is that this cafe was designed in the "Googie" era and still shows many characteristics. For instance, the sign outside is pure Googie, as are these lighting fixtures.
Googie explained:
"Googie architecture was born of the post-WWII car-culture and thrived in the 1950s and 1960s. Bold angles, colorful signs, plate glass, sweeping cantilevered roofs and pop-culture imagery captured the attention of drivers on adjacent streets. Bowling alleys looked like Tomorrowland. Coffee shops looked like something in a Jetsons cartoon. "
ochistorical.blogspot.com/2017/07/bobs-big-boy-harbor-blv...
Image taken using Open Camera, and processed with GIMP.
The Theme Building is a landmark structure at Los Angeles International Airport and is an example of the Mid-Century modern influenced design school known as "Googie" or "Populuxe." Los Angeles architect Paul Williams designed this futuristic landmark with architects Pereira & Luckman. It was completed in August 1961 at a cost of $2.2 million; and the Encounter Restaurant, with its space-age interior and spectacular exterior lighting, opened in January 1997.
The distinctive white building resembles a flying saucer that has landed on its four legs. The restaurant was once a revolving restaurant which provided a rotating view of the urban area of the LAX airport. Like most of the few revolving restaurants built in the early 1960s, the huge cost of maintaining the revolving machinery forced the conversion to a conventional, stationary venue.
Because of falling concrete, the space-age struts are being rebuilt, from the inside out. Over the years water has corroded the stucco and rusted the steel beneath it. All that steel in the 135-foot-high arches is being replaced, bit by bit, by galvanized and stainless steel. The whole job may cost $10 million and the scaffolding around the arches will be in place until the job is completed.
4508 W Slauson Ave, Los Angeles, Windsor Hills neighborhood.
The building was designed by the architectural firm Armet & Davis for the Wich Stand drive-in/restaurant that opened in 1958. This example of Googie architecture was declared a historic landmark by the Los Angeles County in 1988. Today it is a restaurant called Simply Wholesome.
Nothing like a faded old sign beside a lonely desert highway.
Above is my half-assed attempt at a Mojave sunset.
This googie burger stand—originally Giant Burger, later Space Burger—will soon be demolished to make way for a condo building.
1060 W. San Bernardino Rd., Covina, CA
Covina Bowl, which dates to 1956, was the first "deluxe" bowling center designed by Powers, Daly, and DeRosa... and when they meant "deluxe," they weren't messing around. The entrance to the Egyptian-themed Covina Bowl is marked by a giant pyramid. In addition to bowling lanes, the original line-up included a billiard room, coffee shop, restaurant, nursery, beauty salon called the "Hair Em" (LOL), and the "Pyramid Room" cocktail lounge.
Back of postcard reads:
BRUNNER PALMS MOTEL
215 N. Imperial Avenue
El Centro, Calif. 92244
The Broiler! Charcoal broiled steaks and chops. Cocktail lounges, 24-hour Coffee Shop. Two swimming pools. Sauna Bath. 24-hour direct dial telephones. Free television. Free Airport pickup. Located at junction of State Hwy. 86 X U.S. 80.
Photography by Dick Wood
Amescolor Publishers, Escondido, Calif.
The back reads:
HOTEL UTAH MOTOR LODGE, Salt Lake City
This dramatic entrance leads you to an attractive motor hotel that is also a unique convention center with huge underground exhibit hall and auditorium. Comfortable, TV-furnished rooms, large warm-weather swimming pool, colorful Crossroads Restaurant.
Wowee!! This place is the stuff, baby. Or "was". The only address I could find for it was "125 W North Temple", and a satellite view shows nothing but a big parking lot now. What a shame if this was torn down.
The sky on this card was obviously a cut-n-paste job. I'm guess this card is from the late 50's, early 60's, since that's a 1959 Ford they're getting out of.
During my errand to Reseda, I drove over to North Hollywood and along the way I found this old restaurant. It had closed a couple days before, and would soon be bulldozed to make way for a CVS pharmacy.
I Photoshopped this image to make it seem more the way the San Fernando Valley looked to me when I lived there: bright and garish and sun-washed, with massive stained asphalt parking lots and googie lounges and restaurants and donut shops jostling each other.
It's not really like that anymore. These days it looks a lot like Orange County or the San Gabriel Valley or any other part of Southern California, with a Starbucks and a Burger King at every corner.