Hollywoodland! (pt.5)

How can I be nostalgic for a time I never lived in?
There must be a different word for that...

Nos-tal-gia: noun a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life...

So even though I do suffer from nostalgia in the dictionary sense, my desire to go back to times before I was born is not covered by that definition. There must be another word for that.

As I said in the beginning of this long and winded blog, my approach to this trip to Hollywood in 2012 was to seek out remnants of Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1960s. For some reason, I'm usually not interested in something until after the fact. For example, I became a Beatles fan in 1979, ten years after they split up. (Someday I'll probably like hip hop.)

I've always loved design and styling from the past, from old Victorian-era homes to 1950's gas stations. And I also love automobile styling from the bygone era (my own 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air is testament to that.) (Show-off!) For me it's never been about horse power, engine blocks, zero-to-sixty, and dual exhausts. It's always been about styling and design. Fins and chrome and sheet metal formed into impossible curves and swooping lines for no better reason than it looks good.

My 1959 Chevrolet Bel-Air Sedan, automotive styling before I was born. TjH Photo 2012

I don't know much about architecture but I do like old buildings, too. From art deco, streamline moderne, Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie style, old movie palaces, drive in theaters, restaurants of the forties and fifties... all stuff like that there. And Los Angeles was -- and is -- full of that kind of stuff.

The nostalgia factor plays into the fact that I recall seeing these old buildings and places on TV shows and in movies when I was a kid.

Well, there's a place in Los Angeles called Pan Pacific Park, a huge park in the Beverly/Fairfax area with baseball diamonds, walking paths, an old folks home, basketball courts and tennis courts. Anyone who knows me would think I would never be interested in a sports complex. But, on this site in the forties and fifties stood The Pan Pacific Auditorium...

A Streamline Moderne Masterpiece, The Pan Pacific Auditorium opened in 1935

The auditorium hosted many big shows and indoor sports events (like auto shows and the Ice Capades) from 1935 to 1972. Elvis performed here in 1957. It was the largest capacity auditorium in L.A. (before they built the L.A. Convention Center in 1972.) How do I know about it? I saw it on TV and in movies and I fell in love with it at first sight. It looked beautiful from any camera angle. After it closed it sat vacant for many years and as it deteriorated, it became a legendary backdrop for punk and new wave music videos in the 80s like Devo and The B52s and Barnes and Barnes and The Producers. It appeared in several movies like Xanadu and Funny Lady. (Was it in 1941? I don't remember.)

Music videos and movies often used the Pan Pacific Auditorium as an art deco backdrop.

Even in a state of atrophy, the Pan Pacific held its beauty. No wonder directors always gravitated towards it. Its ship-like design and crumbling aftermath always reminded me of the Titanic.

In 1978, despite it's decay, L.A. placed it on the National Register of Historic Places with plans to restore it to its former glory. Before that could happen though, it burned to the ground in a horrific fire in 1989. They did eventually restore the park and rebuild a smaller gym in it's place, based on the same architecture of the original...

Pan Pacific Park Gymnasium now stands where the auditorium used to. The park is beautiful once again and full of people having fun. An historic site. TjH Photo 2012

A single flag pole now stands where there used to be four. Still a nice homage to the original. Stormy skies above. I had about a 4 mile walk back to my car. I got just a little wet.  TjH Photo 2012

The design of the Pan Pacific Auditorium lives on, however, in both California and Florida at the Disney Theme Parks. In California, The California Adventure theme park uses a replica of the Pan Pacific for it's entrance gate, and, shown below, so does Disney MGM Studios theme park in Florida. When I went there (MGM Florida) in 2007 -- five years before visiting Pan Pacific Park in L.A. -- I was pleasantly surprised to see the entrance gate was an almost exact replica of the infamous auditorium. I gained a new respect for Disney Theme Parks that day. (Plus it was the first time I ever visited one.)

The entrance to Disney MGM Studios Theme Park in Orlando Florida is an almost exact replica of the entrance to the 1935 Pan Pacific Auditorium. I wonder how many families wander through these gates every day and have no idea this is an homage to the historic Pan Pacific a continent away... TjH Photo 2007

I read a book once...

... it was called Googie : Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture. I was, for a while, fascinated with this book. Now that I've been to L.A. I want to read it again and reacquaint myself with some of this stuff.

That's G-O-O-G-I-E. Not Google.

Googie architecture is named after a coffee shop called Googie's Coffee Shop which I believe was in L.A. The style of this sort of building is very dated and with the passing of time has become very retro-stylish. You saw it a lot in Los Angeles and Las Vegas in the fifties and sixties, but it reached the midwest, too. Here are a few examples from Wisconsin and Illinois that are still standing to this day:

The Gobbler Supper Club in Johnson's Creek, Wisconsin. Swooping lines, circles, towers, weird angles, things sticking out of other things, arcs swooshing off into nowhere.... that's Googie style. 

Uncle Nick's Gyros in Rockford Illinois. I lived across the street from this place for seven years. Its angled roof shooting off to nowhere is a Googie design element. Clearly this used to be a gas station in the fifties.

I'm not sure if this one's still standing. It's in Janesville Wisconsin in the Creston Park Shopping Center. It hasn't been a gas station for many years, but the angled roofs and cylindrical office are pure Googie.  32 cents  a gallon. Pshaw!

Meanwhile Back in fifties Hollywood...

Let's go back to the Wilshire and Fairfax area that I visited in Part Two of this blog. To refresh your memory (both of you reading this, one of whom is me) Wilshire Boulevard at Fairfax Avenue is called The Miracle Mile, and/or Museum Row. On the corner of this infamous intersection sits a thing called Johnie's Coffee Shop. It's the blue and white striped building in the middleground of this photo.

Wilshire and Fairfax. This photo appears elsewhere on my blog describing my day at Museum Row. TjH Photo 2012

I took the above photo from atop the open-air tour bus. We were heading East on Wilshire Boulevard about to cross Fairfax Avenue. Johnie's Coffee Shop jumped out at me, as I recognized it from my Googie book. The big gold cylinder across the street from Johnie's is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art building, formerly the May Company Department Store.

So what's so special about Johnie's?

Imagine this building at night when it's all lit up. I wonder if all those bulbs blink.
TjH Photo 2012

No horizontal lines please. This is Googie architecture. TjH Photo 2012

Johnie's is a classic example of Googie-style architecture, typified by it's weird angles and sloping lines. Most of these places have been demolished over the years, but the beautiful thing about Johnie's is, it's pretty much the only old coffee shop left. That's why it's still standing. If Hollywood is making a movie that's set in the 1950's and they want an authentic fifties diner, where do you think they're gonna go to film it? Right here at the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax. It's not even open to the public any more. It's basically just a film prop these days. The property is owned by The 99-Cent Store next door, but the owners keep the building up because it's such a valuable film set. I've seen it in a couple of movies: Pulp Fiction, The Big Lebowski, Reservoir Dogs, and a bunch of music videos too. The interior is still very 1950s, with it's orange and white tuck 'n' roll vinyl booth seats. Classic.

Interior booths at Johnie's Coffee Shop. I shot this photo thru the window. TjH Photo 2012

The counter where John Goodman and Jeff Bridges sat during an argument in The Big Lebowski. "You want a toe? I can get you a toe by three o'clock! WITH nail polish!" TjH Photo 2102

Here's a YouTube clip of Goodman and "The Dude" sitting in Johnie's Coffee Shop in The Big Lebowski. Be forewarned: this clip opens with a shot of a severed toe. But fear not, it's a funny severed toe. There's also some swears. But they're funny swears. Get the kids out of the room and enjoy.

Even the parking sign is Googie. The arrow is original. The 99-Cent Store was added later. TjH Photo 2012

As my dad would say, "I wouldn't wanna pay their electric bill!" TjH Photos 2012

Other Googie-style restaurants that stood on this very spot...

There's always been a restaurant on the Northwest corner of Wilshire and Fairfax... Well, except in the prehistoric days when wooly mammoths were walking through this property to go get stuck in the tar pits down the street. But before Johnie's there was Romeo's Time Square. It was in the same building, built in 1955, but it had a New York Time's Square theme, hence all the blinking lights and flashy neon. I don't know what year it went from being Romeo's to being Johnie's. But here's the only photo I could find when it was Romeo's. Sorry, I don't remember where I got the photo -- I stole it from somewhere and can't give credit to who it belongs to.

Johnie's Coffee Shop  was originally Romeo's Times Square 

And before that, even, dating back to 1935, it was another Googie-style restaurant -- one of L.A.'s first drive-in chains -- called Simon's. Simon's Sandwiches stood on this corner long before the department stores and museums. The Fairfax/Wilshire area in the thirties was pretty much oil derricks and airfields.

[Oh no, more boring history!]

Oil derricks and airfields. Cecille B. Demille had a little airport here on the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax which would one day be the May Co. Department Store/Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The billboard facing away from us is probably advertising the sale of this corner lot, future site of Simon's, Romeo's, and Johnie's.Photo from UCLA's Re-Mapping Hollywood archive

Highlighted in the gray circle, above left, we see Simon's Drive-In, with the tall spindly tower sticking up in the middle, one of L.A.'s first Drive-In chains. The airfield across Fairfax Avenue is gone but it's still an open lot, soon to be The May Company right where that billboard is.

Simon's Drive-In was circular shaped so you could fit a dozen cars in a kaleidoscope fashion. The central tower was outlined in blinking neon so at night it could be seen a mile away by weary drivers looking for coffee and a sandwich (hamburgers would not be in vogue for a couple more years.)

Okay, one more shot of Simon's and I'll shut up. In the early days of these round drive-ins, they were open 24 hours because they didn't even have windows. Just open air. The roof extended far enough to protect from rain.

If you wanna read more about the architect who designed these beautiful roadside diners ("God no! You already told me more than I ever cared to know!" ~You). I just got this book called The Leisure Architecture of Wayne McAllister. I can lend it to you when I'm done. Or link here to Amazon.

That's all for now, folks. I'm too tired to blog. I even bored myself with this post.

Coming up in Chapter Six : 

Santa Monica, Culver City, and the Pacific Ocean

Same bat-time; same-bat channel.

(Oh, hey! That reminds me! I have no photos of Bat Girl in this post! I'll remedy that right now...)

Yvonne Craig played Bat Girl in the 1968 season of  TV's Batman. When I was in Hollywood I saw the Batmobile and the Bat Cycle. But NOT the Bat Girl Cycle. Since starting this blog I have become smitten with her. She's 74 years old now, you know.

End of Part Five ... Click to Go to Part Six ... The Final Chapter