Going through other people old slides is a quite a treasure hunt. After a dozen years of collecting and looking through zillions I’ve been fortunate to find hundreds and hundreds of amazing images. But since the beginning I’ve been hoping to find slides taken at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Kodachrome slide photography was brand knew at the time but I knew that eventually I’d come across some slides that somebody took there – and last week it finally happened!!! This is one of the slides.

In this bird’s eye view you can see the colorful giant Life Savers that decorate the Life Savers parachute drop, the ?world’s largest cash register? (which displayed the daily attendance), and Midget Town, which housed ?a collection of performing midgets – wow! How politically incorrect was that? On the far right is the New York Pavilion, the only building that remains from the out-of-this world exhibition. It is now the Queen’s Museum, home to a spectacular display of memorabilia and footage from both the ’39 and ’64 Fairs.

At the time, the ’39 World fair was the biggest and most expensive world’s fair ever. It happened at an amazing time in history between the depression and World War II, which to me makes the futuristic display even more significant and poignant. Among the most popular exhibits were General Motor’s Futurama where visitors were treated to a view of the world of 1960. Visitors also saw television there for the first time.

For those who visited the 1939 New York Worlds Fair I can imagine that it must have been a life altering experience – to say the least!!!

God Bless Americana and New York World’s Fairiana

A shoeshine boy totes his gear and enjoys a churro while he poses in passing for a picture taken by a tourist.

Olvera Street is Old Town Los Angeles. It’s one of the city’s greatest treasures and oldest tourist attractions. In fact it is the

Many of the shop and stand owners are children and grandchildren of the people that worked there way back in 1930 when the street was first closed to thru traffic and converted to an open-air Mexican marketplace by a well-to-do woman named Christine Sterling. According to the legend she was a hopeless romantic obsessed with the book

I’ve been going to Olvera Street for years, usually to enjoy the #6 combo platter at La Luz Del Dia (on the corner near the plaza), where, like all the other restaurants there, you can enjoy your tasty Mexican meal on the patio – SO California! Then there’s strolling and shopping while being serenaded by the Mariachis. Much of the exotic merchandise you will find is classic Olvera Street fare that your grandparents could’ve found there decades ago. Really, the whole place is one of the best time warps around. All things considered, it may very well be my favorite street in town.

GOD BLESS AMERICANA AND OLVERA STREETIANA!

The busiest intersection in town is bustling with activity. An electric streamliner street car heads north on Broadway. A banner blows in the morning breeze. Broadway is one of the few streets in Los Angeles that actually looks like a traditional big American city.

Lined with more department stores, specialty shops, eating places and movie palaces than anywhere else in Southern California, for many years Broadway was the retail and entertainment backbone of Los Angeles. For more than fifty years, beginning just after the turn of the century, Broadway, between 4th and 9th streets was a destination location for the masses who came from the suburbs, primarily by streetcar, to shop, go to the movies, and eat.

On the left side of the street is Bullock’s department store, Le Roy’s Jewelry, Kress Five & Dime, the Los Angeles Theater and Swelldom, which sold women’s fashions. On the right, Clifton’s Brookdale Cafeteria, Harris & Frank, and Bond, both men’s and women’s clothing stores, and The Palace Theater. The KRKD radio tower on the Arcade Building broadcasted from 1932 to 1961.

During the 50s, Broadway’s demographic began to change and become what it is today – a hustling-bustling multi-cultural market place and largest concentration of historic movie palaces in the world. The last streetcar ran in downtown Los Angeles in 1963.

GOD BLESS AMERICANA AND BROADWAYANA!

Sit and spin! Second only to the Walt Disney Concert Hall the Bonaventure is the most unusual building downtown. Its shape and style is late- space-age architecture at its most extreme.

Ironically very similar looking structures were illustrated by legendary science fiction artist Frank R. Paul in the 1940s. Originally when it opened in 1977, it was called the Bonaventure Hotel and Shopping Gallery. The eight stories of shops that surround it never took off. But the interior furnishings and fixtures, pools and fountains and landscaping and lighting were amazing. Falling vines of Devil’s Ivy were everywhere. It was high, high seventies.

Besides being the largest hotel downtown by far, it has many unusual features. Those scary exterior elevators never fail to remind me of my fear of heights. If the outside isn’t sci-fi enough for you, step inside and have a look at the rat maze-like lobby. The only interior space more unique in town is that of the Bradbury Building built in 1893.

I dream of the day when the Bonaventure gets the interior design treatment it deserves. It needs a Wallpaper Magazine style make over. Twenty plus years of replacement furnishings and fixtures have not been kind to the original look and feel. This is a prime high-fashion building that quite clearly has the potential to be an out-of-this-world hotel.

The sitting and spinning takes place on the 35th floor in Southern California’s only revolving cocktail lounge. The first time I ever went there I went up the lounge, walked in like I owned the place, sat down and ordered a Pina Colada. They didn’t even card me. I was sixteen. All these years later I must say it’s my favorite place in town to have a drink – especially on a crystal clear evening. Of course the best time to arrive is just in time to watch the sun set. The spectacular 360- degree birds-eye view of Los Angeles (along with your cocktail of choice) is intoxicating.

GOD BLESS AMERICANA and BONEVENTUREIANA

It’s spring, 1963 – a time of major transition on Bunker Hill – a once fashionable Victorian-era neighborhood in Los Angeles.

With the erector-set like skeleton of what was to become the most spectacular mid-century building in the city, the Department of Water and Power, as a dramatic backdrop, a woman immortalizes an old Victorian house across the street before the bulldozer arrives. In the meantime her husband tunes up their 1959 Triumph TR3. What a happy couple! They are members of the Long Beach Camera Club on an outing taking pictures on Bunker Hill.

By 1963, Bunker Hill’s old 1880s and 90s homes and hotels had become boarding houses for the not-so-fortunate crowd. Downtown redevelopment agencies saw it as an one big “tear-down” and the prime place to build the “new utopian” downtown Los Angeles. In a period of twenty or so years city leaders managed to virtually erase the cities oldest and most unique neighborhood and replace it with a “TOMORROWLAND” of skyscrapers and elevated sidewalks.

GOD BLESS AMERICANA and DOWNTOWNIANA

This slide is marked: Holly, Sandra and the Powell’s, July 1. Holly is the man on the left. The man on the right is smoking. And the ladies are wearing gloves – how civilized! I hope they’re not planning on giving Chinatown the white glove test!

Chinatown is a spectacular themed environment that predated Disneyland by seventeen years. Hard to believe it was designed by the city of Los Angeles. In the 40s, 50s and 60s it was among Southern California’s most popular and publicized tourist attractions – yes, right up there with Disneyland. Built in 1939 just after Union Station was built on the site of the old Chinatown, it was promoted as an Oriental oasis of quaint souvenir shops, selling oriental oddities, souvenirs, silks, jewelry and clothing with Chinese restaurants and nightclubs, and a dimly lit perfumed temple. I’m still looking and sniffing for that perfumed temple!

Back in the day, many of the restaurants in Chinatown advertised authentic Cantonese food, yet they served chop suey, sweet and sour pork and Peking duck – dishes unknown in China. And we thought we were eating real Chinese food!

The first time I ever went to Chinatown I was about fifteen and looking for any excuse to take a trip into the big city from Ontario! I went with my grandmother in her ‘63 Thunderbird. She always drove that car really fast. She was in search of some red silk fabric to make a kimono or some such thing. We tasted dim sum, saw a rat and she bought me some smelly incense. On the way home she said, and I’ll never forget it, “My next husband is going to be a Chinaman”

Today, I go to Chinatown quite often. It’s remarkably well preserved (by neglect). It’s a great place to buy unique gifts, have a cheap cocktail at the Golden Pagoda, then have dinner a few blocks away at my favorite Chinese restaurant, Mon Kee Seafood, located at 679 N. Spring St, Los Angeles (phone: 213/628-6717). Before you walk into Mon Kee, make sure to notice the amazing vintage ceramic fish tiles in the window. Then as you go through the door prepare to gasp! The giant vintage underwater sea life mural takes up the whole north wall of the main dining room. It is quite nice to dine by (and make sure to keep your eye out for the elderly lady snappin’ snow peas in the corner).

Dress like an Arab and get in FREE (really!). There is only one place I know of where you can do that – the Riverside County Fair & National Date Festival in Indio, California. And thank goodness it’s that time of year again. The festivities continue February 13, 22, 2004.

Now’s the time to enjoy the pageantry inspired by that little sweet palm tree treat. While you are there celebrating the harvest, sample crystallized, candied, brandied, stuffed, and dipped dates. Then enjoy snacking on date cookies, cakes, ice cream and milkshakes of course. For sport attend the exciting ostrich and camel races. Afterwards maybe you’ll be lucky enough to have your picture taken and rub elbows with royalty, Queen Scherazade and her court. Need some religion in your life? Be there on February 15th and attend The Blessings of the Dates.

Inspired by the Coachella Valley’s abundant date harvest, the annual Riverside County Fair and Date Festival began in 1921. In 1947 the Arabian theme was adopted in honor of the date’s Middle Eastern origins. By then there were more than five thousand acres of date palms in the Coachella Valley supplying ninety percent of the nation’s dates.

The Riverside County Fair and Date Festival is at 46-350 Arabia Street at Highway 111, Indio, CA. Dates are February 13 & 22, 2004.

GOD BLESS AMERICANA and ARABIANA

This is “Mr. and Mrs. Bobbysocks.” What they did in 1956, I did this last week. I went to Arizona. Yes, in Phoenix. I was there performing slide shows at Taliesin West for journalists flown in from around the country to preview the brand-spankin’ new 2005 PT Cruiser Convertible by Chrysler. On the days off what were D-J (aka Tex), my producer, and I to do but run around looking for local time warps, treasures and leftovers from days past.

There were dozens of scenes and sightings. First of all, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West is out of this world. Hello! Being there is like being on another planet. Its Mother-Nature-meets-Modernism style looks like it could’ve been built in 1950 or 2050.

We saw the ripe underbelly of Phoenix, heading east down the pre-freeway era main drag through town: Van Buren Avenue – used car lots, boarded up motels and sun baked neon signs. As I was recuperating from two spectacular sightings (the Log Cabin Motel where each room was just that, a charming little log cabin, and the cleverly named Jalopy Jungle used car lot), my eyes just about bugged out of my head. I’d spotted a gigantic vintage neon sign standing oh-so proud and freshly painted in the distance. The blazing neon and Old West font spelled Bill Johnson’s Big Apple Restaurant. I pulled up, we got out of the car and stood there in awe. It was a GOD BLESS AMERICANA moment.

Turns out it’s a total classic and AMAZING 1956 old Western roadhouse restaurant. Inside and out it’s a total emersion themed environment. Western all, and I do mean, all the way. The waitresses who have all been there a while wear a gun and holster. And on the menu BBQ! They even sell their own bottled BBQ sauce. And mmm mmm mmm is it good!

In Old Town Scottsdale at the Sugar Bowl, an old-fashioned 1958 Victorian themed ice cream parlor, Tex slurped an ice cream soda while I enjoyed the more sensible fruit bowl served with a most delicious half a date nut bread and cream cheese sandwich – a taste treat sensation that I’ve haven’t experienced since my mother’s one and only Tupperware party in 1973 when I was ten.

Later, just a few doors down Scottsdale Road, we were taken to dinner at The Pink Pony, a baseball memorabilia filled steak house serving since 1952. Walking in the door I tried to keep my involuntary gasps to my self as I spotted the various vintage pink pony artworks that stood out against the black Naugahyde curved booths lining the room. Perusing the menu the chef salad sang out to me so I ordered it. Against the advice of our dinner mate, a local, but not the waitress who said “Oh it’s good, it’s fresh!” Tex ordered the swordfish. As I enjoyed the processed meats and cheeses, served julienned of course, Tex said: “Do you think this fish is bad” I thought “Bad fish at the Pink Pony? Noooooo, let me taste it.” GAG, YUK, it was rancid!!! Never order fish in a steak house!

GOD BLESS AMERICANA and ARIZONAIANA

If the Jetsons ever went to Las Vegas, certainly this must be where they stayed and played. They would’ve felt so at home because after all it looks like it came straight out of their ultra out-of-this-world universe.

Designed in the late fifties, the Landmark is by far the spaciest hotel ever built. Howard Hughes was the most famous name originally attached to the project. Ground breaking was celebrated in 1961 and construction was completed in 1963. But for mysterious reasons, the 31-story, 500-room flying saucer-style casino hotel didn’t open its doors for business for six years. In 1964, as it stood empty, it played a role as background scenery behind Elvis and Ann-Margaret in

I remember being mesmerized by the Landmark as a child. Other than seeing a chicken play the piano and a trapeze act at the Circus Circus, it’s the only thing I remember from my first trip to Las Vegas, which was the weekend before I started kindergarten in 1968. In 1983, when I returned as an adult, it was the first place I wanted to see. The Landmark was really run down and certainly wasn’t catering to the hippest crowd in town. Nobody I talked to there seemed to realize that the building was in any way unique or interesting. That is unfathomable to me.

Never really successful, over the years it passed through the hands of several owners. After years of decline, in 1990 the property was acquired by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and the landmark Landmark closed. Unfortunately for us and future generations it never reached the legendary architectural status it deserved.

On Tuesday, November 7, 1995 came one of the darkest days in the history of mid-century modern architecture. At 5:35 am, using a mere 100 pounds of dynamite, The Landmark was blown-up to make room for a parking lot, yes, a parking lot. Actual footage of the implosion is in Tim Burrton’s

GOD BLESS AMERICANA and LAS VEGASANA

The sparkling clean car is a 1955 Mercury Montclair finished beautifully in aqua and cream, inside and out. This model was among the first of the 50s cars to be recognized as a classic. Thankfully the location of where this ultra rare car wash shot was taken is revealed in the background by the space age LAKEWOOD CENTER sign. When I was a kid my Aunt Karen and Uncle Melvin lived in Lakewood and I spent a lot of time there

Lakewood is one of Southern California’s most unique cities. In its day it was the biggest and most ambitious suburban tract home development ever. Covering more than ten square miles, it was promoted as the “world’s largest planned community.” And with each house equipped with a Waste King Pulverator, it was also called the “world’s first garbage-free city.

Started from scratch in 1950, by 1953 Lakewood had 135 miles of freshly paved streets, twenty parks, ten schools and seventeen-thousand cookie cutter homes, all surrounding the Lakewood Center.

The Lakewood Center was exactly that – the center of Lakewood. It was much more than just a shopping center. It was the modern equivalent of the classic town square. Along with a smart modern-style pedestrian promenade of shops there were office buildings, restaurants, a bowling center, theater, post office, civic center and car wash all perfectly complimented by parking for 12,000 cars

The crowning touch and center’s centerpiece was the tallest building in town, the May Co. department store. The giant towering yellow neon M’s that crowned the retail castle on four sides were each nineteen feet tall and visible from every street in town

Lakewood was basically an instant-just-add-water city with all the trimmings – Southern California’s very own utopia, the model suburban city

GOD BLESS AMERICANA and LAKEWOODANA