Growing up in Southern California in the 1980s - 90s, I didn't appreciate Googie architecture as much as I do now, perhaps because it was fairly common then and not too old.
The Fight to Save Googie, the Style of Postwar Optimism
The car-centric architectural style, characterized by neon signs and dramatic rooflines, is now endangered. Its admirers mourn the loss of the ideals it represented.
By Anna Kode
New York Times
Dec. 21, 2024
After more than 50 years in business, the Arby’s on Sunset Boulevard closed in July.Credit...Ashok Sinha for The New York Times
"In June, the Arby’s on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles shut down. The news, announced on the restaurant’s marquee — “FAREWELL HOLLYWOOD TY FOR 55 GREAT YEARS” — didn’t seem surprising, with rents and labor costs on the rise. What was out of the ordinary was the public’s response to it.
Judy Sibelman, whose family had owned the business, said that she was overwhelmed by the “outpouring of emotion” from strangers. People wrote to the family “saying things like ‘I was a writer at one of the studios around the corner, and I would sit in a corner booth at Arby’s and write,’” Ms. Sibelman said. “One person even said they lost their virginity there. I certainly hope it was in the parking lot.”
On social media, people posted poetic, yearning odes — but not to the curly fries. They were more concerned about what would happen to the restaurant’s giant neon cowboy hat sign, a relic of the 1960s. One fan dramatically eulogized the sign on X, calling it a “garish dreamcatcher” that represented “abundance and continuity amid a roaring void..."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/realestate/googie-architecture.html
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