The Fight to Save Googie, the Style of Postwar Optimism (NY Times)

[202_Cyclist]

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

[202_Cyclist]

Here is a good inventory of Orange County's Googie architecture.

https://www.orangecountyinsiders.com/blog/orange-county/googie-architecture

[SIGSEGV]

that's an ugoogleable style...

[Hudson11]

Great Googie moogly

• Video Link

[xzmattzx]

Wildwood, Wildwood Crest, and North Wildwood ("the Wildwoods") on the Jersey Shore have been preserving Googie architecture for the last 15 years. In Wildwood, it's called Doo Wop architecture, because the Doo Wop musical style originated on the Jersey Shore as well. In fact, there have been a few neo-Googie/neo-Doo Wop motels built, to blend in with the original motels.


My photothread, although the links are now dead

[Six Corners]

I can't read the article because of the paywall but it reminded me of another Arby's location that still uses that same sign in the Chicago suburbs. However, when I went to find it on Google Streetview, I discovered that that sign had been removed sometime during the Covid years after the restaurant closed. The rest of the restaurant, in Hillside on the northwest corner of Wolf and Cermak, was demolished in 2023, replaced by nothing: https://maps.app.goo.gl/kjJiABVG1G3ayUU66

[xzmattzx]

By the way, we have an Arby's here in Delaware with TWO cowboy hat signs: link. It sits in the median of a major highway.

And not to turn this into a retro fast food thread, but a block away from the aforementioned Arby's was a Taco Bell that apparently had the last sign from the early 1980s or so still in use in the US, until about 2008: link.

There's also an Arby's with a cowboy hat sign a few miles away down the street from my house.

[xzmattzx]

Are these Arby's cowboy hats signs really Googie architecture? I would consider them Roadside architecture, as defined as something meant to be seen from far away as you're driving. Googie architecture is that 50s, Space Age, sleek lines, neon sign look.

Originally Posted by Six Corners

I can't read the article because of the paywall but it reminded me of another Arby's location that still uses that same sign in the Chicago suburbs. However, when I went to find it on Google Streetview, I discovered that that sign had been removed sometime during the Covid years after the restaurant closed. The rest of the restaurant, in Hillside on the northwest corner of Wolf and Cermak, was demolished in 2023, replaced by nothing: https://maps.app.goo.gl/kjJiABVG1G3ayUU66

That building itself looks pretty retro for a fast food place! Most Arby's buildings evolved, even if the sign didn't.

[mhays]

This stuff is usually car-oriented, and therefore doesn't belong in cities. One or two have faced "historic" protection attempts in my region but thankfully we tore them down and built worthwhile things.

[craigs]

The building will remain a Norms, but there was concern that the iconic Googie diner would become a Raising Canes.


Norms restaurant at 470 N. La Cienega Blvd. in West Hollywood. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Norms, L.A.’s icon of coffee shop architecture, would give way to a fast-food chain. Some are outraged

Noah Goldberg
Los Angeles Times
November 26, 2024

It could be the end of an era for a place that came to define a certain architectural and food aesthetic for Los Angeles.

If all goes according to plan, the iconic sawtooth “Norms” coffee shop sign on La Cienega Boulevard — one of L.A.’s few remaining examples of Googie coffee shop architecture of the midcentury — would be replaced by “Canes.” Goodbye to the retro diner known for steak and eggs, hello to a new outpost for Raising Cane’s fast-food chicken strips.

The other Norms locations around Southern California would still operate under the proposal. But the La Cienega location is celebrated. It was the subject of a famous Ed Ruscha painting, “Norm’s, La Cienega, On Fire” and was granted historic landmark status for its space-age looks that are so associated with postwar L.A.
. . . .

Pop artist Ed Ruscha immortalized the building in 1964:


Ed Ruscha, “Norm’s, La Cienega, on Fire,” 1964. Oil and pencil on canvas.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by mhays

This stuff is usually car-oriented, and therefore doesn't belong in cities. One or two have faced "historic" protection attempts in my region but thankfully we tore them down and built worthwhile things.

And yet, the most iconic symbol for your region is the Googie Space Needle. There really wasn't that much of it built and what little remains should be preserved as they do add to the character of a city.

[202_Cyclist]

I debated whether to paste the Arby's sign. The article has several other excellent examples of Googie architecture. With the Arby's sign, the article notes that large signs designed to capture the attention of drivers and the use of neon lighting are part of the Googie style.

Originally Posted by mhays

This stuff is usually car-oriented, and therefore doesn't belong in cities. One or two have faced "historic" protection attempts in my region but thankfully we tore them down and built worthwhile things.

As with everything in the big cost/benefit analysis of life, it depends where these buildings are located and what will be replacing them. Even our most walkable, transit-oriented metropolitan regions still have plenty of places that are auto-oriented. At least in Southern California, these buildings aren't located downtown. Many of them are in more suburban locations.

[mhays]

In suburban locations they're more understandable. But if the building owner wants to tear it down and build apartments, great. Suburban commercial areas are often where my region channels infill.

As for the Space Needle, that's entirely irrelevant. I said "This stuff is usually car-oriented, and therefore doesn't belong in cities." How would that apply to the Space Needle? It's actually pretty tall, and has maybe ten parking spaces in a small valet drive.

[James Bond Agent 007]

I think the problem with individual pieces of architecture like this is that they're just that: Scattered individual pieces of architecture. When you get just a scattered piece of a certain architectural style here and there, chances are it's going to eventually be torn down. If you had an entire neighborhood, or city, filled with that kind of architecture, then you could tolerate some individual buildings being torn down here and there because there's so much of it remaining. Then after some number of decades when people start to appreciate that particular architectural style, there's still plenty of it left to preserve.

Think of Miami Beach. Or Beacon Hill in Boston, Greenwich Village in NYC, etc. These are entire neighborhoods filled with a more-or-less uniform architectural style, all built during the same period. Some of the buildings can be torn down, but there's still so much of the original stuff left that losing a building here and there is not that big a deal.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mhays

This stuff is usually car-oriented, and therefore doesn't belong in cities.

I hear you, and am in general agreement, but Chicago built so precious few examples of Googie stuff, and even less still stands, that I'm totally ok with an exception or two here and there.

Our best extant example of the style is the Ohio House Motel, smack dab in the middle of Rivernorth.


Source: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-ohio-h...rth-at-the-corner-of-ohio-147477818.html


Yeah, it's totally auto-centric, but it's cool and extremely rare around here, so it can stay.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by mhays

In suburban locations they're more understandable. But if the building owner wants to tear it down and build apartments, great. Suburban commercial areas are often where my region channels infill.

As for the Space Needle, that's entirely irrelevant. I said "This stuff is usually car-oriented, and therefore doesn't belong in cities." How would that apply to the Space Needle? It's actually pretty tall, and has maybe ten parking spaces in a small valet drive.

Some of these buildings even if car centric have loads of character while a lot of dense newer development, including in Seattle are, unremarkable and forgettable. That Arby's sign in LA is part of what makes cities unique. Now they are become homogenized.

[llamaorama]

I guess the good news is a lot of solid worthy of preservation examples of Googie architecture are small scale. Also a lot of the style comes from signage and fixtures and furniture and not just the structure itself.

Things like giant neon signs can be saved and relocated. Maybe even some of the buildings themselves if they are very small could be moved. IIRC the original Taco Bell is currently sitting on jacks and steel beams in the parking lot of the Taco Bell HQ, they are trying to find a place to put it permanently. Or, they could tear these places down but salvage the cool globe lights and interesting furniture, etc.

Some of these buildings might be worth preserving if there was a way to build around them on their former parking lots?

Anyways there's a couple of things that stick about Googie architecture I like:

1. Huge windows
2. It strikes a balance between utilitarianism and being kind of fun and having a design that's interesting.
3. It seems like a lot of those buildings could used for all sorts of things

[mhays]

Originally Posted by JManc

Some of these buildings even if car centric have loads of character while a lot of dense newer development, including in Seattle are, unremarkable and forgettable. That Arby's sign in LA is part of what makes cities unique. Now they are become homogenized.

I don't necessarily agree, but even if so...fine with me. Better neighborhoods, urban density, and more housing supply are more important than keeping examples of postwar architectural styles, and I don't think these places typically improve character. The hotel in Chicago for example just looks crappy and is very car-oriented despite being marginally interesting to look at.

Prewar buildings, on the other hand, tend to have a lot more architectural merit, and I'm glad we're going farther in preserving more of those.

I agree about saving signs sometimes. The Museum of History and Industry for example exhibits a former Pink Elephant Car Wash sign and the former Toe Truck.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mhays

The hotel in Chicago for example just looks crappy and is very car-oriented despite being marginally interesting to look at.

"just looks crappy"

or

"marginally interesting to look at"

Which one?



As a one-off, it's totally fine IMO.

After all, variety is the spice of life.

[mhays]

Those are not mutually-exclusive concepts.