LAST ONE ON THE BUS

LAST ONE ON THE BUS

… RETRO & REGIONAL HISTORY OF L.A. & THE WEST COAST

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Category: Picture This: Fav Photos

Picture This: Glendale’s Grand Central Air Terminal

Posted on September 12, 2021April 29, 2022 by L1OTB

I am leaving this fabulous vintage photo large and uncropped . . . I think it’s that good. How many Angelenos know that Glendale, once a rather sleepy L.A. suburb, was actually at the very heart of the burgeoning aviation industry here in Southern California? (Unrelated side note: the edge of the small billboard to…

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Picture This: Long, Long Gas Lines and Gas Rationing in L.A.

Posted on August 29, 2021April 29, 2022 by L1OTB

The 1979 Oil Crisis was an energy crisis characterized by a huge drop in oil production for the second time in the 1970’s, the first being in 1973. In the wake of the Iranian Revolution, Iranian oil refinery employees went on strike in 1978. Iran’s oil refineries went from producing 6 million barrels per day…

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Picture This: “Who Wants Coffee?”

Posted on August 1, 2021April 29, 2022 by L1OTB

“Novelty,” “mimetic,” “programmatic,” “vernacular”—all are terms used to define the same crazy kind of “art imitates life” architecture that once dotted the L.A. cityscape (and much of the rest of the country, for that matter) starting in the 1920’s. You knew it when you saw it (and that was the point, of course). Puppies, chickens,…

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Picture This: Van De Kamps Coffee Shop and Drive-in, Atwater Village

Posted on August 13, 2012April 29, 2022 by L1OTB

  Van De Kamps Bakery and Coffee Shop with drive-in service, ca. 1945. This restaurant was located at the corner of Fletcher Drive and San Fernando Road in Atwater Village. It was designed by local architect Wayne McAllister in the Streamline Moderne style with neon trimming the roof line and iconic windmill blades. The high-strutting…

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(Own work, L1OTB)
(Own work, L1OTB)

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