Article:
California Dreaming
 The
Theme Building was part of an overall $50-million "Los Angeles Jet Age Terminal
Construction" project, which began in 1960. The building itself was completed
in August 1961 at a cost of $2.2 million. On December 18, 1992, the Los Angeles
City Council designated the
Theme Building a City Cultural and Historical
Monument.
The original construction of the Theme Building was a joint venture between Paul
R. Williams, Pereira & Luckman, and Robert Herrick Carter.
More
|
"The
world is now too dangerous for anything less than
Utopia." - R. Buckminster Fuller
With
the brutal winter and depressing spring the East coast has endured
this year it is no wonder that thinking about the left coast has
entered many a mind lately. The Mama's and the Papa's had it right
and California Dreaming is what I have
been doing recently. Unlike some of you I have been fortunate enough
to spend some time there lately and thank God. If the economy has
been down and out in New York it has been happy and vibrant out
West. The sun is shining and the wind is warm with the promise
of new ideas and a fresh approach to life... an approach that spending
too much time in New York sucks out of you...You feel it from the
moment you get off the plane at LAX. The warm breeze and the Theme
building now housing the Encounter Restaurant greets you as you
exit the terminal. This is what optimism and utopia
is all about...
 That is until you hop in your rental (convertible if you really want everyone
to know you are from the East Coast) and hit the road- did I say road? What I
really meant to say was the concrete ribbon 70 feet wide with six lanes of wall-to-wall
traffic inching along at a snails pace - you could walk faster - and thank God
they haven't enacted the no-cell-phone-while-driving rule like in New York because
that is the only thing that keeps road rage in check - everyone is so busy chatting
away that they don't even realize that the traffic isn't moving. The first freeway
in LA was the Hollywood freeway built in 1940- since then thousands of miles
of concrete have been poured and millions of cars sold and that is what you get
on the 10 freeway heading east to yes, I did say it, utopia- in other words -
Palm Springs.
Angelinos must feel the same way New Yorkers do when they get to the Hamptons
every summer weekend. Relieved. There is nothing like rounding the curve on highway
111, past the windmills and down to the light where the Tramway gas station designed
by Albert Frey welcomes the road weary with its proud angular roof jutting over
the road proclaiming this is a pretty
cool place.
California Dreaming: Continued >> |
