Googie-palooza

The Anaheim Historical Society will hold their Annual Banquet at the Jagerhaus Restaurant, 2525 E. Ball Rd., on Fri., July 27, 6-9pm. There will be two speakers: Peter Cominsky, the new director of the Muzeo (formerly the Anaheim Museum), will discuss plans for this expanded cultural center. The other speaker will be me, Chris Jepsen. I'll be discussing Googie Architecture, with a special emphasis on the Mid-Century roadside architecture of Anaheim and Orange County. Dinner is $30 for members, $35 for non-members. RSVP by July 23 to the Anaheim Historical Society, PO Box 927, Anaheim, CA 92815.

And speaking of shameless self-promotion,... This month's issue of Coast magazine features an article about Googie. Jessica Forsythe interviewed me for the article, and included a lot of my thoughts, but she also wove in a lot of good information from other sources.

There were a couple minor glitches in the Coast article, one of which I'll clear up here and now. The article stated that I have been involved in local history for over 30 years. Now, I may have been a precocious toddler, but that's just ridiculous.

I also learned that the spooky image of me holding up an old article (about the burning of the Pacific Beach Club) is now the standard Freedom Communications file photo of me. Next time the press takes my photo, I'll try to have it be for a more cheerful story.

Today's photo (above) shows the elegantly outlandish Beach-Lin Car Wash, at 126 S. Beach Blvd, in Anaheim. It was built about 1960 and stands today as one of the better remaining examples of Googie architecture in Orange County. They still do a steady business, which is good. But the Beach-Lin is now in a redevelopment zone, which makes me nervous.

I scanned through the last month of my posts, and realized how heavy-handed I've been with Huntington Beach material lately. Sorry about that. Normally, I try to mix things up a little.