Doll House Time Traveling

Posted on 02/01/2010 by Toby Weiss

While procrastinating over cleaning the kitchen floor, I went digging into some far corners of junk and found the business man figure above. He’s rather Don Draper, isn’t he? The bottom is stamped with the simple – but meaningful – word “Father.” Holding that tiny, white piece of plastic sent my memory hurtling back in time to the metal doll house he belonged to… he’s the sole survivor of my first humble abode.

Pushed along by the gentle fog of innocent memory, I was able to quickly find this picture. That’s me and the doll house on Christmas morning, 1969, in a tract house in Ferguson, MO. One of the white splotches next to my elbow is the very Father I hold today.

I didn’t really need the photo to remember that doll house in achingly precise detail. I can still feel the coolness of the metal floors on my arm as I moved the the plastic furniture about, and how easy it was to lose the toddler in the plastic nuclear family. Placing furniture in inappropriate rooms (toilet in the living room, bed in the kitchen!!!) was always good for a giggle, and Fisher-Price farm animals were conveniently sized to fit in and around the homestead.

With the wonder of the cyber world, I can share the details an ancient photo cannot provide. One site got me to the photo above, which is pretty close to the interior of the Marx Colonial model I had. My version did not have curtains on the living room picture window. Hard to overlook that at this very moment in time, my living room has green walls with no curtains on the picture window. Do we travel so far just to come back where we started?

Remove that dormer, and this is exactly what my doll house looked like from the front.

And here’s a wonderful shot of all the furniture pieces. This website also revealed that the house came in panels that had to be put together. I clearly remember it being one delicious whole on Christmas morning, so I guess my Father had to do some Christmas Eve construction.

So, I’ve spent a bit of time remembering the doll house and how much it meant. Doll houses hold a very strong allure and special meaning for little girls, even as they age. I’ve also been thinking about all the little boys who wished they could have gotten their hands on our doll houses without facing unceasing hours of ribbing. How many of them messed with the houses when no one was looking, and how many of them turned into architects and designers?

I don’t remember what happened to this doll house; it feels like it had a short shelf life, which would not have been of my choosing. Do any of you still have your doll houses? Or pictures of you with your doll house? I’d love to share your time travel doll house moments.

See the Julius Shulman film January 30th

Posted on 01/25/2010 by Toby Weiss

Post-Script, After The Event
Thank you to everyone who left their warm homes to spend time in Julius Shulman’s world. It was a an intelligent and enthusiastic crowd, and it was a true pleasure to personally meet so many of you. And Marlene Bricker is a joy! Here’s a few photos from the night.

Most interesting bit of news from the night is that Shulman’s home is for sale! Within this link are some informative comments about the home, the realtor and its future prospects in a tear-down market. Even better, this link has extensive photos of the home cleaned up for selling. Looking at the shots of his studio made me tear up a bit – can you imagine living there?

Let’s hope the family makes sure the buyer is properly respectful. This is definitely a home worth preserving.

The Event

Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman, a documentary by native St. Louisan Eric Bricker, makes a return engagement to the Moore Auditorium on the Webster University campus, January 29-31st, 2010. Here’s details about the film series and admission.

I’m asking you to come see this glorious documentary on Saturday, January 30th at 7:30 pm because I will be part of a Q & A panel after the film, and would love the support of sympathetic B.E.L.T. readers!

Yes, Marlene Bricker – mother of the director – asked me to be on the panel, which is so cool and sweet of her. But knowing that my adoration of Shulman could render me a blubbering gush of “wow,” I suggested that the best architectural photographer in St. Louis should also be on the panel, and luckily, Ken Konchel said yes!

So please do come out to see us this Saturday. Admission is $6, the film is 83 minutes long, and the 3 of us will take questions directly after.

Here’s my farewell tribute to Shulman, who passed away only last year.

And here’s my 2008 review of the film we’re lucky enough to see again!

Can Northwest Plaza Be Saved?

Posted on 01/23/2010 by Toby Weiss

The news that Macy’s is closing its Northwest Plaza store marks the sound of the footsteps of a dead mall walking. The fate of both the former Famous-Barr department store and Northwest Plaza makes me ultra sad, and even before this news I was always nostalgic for the Northwest Plaza of old. It once had energy and personality, then someone decided to put a lid on it. It’s been a slow suffocation ever since.

My deep fondness for the Famous-Barr at Northwest Plaza stems from one exact moment in time, and it radiates out from there forever more.

November 1978, Olivia Newton-John releases the album Totally Hot. It was a calculated move to capitalize on her “bad Sandy” from Grease. The songs were the most rock she’d ever be, and it was matched with a look which was a modern-day continuation of the 1950s black leather look that had ended the movie my friend and I had seen 7 times in the movie theaters that summer. Some of the songs on this record were more guitar driven, the vocals randy and tough, and to a long-time Livvy fan (Nerd Alert: I belonged to her fan club years before Grease) it was revolutionary.

Just as important as the music (which still sounds just as great today, thanks to the brilliance of producer John Farrar) was the album cover art work. I had just turned 13, and had been given the go-ahead to wear make-up to school, and this is exactly how I wanted to look!

A Friday night in December 1978, I was dropped off at Northwest Plaza, and I trudged through the snow to get to the very spot shown above: the Estee Lauder counter at this Famous-Barr. Where else would a newborn teenage girl go to get that smokey-eyed Livvy look? I stared down through the glass case at all the eye liner pencils, and my heart pounded with excitement at this whole new world of possibility before me. Then a sales lady asked how she could help, and my head started pounding with fear because I had no clue what to say, what to do. I was only used to using the products in my Mother’s make-up drawer, not buying my own!

The sales lady was very kind, and after a swift transaction, I walked away with a fat Estee Lauder eye liner pencil of a deep blue-gray. It was my first make-up purchase, my first adult thing, and I still remember the smell of the winter air as I walked out of the store, and turning to look back inside at the warm glow of a cosmetics department that had accepted me as one of their own. Even then, I knew it was a milestone girl-to-woman moment.

As most teenage girls tend to do at the start, I too often left the house looking like a hussy raccoon. I abused that pencil something fierce, and still never came close to looking like Lovely Livvy. I do believe that the stub of that inaugural eye pencil still exists in one of my junk piles, holding onto it because that time resonated so deeply. And so does the place that it happened at.

Which is why I went there today, to take one last look around, take some photos, and see if the Ghosts of Shopping Past still float under that majestic, astro ceiling. Today was also a gathering of the Facebook groups I Hung Out at the Northwest Plaza Fountain as a Teenager and Let’s Revitalize Northwest Plaza Now! As a person still grieving from the death of Northland Shopping Center, I had to join both groups and then get a look at the people who were foolhardy enough to try and save a dying mall.

I was there around 1:30, so didn’t get to see what was eventually about 300 people, as reported by NOCO StL. But Northwest Plaza is so scary dead that seeing the healthy handfuls of people already gathered at the spot where the fountain once lay was heart-warming.

Putting a roof over this outdoor plaza was a bad idea from the start; back in the day, I don’t recall a single soul agreeing that this was just what the place needed. But this is what the then-owners felt was necessary to keep up with the Retail Joneses, that shoppers want a hermetically sealed environment more than they want personality and ease of access that comes from open-air malls. With millions of dollars of renovation, they erased the low-slung, mid-century midwest ease that changed with the seasons for a clinical, soulless, Any Town U.S.A. warehouse.

I have a sharp, instinctual sense of direction, but once they put the roof over Northwest Plaza, I got lost (as in “will this be an anxiety attack?” lost) every time. I’d try to use the anchor stores as place reminders of the old layout, but it was all so tall and bland and disconcerting, that I’d get discombobulated. The jagged contrast between what it used to be and what it had become was so depressing that I haven’t stepped foot in the place for well over 10 years. It had nothing to do with crime or location or the types of stores within. It was about being creeped out about walking over the burial grounds of a once-beloved place. Oh, how I long to see even the blurriest photo of those lighted deers that graced the Plaza at Christmas time… Northwest Plaza exists only in memories. This mall that has its name is just a tombstone.

I am so ecstatic to see a passionate group of people wanting to save this place that I can taste it, but there’s also a bitter aftertaste. There is very little original fiber left to Northwest Plaza, so only a sense of the place we once loved can be revitalized. Even if future plans do include removing the roof, it still won’t be the Northwest Plaza being honored today, it will just be a new “lifestyle center” hoping to coast off nostalgic momentum.

Today also poked at the mental scab I have about the demolition of Northland Shopping Center, another beloved North St. Louis County place that could instantly transport you back to the golden days of yesteryear because it was still in its original state. And because of the era in which it was built, Northland was more architecturally significant than Northwest Plaza. But back in 2002-2003, when news of Northland’s demise was first reported, there was not yet Facebook groups to make people aware of what was happening and spur them into action. And trust that people feel just as passioantely about Northland as they do Northwest; even all these many years on, I still regularly get e-mails from people sharing their Northland memories after they’ve found my cyber memorial. The St. Louisan sense of place is very strong, and we should be proud of that.

But back in the pre-social network year of 2003, it was just me and a couple of other mourners who documented Northland’s last days. Even then, I knew trying to save it was a losing game; acceptance and love of mid-century modern architecture was barely stirring, and the idea of trying to save retail is a brand new concept brought about by the deaths of enclosed malls.

What was particularly galling was that as the last walls of Northland were being toppled, retail trends were swinging to (or actually, back to) open air plazas. Wow, and they just killed a great opportunity for a retro open air plaza, which could have been the mack daddy of St. Louis lifestyle shopping destinations. It was also right around this time that the first rumors of removing the roof swirled around Northwest Plaza. This double dose of irony was more than I could withstand and I learned to just let go of any efforts or thoughts of preserving retail because it’s just about following the money which is about following the trends, and obviously, no one cares about retail buildings anyway.

Until now.
These hundreds of people who signed up cyberally and then, today, showed up in person are stirring hope in my heart. Are we ready to embrace sense of place, and ready to expect people-friendly and attractive built environments? Are we realizing how wasteful it is to keep destroying the places of our past for a future with a short shelf life? Regardless of what becomes of Northwest Plaza, I’m just relieved to hear others joining this conversation, and am so proud of St. Louis for taking this stand. You guys rock!

Mid-Century Fetish: Ocean’s 11

Posted on 01/19/2010 by Toby Weiss

Previously, we covered why Frank Sinatra is the Godfather of Mid-Century Modern, and now we check in on him in 1960 and see that he continued to personify the MCM lifestyle some 13 years after moving into Twin Palms.

Ocean’s 11 released in August 1960, but began 2 weeks of filming on January 11, 1960. According to the exhaustively detailed commentary by Frank Sinatra, Jr. on the DVD re-issue, we learn that the vast majority of the movie was filmed on location in Vegas and inside the 5 casinos that were “being robbed.” This makes Ocean’s 11 a valuable snapshot of what Las Vegas once looked like, a celluloid form of historical preservation for a town that has no use for such things.

Most of the movie’s action takes place in or around Las Vegas casinos, so there are only a small handful of Hollywood stage sets, like the one above. For the sake of brevity, I left out screen grabs that were solely dedicated to the lighting that was chosen for residential sets. Actually, for mid-century modern lighting and chair enthusiasts, this movie is highly recommended.

Coral orange and salmon pink are the popular accent color of the movie. Another popular accessory in the movie is cigarettes; both the Rat Pack and Mad Men had a 3-pack a day habit, I swear!

Her Royal Highness, Miss Angie Dickinson (shown seated, above) also contributes to the DVD commentary, and when it comes to her first scene with Dean Martin, and they both get ready to light up, Angie says, “I can’t believe they’re going to pull out cigarettes! To see myself smoking in movies is shocking. It seems so wrong, but as everyone knows, in the 40s, 50s, 60, everybody smoked. Back then, nobody hesitated – drinking and smoking and living it up.”

Sinatra’s character Danny Ocean masterminds a plot to rip off 5 casinos at one time on New Year’s Eve, and brings together his 10 best men to pull it off. They gather at this stunning mid-century home.

Like most of the movie, it is an actual location rather than a set, in this case, it’s a home in Beverly Hills that was then owned by Hollywood theatrical agent Kurt Frings. According to Sinatra, Jr., Frings’ was surprised they wanted to use it for the film, but was more than happy to let them do so. This tidbit proves a conscious decision on someone’s part – maybe Sinatra? – as to what style of house these thoroughly modern rapscallions should gather in.

The downstairs rumpus room in the Frings’ house covers just about every decorating trend of the late 1950s, including Tiki, Asian and African. There’s quite a bit of furniture (I lost track trying to count all the different types of chairs) and knick-knacks in this large room, yet it doesn’t look busy or fussy. This is one of the hallmarks of mid-century modern residential design: how to have a lot of stuff without looking like you do!

From the film we see the entrance to the original Flamingo Hotel, which was built in 1946 by gangster Bugsy Siegel. By 1967, new owners began remodeling, renovating and removing, and by 1994 all pieces of the original hotel were demolished. Only the name survives from the old days, but Ocean’s 11 preserves some important aspects of the place…

…like the multiple showrooms in each of the hotels. Sinatra, Jr. was most impassioned when discussing how the casinos used to operate, “when they were owned by individuals, not corporations.” He explained that these intimate music lounges existed to “feed live music into the casino,” and give gamblers a place to eat and revive themselves for some more gambling.

Each music lounge (like the Flamingo Room, above) took great care to book quality music and comedy acts, regarding them as being as big a draw as the gambling. Music or gambling, either way, they’d get your money.

The reason the production got the actual hotels as sets in the movie was because the Rat Pack was actually performing in the Copa Room at the Sands for the 1959-60 holiday season. Once their shows were done for the night, filming began at 2:15 a.m. and they shot until it became too light. The production made a deal with the participating 5 casinos to leave up their regular Christmas decorations for a couple of weeks longer so it could play into the New Year’s Eve plot line.

And here is the legendary Sands Hotel. It opened in 1952, was the zenith of Vegas entertainment by the time of Ocean’s 11, and closed in 1996, followed by an infamous implosion a few months later. Unlike some of the other lost hotels, the Sands named died with it.

Here’s a diner from the original Sands casino, and a distinction must be made about the building types. As Sinatra, Jr. points out in the DVD commentary, the casino, showrooms and lounges were in a separate building from the hotel, and the hotels were no higher than 3-stories tall and situated behind the main building.

Right next door to the Sands was the Desert Inn (and both places would be owned by Howard Huges by the mid-60s), which operated from 1950 to 2000. And like the Sands, once it was demolished, the name went with it.

By the mid-1960s, the city of Las Vegas made a concerted effort to draw in more people by building a convention center, and more people required more rooms. This is the time period when high-rise hotels were erected, and so required massive renovations to the existing casino hotels.

This is the gambling room of the Desert Inn as it was in January 1960. While not posh, it’s certainly more civilized than the lights-flashing-sirens-honking casinos we have now.

The Riviera (shown above), which opened in 1955, foreshadowed the super hotel concept by being the first high-rise hotel erected on The Strip, and it remains to this day in the same location with the same name. But the building shown here is long gone.

The new corporate owners that took over in the late 1960s figured – according to Sinatra, Jr. – “that people should only have to walk as far as the elevator to spend their money,” which is when the concept of separate buildings was jettisoned in favor of a a gargantuan hotel that could allow you to never set foot outside of it.

The Sahara Hotel is the only other of the Ocean’s 11 5 that remain in the same place with the same name, but by 1963 they had begun serious renovations to the 1952 structure. By the late 1970s, Vegas switched over to the “mega-resort” concept, which was a way to make Vegas family-friendly which meant more money from different types of people flowing in. From the DVD commentary, both Sinatra, Jr. and Miss Dickinson are emphatic that luring kids to Vegas was the death knell for a once-great city, with Dickinson lamenting the disappearance of the last safe place for adults to be adults.

Here’s footage from the film of Dean Martin performing in the Congo Lounge of the Sahara. Sinatra, Jr. was also very detailed about the death of quality entertainment in Vegas, explaining that the number of private lounges were reduced by new corporate owners who felt they were wasting their money with duplications of musicians throughout a casino. The disappearance of the small music lounges that were free-of-charge to gamblers did not seem to affect the flow of people coming through the doors, so the rest of the lounges were torn out, replaced by grand concert halls with high-dollar tickets that could lure in even the non-gamblers.

After the robberies are completed, there are a few stage set scenes, with this office interior being one of them. I love the masculine drama of this room.

But for the most part, 1960 Las Vegas is the star of Ocean’s 11, with cameo appearances by the Rat Pack and friends. And Vegas has always been about flash and money, so has constantly been changing to keep up with the cash, so any type of serious preservation of the Vega Strip was laughed off the street decades ago. Though there is The Neon Museum, the graveyard for so many of the wonderful neon sings that are the landscape of Vegas. They even turned the LaConcha Motel (which I covered in 2005) into their visitor’s center!

But for the most part, photographs and memories are the historical preservation of Las Vegas, and the Rat Pack era is the one that seems to ignite the romantic imagination the most. Luckily, Frank Sinatra – the Godfather of Mid-Century Modern – left behind the most potent and complete snapshot of a time and a town.

Why’d Ya Tear It Down?

Posted on 01/12/2010 by Toby Weiss

475 N. Lindbergh
Florissant MO

This building was always a bank, as long as I can remember from growing up in North St. Louis County. In December of 2001 I snapped this quick picture as I waited in traffic, as a visual reminder to go back and photograph it properly at a later date. I like round buildings, in general, and I liked how this one’s roundness was composed of blonde brick panels with long, skinny windows between. It was a low-key but slightly whimsical building.

Since taking this photo, I’d passed the bank many times, but conditions were always wrong for photos. One brilliant spring day in 2007, I was back in the area and thought, “This is the day to shoot the round bank building!” But no, it was gone. All that remained was a busted up blacktop parking lot and a round hole where the building was. This is the only photo I have, the only reminder.

Now here it is, almost 3 years later, and Desco still has a For Sale sign up on an ugly, busted up blacktop property, with a listing price of $1.7 million.

The building was torn down and the property put up for sale well before the real estate meltdown, so that excuse for its vacancy is only 18 months old, at best . And I’m assuming Desco figured it would be easier to sell property in this dense retail corridor without the building on it.

It’s always been expensive to build new buildings, which is why – in the current financial climate – many companies are happy to convert existing retail/commercial buildings to their needs. And it has always been expensive to demolish a building of this size, but in happier economic times, realtors could afford to gamble on a bigger gain by clearing a property.

But in this case, the gamble has yet to pay off, and I wonder if Desco had left that unique bank building in place if maybe someone in today’s climate would have been more willing to take it at a reduced price and remodel to suit?

Our recession is teaching everyone a lot about thrift, sustainability, resources and conservation. It now seems shockingly wasteful to demolish a perfectly serviceable building in hopes of landing a buyer with really deep pockets for acquisition and construction. Especially in the case of this property, which – because it has neighbors on all sides – can only accommodate a small-to-medium sized building, much like the one that was once there.

I do miss the building, and do hope that Desco and their ilk contemplate the proverb: Waste Not, Want Not.

Moloney Electric in Walnut Park

Posted on 01/09/2010 by Toby Weiss

It was a January 2nd phone conversation with my Father, and I don’t recall what got us on the topic, but we started talking about Walnut Park, a neighborhood in North St. Louis. He began reminiscing about what that neighborhood was like well over 40 years ago, and named all of the companies and manufacturing firms (like the Chrysler plant, the small ammunition plant, etc.) in the area, and how all those employees populated the Walnut Park neighborhood.

As is the topography of his amazing memory, my Father started rattling off the names of companies, street by street, a list of by-gone firms that either folded, merged or moved their operations outside of American soil, and how this killed the vitality of the surrounding area. There’s no disputing that population density follows jobs.

As my Father walked down memory lane, he stumbled on the name of the long-time electric company on Semple Avenue. He described the building, what they manufactured, but that he couldn’t remember its name brought the conversation to a close. On January 3rd, there was this brief message from him on my answering machine: “Moloney Electric. The name of the place on Semple was Moloney Electric.”

On January 9th, he calls me back to say that the site of the January 8th ABB shooting IS the old Moloney Electric building. A search of Moloney Electric brings up a history of acquisitions which eventually resulted in ABB at its present St. Louis location.

Considering our earlier conversations about the building and the tragedy that took place shortly thereafter, I think I’m going to lay off for a little bit on having these types of historical conversations with my Father, Built Environment Nostradamus.

A Clip Joint

Posted on 01/06/2010 by Toby Weiss

Natural Bridge Road
Bel Ridge, MO

Great name for a barber shop, isn’t it?

This tiny place, just east of the inner belt, fascinates me. Built in 1930, it’s only 252 square feet, and appears to have always been a barber shop.

Barber shops, in general, fascinate me because it’s a Guy Place. Ladies are no more welcome in them than guys are in beauty shops. Oh sure, anyone’s welcome through the door, but when the opposite sex “invades” one of these places, you can cut uncomfortable with a knife.

When the Clip Joint is open, there always seems to be at least two cars parked around it. Seems it would only take 3 people for the joint to feel crowded, but that’s probably part of the appeal of this joint.

Connecting the Mad Men Dots

Posted on 01/05/2010 by Toby Weiss

In a previous post, I made a set design connection between the movie The Best of Everything and the TV series Mad Men. I even wrote:“I’d make a bet that (Mad Men creator) Matthew Weiner has seen this movie even more times than I have, if only for set design research purposes.”

From the photo above, turns out he’d not only seen the movie, but he and his writing staff used the book as research, and then inserted into an episode in Season 2.

Betty Draper walks into the bedroom, where Don is reading a paperback copy of Rona Jaffee’s The Best of Everything.
DON This is fascinating.
BETTY It’s better than the Hollywood version.
DON It’s certainly dirtier.
BETTY Joan Crawford is not what she was. You know, honestly, I found her eyebrows completely unnerving. Like a couple of caterpillars pasted there. Her standing next to Suzy Parker as if they were the same species.
DON Well, some men like eyebrows, and all men like Joan Crawford. Salvatore couldn’t stop talking about her.

Trash talking Miss Crawford? Another reason why I dislike Betty, and this moves to #1 on the list. At least Don told her what for!

A Magical Winter Wonderland

Posted on 12/30/2009 by Toby Weiss

Today on my lunch hour, I cut through some parking lots to avoid the traffic at the Kirkwood Rd. & Big Bend intersection, and I saw some cars coming out from a road I’d never noticed before. It turned out to be the way into the Vianney High School campus, and since it all looked so pretty and peaceful in the snow, I meandered a bit just to see what there was to see.

After admiring the seasonal appropriateness of a snowman gleeful in the falling snow (above), I saw this…

… which then turned into a large yard cram-packed with sculptures!

So many sculptures frozen in the snow, and so surreal that I had to double check that I was in real time, rather than a day dream.

There were no other cars around, no people to be seen; I was totally alone in what looked like the day care for Laumier Sculpture Park, which is somewhat nearby. It was just the sound of snow falling on a lawn filled with larger-than-life, fanciful shapes, a magical winter wonderland tucked into the pocket of a bustling town. Time stood still, and in that moment it was pure joy.

Turns out I’d stumbled upon Marianist Galleries, which is filled outside and in by the works of Brother Melvin Meyer. Is St. Louis filled with so many artful opportunities that this little place can’t compete for attention? Or do they purposely keep this place under the radar? Either way, I found a bouquet of sunshine on a snowy day, and am looking forward to spending another lunch hour inside the gallery.

“Your Christmas Shall Be Merry”

Posted on 12/25/2009 by Toby Weiss

Alton, Illinois, 12.24.09

“Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused – in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened – by the recurrence of Christmas.

“There are people who will tell you that Christmas is not to them what it used to be; that each succeeding Christmas has found some cherished hope, or happy prospect of the year before dimmed or passed away. That the present only serves to remind them of reduced circumstances and straitened incomes – of the feasts they once bestowed on hollow friends, and of the cold looks that meet them now, in adversity and misfortune.

Alton, Illinois, 12.24.09

“Never heed such dismal reminiscences. There are few men who have lived long enough in the world who cannot call up such thoughts any day of the year. So do not select the merriest of the 365 days for your doleful recollections. Draw your chair nearer the blazing fire – fill the glass and send round the song. And if your room be smaller than it was a dozen years ago, or if your glass be filled with reeking punch instead of sparkling wine, put a good face on the matter and empty it offhand, and fill another, and troll off the old ditty you used to sing, and thank God it’s no worse.

“Dwell not upon the past; reflect upon your present blessings – of which every many has many – not your misfortunes, of which all men have some. Fill your glass again, with a merry face and contented heart. Our lives go on, but your Christmas shall be merry, and your new year a happy one!”

-excerpt from Charles Dickens’ first Christmas short story, “A Christmas Dinner,” 1835

South St. Louis, Missouri, 12.24.09