Chairperson
Peter Moruzzi, 1992-1997
Milestones in the Community
- McDonald’s Corporation rededicates the Golden Arches Downey McDonalds and adds an historic museum to the site.
Meeting Locations
Events
Society for Commercial Archeology Conference
Tour coincides with the Society for Commercial Archeology Conference at the Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. Four-day “Life in the Past Lane” conference is co-sponsored by the Automobile Club of Southern California. Over 200 people attend. Panels of historians, architects, preservationists and critics will tackle such topics as “The Four Level Stack as Los Angeles Icon,” “The Stucco Box,” and “Booze, Bread, MGM, Ham and Giant Dogs: The Emerging Urban Landscape of Washington Boulevard, 1920-1940.” Auto Club historian Matthew Roth speaks. Chris Nichols dances along to stock film footage of Los Angeles roads and streets during the decades that commercial archeologists most love–from the 1920s to the ’60s. John English, leads two bus tours Sat: San Gabriel Valley and Anaheim tour and Sun: Central Los Angeles
Advocacy
Bullock’s Pasadena
Ongoing preservation issue to save the Welton Beckett designed sprawling Pasadena Bullocks – now a Macy’s. A project that would completely surround the former Bullock’s Pasadena on South Lake Avenue. Modcommers worked in association with Pasadena Heritage. In an unforgettable moment of preservation activism, Michael Kiralla opens an umbrella up at the Pasadena City council meeting and claims: “It’s raining lies in Pasadena.” The issue dragged on for 2 years until success in 1998.
Van De Kamps headquarters
Modcom stages a rally at the Dutch revival headquarters in Glassel Park. The bakery closed in 1990 and the building became threatened. It becomes a HCM landmark in 1992, but is threatened with demolition.
Tangents
20th Century Tiki
Group show at La Luz de Jesus. Co-curated by Otto von Stroheim and Sven Kirsten that included the work of SHAG and the birth of pop surrealism when Mark Ryden showcases his definitive piece “Exotica.”
Car Hops and Curb Service: A History of American Drive-In Restaurants 1920-1960
by Jim Heimann March 1, 1996
https://www.amazon.com/Car-Hops-Curb-Service-Drive-/dp/0811811158/ref=llvn-20
