Art Deco & Mid-Century Modern Come Together in Downtown Hollywood, Florida

It was a beautiful day in downtown Hollywood, Florida where I work. Sun shining, puffy white clouds, not too crazy hot. So I decided to take my trusty Instamatic Camera (not really, it’s a digital camera) and head down to the happinin’ section of Hollywood Boulevard.

Hollywood was founded in 1925 by a visionary named Joseph Young who wanted to build his dream city in Florida. It quickly became a thriving city, with beachfront hotels, beautiful homes, and a busy downtown area. This downtown was first built up in the mid to late 20s, with some slowing during the depression and WW2. It found a resurgence in the 50s, as many vacation spots did, and had a building boom through the 60s. This history led to a unique combination of early Art Deco construction, Spanish-Floridian construction, and Mid-Century Modern.

It’s amazing that these buildings were able to survive through the architectual vacuum of the 70s and 80s, but some managed to hang on with their original look intact. The late 90s saw a re-popularization of the original styles, and luckily the popularization has remained through the present leading to numerous restorations, retro-refitting of more recent dull buildings, and dig this…brand new construction in the Art Deco and Mid-Century style. Seriously. (continued after the slide show)

I was able to get some very nice shots of the Art Deco and Mid-Century Modern buildings along the boulevard. One of my favorite buildings is the Great Southern Hotel, located on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Young’s Circle. I believe Young himself had this hotel built as part of the city plan back in the mid 20’s. It has a sort of Florida-Spanish style combined with that 1920s pre-Deco look you see in a lot of shore towns. What the hell do I mean by that? Basically it means simplicity, symmetry, and terra cotta.

There are a good number of trendy nightclubs and cafés along the boulevard, and most of them have stuck with the retro look. It’s nice to see people taking these historic styles seriously, and appreciating them for the timeless beauty they portray.

***

Funny story about The Great Southern hotel. When we first moved to Florida in 2000, my wife and I took a drive to Hollywood to check it out. At that time it was in a state of change; a lot of stores were vacant, and still looked like they did in the 70s. I noticed the big white hotel on the corner, and thought to myself that it looked really familiar, but couldn’t place it. Mind you this is the first trip I ever took to Hollywood. Anyway, a few years later in 2005, I end up working in a building on Hollywood Boulevard a couple of blocks from downtown. While there I picked up a local paper, which happened to have a story about “The Great Southern Hotel” on the cover. The story was about how the owners wanted to tear it apart to put up a parking garage, how the city didn’t see anything wrong with that, and how the historical society was about ready to commit murder if necessary before letting that happen. The name rung a bell…but I still couldn’t catch it. Then one day it came to me…where I’d seen that name. It was in a movie, which I ran out and bought right away.

There it was, in one of the last scenes of Midnight Cowboy from 1967. Joe Buck and Ratzo Rizzo are headed down to Miami on a bus. The bus stops for a break, and Joe Buck ditches his cowboy outfit and boots for a Hawaiian shirt. As he shoves the boots into a trash can, you can clearly see a giant white building with the name “Great Southern Hotel” in giant letters in the background. That was it; a scene in a movie I had seen when I was about 13 had stuck in my head for years…and as fate would have it, I wind up working down the street from the place. But here’s what’s even more interesting: One of the themes of the movie is that the characters want to get out of the city, out of the cold, away from the freaks up north and down to sunny Florida where the palm trees sway and you can pick the oranges right off the trees. Well, my father and I used to joke around about it all the time, that we had the same dream. Finally, in 2000, he, my wife and I made it down here. “Everybody’s Talkin’ at Me” from the movie was going through my head as we crossed the Georgia border into Florida. The sun actually was shining through the pouring rain as we drove down I-95 into Fort Lauderdale. My father, who was very sick at the time, made it down right behind us, but unlike Ratzo lived a few years to enjoy it. Whenever I see the Great Southern I think of him, and how we both got our dream to come true.

(This is a repost from last year, but it was such a popular one I thought I’d give it another view)
-Tiki Chris Pinto, for the Tiki Blog

A kool frame riffs millennium verbs (A picture says a thousand words, hipster style)

The saying goes, “A picture says a thousand words’. In hipster talk that translates roughly into “A kool frame riffs millennium verbs,” or in some circles “A swingin’ snapshot lays down a kat’s score hipper and with more jazz than some ramblin’ gin-weary monologue spread around like a tome, ya dig?”

Case in point: The picture laid out before you kats is of my bookshelf, to my left as I type at this souped-up typewriter. I was just playing around with the interwebs when I shot my peepers over, and realized that everything on this part of the shelf, with very few exceptions, is 4o years old or older. Some of these gadgets I’ve had for years. Some of them I’ve had almost all my life.

What’s really crazy is everything you see in this photo has a story. Some stories I remember vividly, as if they happened yesterday. Some are a little fuzzy, getting lost in time. But every time I glance over, I get a memory…Memories of places I used to hit that are gone forever. Memories of that far off land of childhood. Memories of things I loved to do. And memories of people I loved who are no longer around.

I’m really digging this pic. I think what I’ll do, just for kicks, is give you kats and kittens a little story - from memory - that goes along with one of the items on the shelf. Every now and then I’ll re-post the photo and give you a new story.

Let’s start with the big red car.

What you see here is a 1933-1936 Cadillac LaSalle Sedan, made of pressed steel by the Wyandotte toy company. It measures around 13″ long, and originally came with solid rubber tires and a matching, teardrop-shaped camper trailer. The design was an idealized, Art Deco version of the real car, and was very modern for its time.

In the 1970’s, my parents were antique dealers. Often my father would get up at five or six AM to hit yard sales and flea markets, looking for some kool stuff to buy and sell. One spring Saturday morning when I was around seven, my dad went out early to the yard sales, and came back while I was still asleep. He woke me up and brought me into the kitchen, where this crazy-looking toy car, big as an elephant, was sitting on the table. It was painted black, and had all kinds of little smiling faces and sayings on it… Mostly Happy New Year, 1939 I think…and little painted balloons and confetti. The paint was in pretty sad shape, and the tires were missing. I immediately fell in love with the big car, and my Dad said if I wanted, he’d repaint it for me and put some wheels on it. Of course, I said, and he got to work.

He stripped the old paint off and painted it the original Fire Engine Red. Then he made some wheels (I think out of radio parts and rubber tubing) and put it all back together. Man, was it beautiful.

I loved that car, and took damned good care of it for the last 33+ years. It’s always had a place of honor on a shelf or table, and now resides where I spend a lot of my time when I’m not out at the Tiki Bar, so I can look at it a lot. My father passed on to the promise land in 2002, which makes little things like this even more special to me. It’s amazing I still remember that day, and how happy we both were over this piece of steel. It makes me happy all over again every time I see it. (a little side note: The palm tree sticking up behind the car…my father made that for me, and the car, when we moved down to Florida in 2000. he seemed to think the car needed a palm tree, now that it was parked in the tropics.)

- Tiki Chris, reporting live from The Tiki Blog

Mod Movie Mondays: Superfly, 1972 Layin’ it down at the Tiki-Retro Blog

Sometimes the movies ain’t mod. But sometimes they’re just so hip, they fall into a class by themselves.

Today’s flick is soaked in coke, cheap liquor, prostitution and the pursuit of getting out of the ghetto. It’s the modern-day (70s) Funk-tastic equivalent to  The Grapes of Wrath. It’s

Superfly, 1972

“Never a dude like this one! He’s got a plan to stick it to The Man!”
Now, let me lay this on you…If nothing else, watch this movie for the car.

This is, without doubt, one of the best movies ever to depict the conditions in the poor areas of NYC and the people who tried to survive there in the ’60s and ’70s. It was made to show how things really were, to ‘keep it real’. Now it’s a fantastic time capsule, giving us a glimpse into the bad side of the old days, the dilapidation of the crumbling city, the poverty, and the crime. Watch this film with the cellphone turned off and the computer in sleep mode, and try to put yourself back in that era of payphones and typewriters, 8-Track tapes and big American cars, when Deep Throat was playing at theaters in Times Square and Nixon was president. It’ll blow your mind.

All that aside, it’s got an incredibly kick-ass soundtrack by Funk master Curtis Mayfield, including the title track “Superfly” and the instrumental “Freddie’s Dead”. The story centers around a drug pusher-pimp who goes by the name of Priest Youngblood, a man who is sick of the crime life, sick of the streets and is looking for a way out. In the mean time, he does all that he can to try to live the good life, from having a color TV in every room, to driving a custom Cadillac convertible.
Ah, the Superfly Cadillac.

Now we come to my favorite part of this post. The car, a 1971 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado custom convertible,

Supefly Cadillac Eldorado from the movie

became as much a character in the movie as Priest. It was featured on the poster, and became the icon of this film ever since. The entire opening sequence and titles features the Caddy being driven through the streets of New York City, with the defining “Freddie’s Dead” theme song weaving through the background. This big black Cadillac was a real car, customized by a coachworks in north Jersey that operated under the name Dunham Coach. They specialized in customizing large American luxury cars, i.e. Cadillacs and Lincolns, and had a steady clientele of “underworld” figures through the 1970s. In fact, the car used in the film was owned by an actual pimp at the time who went by the name “KC”. He let them use the car in exchange for a cameo in the film.

My 1975 Superfly Eldorado, in 2000. I should have never sold it.

I had the good fortune to own one of these Superfly Caddy’s back in the 1990s. It was a 1975 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado Coupe with running boards, a Continental kit (spare tire on the trunk), Rolls-Royce Grille and Headlights, and a 1941 Cadillac hood ornament. Mine was blue and silver, not black.

Anyway, back to the flick…This is a gritty film, and as I said really puts you in the era. Maybe not the best writing, or acting. Maybe not the most original storyline. It was low budget, and sometimes it shows. But it’s sho-nuff fun to watch. Now…tune your ears into what I’m laying down on you kats, and dig it for real: This is a hard-edged, realistic depiction of ghetto life in New York City in the early 1970s. There’s violence, nudity, drugs, corruption, racism, sex, more drugs, gambling, and fine Cadillacs. The protagonist is a pimp and a drug pusher, and you’re rooting for him at the end. So I wouldn’t recommend this one for family night.

That said, here’s my riff: Dig this movie with the lights dimmed down low in your pad. Sip Merlot, and dine on a big, thick plank steak the way Priest would. And absolutely get the soundtrack, it’s Super Fly, baby. You dig?
Here’s a video of an interview with Les Dunham, creator of the Superfly Cadillac. Lots of shots of the car.

Superfly at Tiki Lounge Talk, by “Mack”

Coffee at the Diner: Living the Retro Life

Man, it’s been way too long since I parked it in a diner booth. All day long I had a brain pain for a Bamburger and grease rings. So when I hit the door, I grabbed the ole Lady and we swung the Caddy down to Lester’s Diner on 136th Avenue.

Not the least bit disappointed in my grub. A big old Cheeseburger with bacon and fries, rings, slaw and a cup’a Joe. A shake would have topped it off, but it would have broke the bank so I quit early.

Joints like this used to be my hang out, back in the days before I had my own little Tiki Bar, back before the Mai Kai was a short drive away. Diners, all kinds of diners when I swung back in Jersey. Jersey is, after all, the diner capital of the world. You couldn’t swing a bat without hitting a neon sign that said “open 24 hours”. Not so much down here in the land of Mai Tais and Palm trees. There’s one diner in 8 miles, and it shuts down at midnight. Thank God the Tiki bars are open late…

There were a few haunts I made my mark at. The Point Diner in Somers Point, NJ is where I spent many a night and many a paycheck. Coffee and a burger at 2 am? Why the hell not? All my gang hung out there too…in fact, I remember one particularly kool New Year’s Eve that we wound up there around 3 am…and who was there, but this really hot swingin’ chick that I went around with in high school. It was a very groovy meeting, that night. Never forget it.

Then there was the Blue Diamond Diner in Pomona, NJ. This was a 1950’s rail-car style stainless steel masterpiece, with the original guts still intact. They had the old 70’s style jukeboxes filled with stuff from Sinatra and Elvis. And one of my favorite songs to play at a diner, just before leaving, Sleepwalk by Santo and Johnny. Yeah, those were the days. 50¢ cup of strong Greek coffee and I was good for hours.

Back when I had my Dinner Theater Company, Stardust Productions, after every show I’d take the cast to a diner and buy them all dinner. We’d wind down and talk about the show, how much fun it was, how to make it better. It was around then I picked up the nickname Mack, after a gangster character I played in a show.

Me during a performance of "The Mysterious Presto" with StarDust Theater. The beautiful blonde is my wife, Colleen

I miss those old diners. I miss the smell of grilled onions in the middle of the night, the taste of good diner coffee and breakfast at 4 am. I miss the feel of those old places, the scratchy records in the jukebox, the neon lights. The diner we hit tonight was good but not quite right. There’s something unhip about a diner that has a 34″ plasma TV mounted on the wall, that plays nothing but commercials. There’s something un-groovy about a CD jukebox that’s filled with riffs by Jenny Lopez and Matchbox-20, but doesn’t have a single Elvis tune. Sure, the burger was good, the java was good, and the company was great…even motoring there in the old Cadillac was fun. But these new joints just don’t have the same feel, the same atmosphere, as those old stainless steel diners held together with apron strings and grease that I grew up with.

-Mack (aka Tiki Chris)

Remembering The Warner Movie Palace on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City

The auditorium of the Warner Theater, c. 1930. Yes, this is the INSIDE.

Since moving pictures first made the scene in the early part of the 20th century, movie houses have enjoyed mega highs and way-down lows. From make-shift screens dropped in stage theaters, to magnificent movie palaces of the 1930’s, to crowded one-room joints to modern megaplexes, the architecture of the American movie theater has swung back and forth so many times it’s hard to tell what theaters were popular and when.

The Warner Palace Theater opened in 1929 on the world famous Atlantic City Boardwalk. Built as a movie house and showroom, it was giant, beautiful and elegant. But the timing was bad for such a remarkable showplace; Depression, World War II and that new-fangled thing called television proved too daunting. By the 1950’s it had been turned into a bowling alley, and by the 1980’s it was finished. Caesars Atlantic City bought the property, tore down the auditorium and turned it into a parking garage. Lights out.

But not entirely. Somehow, and no one seems to know the real reason why, Caesars didn’t demolish the building’s facade on the boardwalk. Through the ’80s and ’90s it remained, with a small building behind it that stayed open as a burger joint. This is how I remember the Warner, from the early 1990s, popping in now and then to grab a hot dog and listen to bad karaoke. I remember a friend of mine singing that bad karaoke there one night; she sang “Come Rain or Come Shine” to another friend of mine…they started dating after that, it ended badly, and that was that. Wouldn’t have expected anything different from Atlantic City.

The Warner Theater facade as I remember it in the 1990's

How was that for digression, huh? Now back to the theater. The front somehow survived until the late 1990’s-early OO’s, when Caesars and Bally’s decided to pour a few million bucks into their Atlantic City properties. They had plans to build between the two casinos, essentially tying them together. The old Warner was in the way.

There’s not much left of old Atlantic City. The Steel Pier was torn down in the 1980s (I watched them remove the last of it with a crane), the Steeplechase Pier burned down around the same time (I watched it burn), the glorious hotels from the Golden Era - Marlborough-Blenhiem, Traymore - were imploded to make room for ugly glass and steel casinos that have since been torn down, gutted or remodeled. The Atlantic City Historical Society was loosing every battle.

In walks a woman named Florence Miller. I never met Florence, but my parents knew her. All I remember them saying about her was that she was relentless. I don’t know the whole story, but somehow she, along with the ACH, talked or strong-armed Caesars into not destroying the facade. They even had plans to dismantle it and move it down the boardwalk to the old Garden Pier, the site of the Atlantic City Historical Museum. But the casinos caved in, and worked it into the architecture of the new boardwalk facade.

Today, the Warner Theater’s original facade stands proudly among the glitzy casinos, restored to perfect condition. Its doors no longer open on a grand palace, its windows no longer emit sparkling light; it just sits in quiet dignity, a reminder of the glory days of the movie palace – and  Atlantic City.

* * * * * * * * * *

Closeup of the Warner Theater today

Movie Palaces became obsolete when TV came on the scene. No longer did you need to be entertained in a giant, beautiful theater when you could see Uncle Milty for free at home. The Palaces slowly closed, one by one, giving way to smaller, one-room neighborhood theaters. By the 1970’s only a handful of these beautiful buildings remained; 50’s style single and twin theaters are all that held on. The 70’s also brought the Quardaplex, four screens in one building. This would set the stage (some pun intended) for the mega-plexes of the 80’s.

The Warner Theater facade at night, blending in with the Casino facades

I think you can thank Star Wars, Rocky and Jaws for the return of the big theaters. I remember people waiting in a two-block long line to see Rocky. There were lines for Star Wars 3 months after it hit the theaters. In our area, the Towne 4 movie theater became the Towne 12, then the Towne 16, then the Towne 24. The Tilton Twin became the Tilton 6. Then Loews moved in with like a 32-screen theater or something crazy like that.

Down here in Florida, a company by the name of Muvico took a chance that people would pay an extra buck or two to see movies like Jurassic Park in a 30’s style movie palace. It paid off. Muvico runs several vintage-themed megaplexes in South Florida, my favorite being the Muvico Palace in Boca Raton. This multi-plex beauty is as close as you can get to a deco-style movie palace. A grand entrance, giant lobby with marble floors and art deco styling, large auditoriums with giant screens, and the palm trees are real. If only they played Casablanca, it would be like going back in time.

The (new) Muvico Palace Theater in Boca Raton, Florida