FULL ARTICLE By Arthur Krim Forty years ago, in November 1977, the first annual meeting of the Society for Commercial Archeology (SCA) took place at the Museum of Transportation in Boston, now the site of the Children’s Museum on the Fort Point Channel.

FULL ARTICLE By Keith A. Sculle – My introduction to the Society for Commercial Archeology was at the second conference held at Columbia University in 1978.

FULL ARTICLE By Chester Liebs – On November 20, 1976, I chaired a meeting at the University of Vermont’s Robert Hull Fleming Museum to explore the future of the commercial heritage generated by the automobile in the 20th century.

FULL ARTICLE By Brian Butko – Century III Mall opened south of Pittsburgh in 1979. That was “my” mall and throughout the 1980s. Its thousands of parking spots would fill to capacity, leaving anxious shoppers to park on streets, on grass, anywhere so they could shop ...

FULL ARTICLE Douglas Towne answers a few questions regarding his article in the Fall 2017 issue of the SCA Journal, “Ain’t No Valley Higher: The Spin on the World’s Largest Revolving Sign.”

By Jeffrey L. Neumann 1: The Red Ball Café, Albuquerque, NM Watercolor on Arches paper, 22 x 30, 2017 The Red Ball Café opened in 1922 on the original alignment of Route 66. The cafe "gained a local following for New Mexican food and its famous five-cent Wimpy Burgers, complete with a secret chile sauce. But after World War II, business dropped off at the nearby railyards, and the surrounding Barelas neighborhood went into a lengthy period of decline,” wrote Andrew Webb in the Albuquerque Journal in 2005. The Red Ball Café closed in 1979, and the building became a

By Lynne Rostochi From its very first Land Run days in 1889, Oklahoma City has been a mecca for daring men and women intent on transforming the flat, grassy prairie into a thoroughly modern metropolis in the Heartland. This risk-taking ethic came to beautiful fruition after World War II when several enterprising young architects, many of whom were students of the mighty Bruce Goff at the University of Oklahoma, rejected traditional styles and approaches and enthusiastically embraced more modern forms in their sleek, ambitious building designs. In her new book, Oklahoma City’s Mid-Century Modern Architecture by Arcadia Publishing, Lynne Rostochil

By Douglas Towne Utah has more connections to the South than just their oddly named NBA franchise, the Jazz, who moved to Salt Lake City in 1979 after five years of operation in New Orleans. The Beehive State also has a region called Dixie, but don’t expect to be dazzled by its mint juleps and antebellum plantations. America’s “other” Dixieland is noted for its ice cream and upscale retirement developments. Mormon leader Brigham Young facilitated settlement of southwest Utah in reaction to worries over the lack of cotton supplies at the start of the Civil War in 1861. He perceived

By Michael Hirsch About 25 years ago, I became a resident of the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I had moved to New York City while attending Pratt Institute, and after stops in Brooklyn, Greenwich Village, and the Upper West Side relocated to my current home. The neighborhood’s name came with the development of Central Park in 1850, which formed its western boundary. The East River, 59th Street, and 96th Street are the neighborhood’s other borders. In the late 1870’s, the elevated subways on Second and Third Avenue brought explosive growth to the area, resulting in many low-rent tenement buildings.