LA’s Firestone Tire Building Restored and Reimagined as All Season Brewing Co.
From Spectrum News 1: LOS ANGELES — Built in 1938, the Firestone Tire building on LaBrea is vintage Los Angeles. The building was recently restored and reimagined – becoming the All Season Brewing Company after nearly four years of restoration and conversion.
For designer Matt Winter, a Los Angeles native who has a long history with the building, working on the Firestone building was a dream project that took him back to his youth.
“I was really heavily into building vintage hot rods from the 1930’s,” Winter explained. “Driving by this building, I would constantly stop and take photos of my cars I had built in front of the shop.”
SF Japantown site with LGBTQ ties nears city landmark status
From the Bay Area Reporter: A historic Japantown site with ties to LGBTQ history is close to becoming the first property tied to San Francisco’s Japanese American community to be designated a city, state and national landmark. Having already won California and federal recognition, the site is set to secure city recognition later this month.
The Board of Supervisors’ land use and transportation committee voted 3-0 Monday in support of naming the Japanese YWCA/Issei Women’s Building at 1830 Sutter Street a city landmark. The full board is expected to adopt the landmark request at its April 13 meeting.
What to expect from the drive-thru Washington State Spring Fair
From The Seattle Times: Spring is here! In Washington that means a glimpse of sun, rising temperatures and the return of the Washington State Fair.
The folks at the fair are well-versed in organizing events that take into account COVID safety, and are putting on a hybrid drive-thru/walk-through event, with separate spaces for carnival games and rides (running April 7-11 and April 14-18), and evenings for drive-in movies (April 9-10 and April 16-17).
For a sneak peek of this year’s drive-thru Washington State Fair, Seattle Times features producer Amy Wong and desk editor Trevor Lenzmeier went to Puyallup for a day of fun, food and … swimming dogs? Here’s how it went.
Burbank car wash could be transformed into condos, but its iconic sign would remain
From Livabl: Burbank’s Lakeside Car Wash could be razed to make way for a mixed-use development but its towering sign — a vestige of Los Angeles’ Googie architecture — would endure.
Forty-nine condos, 2,000 square feet of ground-floor restaurant or retail space, and a pocket park are proposed for 3700 Riverside Drive, according to an initial study prepared for the City of Burbank. The 0.61-acre development site is located across the street from Warner Bros. Studios and is less than a mile away from Walt Disney Studios.
Toledo Homes, a development company out of Pasadena, is behind the proposed project, which would deliver one-, two- and three-bedrooms condos ranging from 937 to 2,187 square feet. The one- and two-bedroom suites would occupy levels two through five, while the two-story three-bedroom units would be situated on the sixth and mezzanine/roof levels. A total of four condos would be set aside for very low income households in exchange for building incentives.
Guy Fieri on His Love Affair with America’s “Funky Places”
From Conde Nast Traveler: Did Guy Fieri mean to become the head cheerleader for America’s mom-and-pop restaurants? Not according to him. But fifteen years into his runaway hit food and travel show, Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, he’s learned to wear that hat alongside others that include chef, dad, and car enthusiast. “I just wanted to give funky places some recognition,” he says. “I thought it’d last a season or two.”
Thirty one seasons later, “Triple D,” as Fieri calls it, is the Food Network’s longest-running show and Fieri its most prolific face. The morning we chat, Fieri at his home in Santa Rosa, California, I’m three hours ahead and nearly 3,000 miles away in Brooklyn—and he has a flight to catch. The Fieris are off to Maui for a vacation that was postponed last year, and he’s trying to find documents while saying goodbye to his dogs Roxy, Smokey, and Cowboy. At one point I overhear his wife telling him to hurry it up. “How hilarious would it be if you made me miss my flight?” he jokes.
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Biden Unveils $4 Trillion Bill For Dinosaur Statues, Giant Twine Balls To Restore Nation’s Crumbling Highway Attractions
From The Onion: WASHINGTON—Noting the deterioration of roadside dinosaur statues and giant twine balls, President Joe Biden unveiled a $4 trillion bill Wednesday to restore the nation’s crumbling highway attractions. “For far too long, our nation’s giant fiberglass hot dogs and triceratops statues have fallen into a state of disrepair,” said Biden, who outlined his plan to renovate the country’s wax museums and replace neon light tubes in oversized cowboy signage. “We hope to stimulate local economies, creating jobs through crafting and installing giant tea cups made of plaster. The goal is to take decrepit, sometimes hazardous attractions and turn them into points of pride for their communities. We need to do everything we can to preserve our mystery spots and corn palaces.” At press time, Biden allocated an additional $500 million to build the largest chocolate chip cookie in America.