Stay At The Historic Female-Centric Hotel Figueroa During Women’s History Month + Celebrate The Centennial Of Women’s Suffrage
Hotel Figueroa exterior. Photo Credit: Hotel Figueroa
From Haute Living: One of the best places for powerful female Angelenos to celebrate Women’s History Month is right here in your own backyard at Hotel Figueroa, a historic downtown locale which embraces both the past and present of the women’s rights movement.
DTLA’s ‘original salon’—which turns 94 this August— was “financed, built and operated by and for femininity,” according to a “Los Angeles Times” article from that time. It was also the largest project of its kind in the United States to be financed, owned, and operated entirely by women. Back in the day, Hotel Figueroa empowered its countless female residents and visitors to live uninhibited lives among other like-minded women. The hotel was advertised as “an ideal stopping place for ladies unattended” and served as a meeting place for practically every woman’s club in Los Angeles, and a safe haven for solo female travelers who were prohibited from checking into most hotels without a male chaperone. Here, progress was possible.
Meet Route 66’s Sally Carrera
Dawn Welch, owner of Stroud’s Rock Cafe, was the personality for Sally Carrera in the movie “Cars.” David and Kay Scott / CNHI News Service
From The Norman Transcript: Remember Sally Carrera, the blue Porsche 911 love interest of racecar Speed McQueen in the movie “Cars”?
She was a town attorney and motel owner in fictional Radiator Springs, a faded town on Route 66. We recently met Sally during a road trip across Oklahoma on the Mother Road.
Well, sort of.
Austin’s best gazebo makes national registry
Austin History Center, PICA 09283, courtesy of Austin PARD
From Curbed Austin: The Fannie Davis Gazebo on Lady Bird Lake is one of those neato Austin things we sometimes take for granted (though Curbed Austin has had it on its list of most Instagrammable places for a while, so there’s that). Designed with much midcentury flair by architect J. Sterry Nill and built 1969, the distinctive structure on the lake’s south shore—at what is now called Vic Mathias Shores at Town Lake Metro Park (aka Auditorium Shores)—is a nice stylistic companion to the nearby Long Center and has actually grown more noticeable as its downtown backdrop has become more dramatic. For the most part, though, it has for decades been “one of Austin’s modern architectural gems, hidden in plain sight,” according to the Texas Historical Commission’s Gregory W. Smith.
Where Women Made History
Built in 1949-51 as a weekend house by Dr. Edith Farnsworth, to the designs of Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe. A pioneering modern house, it continues to be one of the most widely-admired.
From the National Trust for Historic Preservation: This year the United States commemorates the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote, providing an important opportunity to celebrate the place of women in American history. While history, of course, is complicated, and voting rights for many women continued to be denied because of discriminatory practices, we at the National Trust want to tell the full history—to uncover and uplift women across the centuries whose vision, passion, and determination have shaped the country we are today. Our goal: discover 1,000 places connected to women’s history, and elevate their stories for everyone to learn and celebrate.
Modernism Week 2020: Why midcentury modern history should include more women architects
Charlotte Perriand’s “Boomerang desk,” seen here at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in January 2020. <em>Photo: Melissa Daniels/The Desert Sun.</em>
From Desert Sun: More than 5,500 miles from Palm Springs, assembled on a shallow pool in front of the Fondation Louis Vuitton museum in Paris, sits a home that could belong in the desert.
La Maison au Bord de l’Eau, or The House by the Water, is a single-story structure with living spaces on either side of a covered terrace that opens to the elements. One side includes dining and lounge areas; the other has petite bedrooms with twin-sized beds and built-in shelving.
The structure was designed in the 1930s as an affordable vacation home for the working class. It would be delivered as a self-building kit and positioned on stilts so it could be erected on any kind of terrain — whether a sandy coastline or desert dirt.