Motel images generally fall into three camps: the early motor courts with, say, a collection of pitched-roof cottages and its sign across an arch; the low-slung utilitarian U or L perhaps fashioned into some sort of vernacular (Southwest? Bavarian?); and of course the fabled Googie motels of the postwar period.
But I was flipping through my Hollywood cards and came up with three, all within spitting distance of the other, that were more...Modernistic. Not exactly of the monolithic Streamline variety of the Town or the Tick Tock I posted earlier.
The 1952 Hollywood La Brea says "I am Late Moderne, and I am green!"
The 1949 Sunset Manor may be older and more reserved, but still goes for green.
The 1950 Palm Motel soundly abjures both fins and green paint. (Flagcrete and, could that be Roman brick? Could our architect have been influenced by Clements' Mullen & Bluett?)
Nowadays, Hollywood LaBrea (7110 H'wood Blvd) has been tarted up like a schoolgirl's lunchbox. And it has lost its awesome porte-cochère.
But that it retains it original windows, and that glass brick, is a miracle in itself.
The Sunset 8 (née Sunset Manor) (Eight what? The Sunset 8 is the number of blacklisted writers living there? They couldn't afford 13 ghosts?) is still looking manorial, with what may be its original paint job --
-- most of it, anyway. Won't even talk about the windows.
And of the noble Palm...
...hey, wait, what th --
WHAT??!!
Oh, come on. I mean cultural terrorism is funny and all, but that's just rude. I'm reminded of the Vincent Vega quip about how it's worth them doing it just to catch them doing it.