Vintage drive-ins

Wow, how can the building look so streamlined and the cars so boxy ?

 

Somebody was doing some real stockcar racing. Had good times watching cars like this on MD dirt in the 60s and early 70s at Westport and Dorsey Speedways. Both swallowed up by progress. Landscape changed so much I doubt if I could even find where they once were.

 

Not many of those drivers were in the business of farming hemorrhoids, though

 

That architectural awning, made of thin-cast concrete? That was invented by a couple of up-and-coming Seattle architects back in the late Sixties. They first appeared on the last two buildings of a grocery chain here in the Puget Sound.

"The architect for the building was UW-trained Welton Becket. He split for Los Angeles early in his career and is mostly remembered for work there like the Capitol Records Building and the plan for Century City. Becket’s firm designed a number of stores for Tradewell in Seattle including Crown Hill, Wedgwood and White Center just before and after 1957.

For the Burien store and its three offspring Becket partnered with Richard Bradshaw, L.A.’s expert on thin-shell structural engineering. Bradshaw’s unique talents let Tradewell’s arched vaults soar from the front to rear of the store with few supports."

 

I always enjoy learning about stuff like that Andrew. Thanks for sharing.

 

The last Tradewell store built, back in the mid-70s, is a mere two blocks from me. After they went belly-up in the late Seventies, a furniture store (Erickson's Furniture) bought the location, and have been there ever since. Even the tall-assed sign with the big neon 'T' is still there, albeit with a big neon 'E.'
I'll see about getting pictures.

 

That'd be neat!