John Margolies: America’S Roadside Historian -Margaret Engel
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FALL 2016 VOL. 24 NO. 3 John Margolies: America’s Roadside Historian -Margaret Engel A decades-long chronicler of America’s roadside and Main Streets died of pneumonia on May 26th at Weill Cornell Medical Center in NYC. John Margolies, 76, whose archives of thousands of photographs and travel artifacts recently were acquired by the Library of Congress, was a widely published author and lecturer at the Smithsonian and overseas through the U.S. Department of State. The Henry Ford Museum mounted an extensive exhibit of his work last year, complete with a root beer barrel stand, walls of felt tourist banners, displays of motel keys, early motorists’ travel diaries and a re-creation of Famed architect Philip Johnson wrote the Margolies’ meticulously organized office. The months-long exhibit ended foreword to one of Margolies’ earlier books, in January. He was the guest curator at the long-running exhibit (1998- The End of the Road: Vanishing Highway 2000) featuring his photographs and travel artifacts at the National Architecture in America, noting, “This is a Building Museum --”See the USA: Automobile Travel and the American forgotten portion of the great American Landscape.” architectural heritage and John Margolies Exhibits of his work also were held at The Building Centre Trust in is perhaps the leading historian in this field.” London, the Museum of Modern Art in Virginia Beach, the Hudson River Museum (which circulated to museums throughout the U.S.), the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, the Museum of Nature Center in Stamford, CT, the University of Arkansas and the New York Film Festival, among others. His website, johnmargolies.com, lists his books, lectures, and images from his archives. As Phil Patton wrote in Smithsonian Magazine, For decades, Margolies took cross-country solo driving “Some people are obsessed with collecting Louis XIV trips throughout the country, meticulously charted by maps Phone Booth Calls Out furniture, others with beer cans or butterflies. John Margolies and his unusually keen memory. All of his photographs had – Ralph Wilcox is obsessed with the architectural flora and fauna of American to meet his rigid standards of light (usually six a.m. shots) and for Preservation main streets, roadsides, movie theaters and resort areas—the composition, meaning no distractions like cars or people. When the National Park Service placed the Airlight Outdoor telephone booth in Prairie exotic, improvisational, outrageous furnishings of the great He often would urge, or pay motorists to move their cars Grove, Arkansas, on the National Register of Historic Places on November 9, 2015, it was open spaces. In the process he has helped preserve a portion of so he could get a pristine image. the first of its type to be individually listed. The act triggered a debate at the National Park our common heritage by documenting thousands of buildings, A lengthy profile of Margolies, “The Road Worrier,” Service about the kinds of properties that should be included on the National Register since, many of them just months or even days before the bulldozers ran in the Chicago Tribune, written by Ellen Warren, detailing in their words, it “blurs the line between a ‘place’ and an artifact, and it begs the question were to carry them away for good.” his quirky methods and rigorous rules of the road. From her about where the line between significance and nostalgia is drawn.” The History Channel and the A&E Network featured 2003 article, “Since the mid-1970s, Margolies has been The 1960-era telephone booth is near the Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park about Margolies in three, two-hour television specials about photographing a dying America. Roadside attractions, 12 miles southwest of Fayetteville. It is one of two functioning outdoor phones of its type roadside architecture, design and social history called drive-ins (movies and restaurants), old gas stations, movie remaining in the state. The Airlight Outdoor was the first telephone booth to be designed Highway Hangouts in 1997, 2001 and 2002 and in its palaces, Main Streets, beauty shops. But please don’t call it specifically for outdoor use, a feature touted in advertisements during its introduction in Hit the Road Week series in 2003. kitsch, schlock or even nostalgia. Rather, he is an expert on the mid-1950s. Although damaged by an SUV in 2014 and likely headed to the scrapheap, He taught at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara the roadside architecture. A commercial archeologist. A cultural a local Facebook campaign convinced the Prairie Grove Telephone Company to restore California Institute for the Arts and the Pratt Institute. populist. A chronicler of the amazing all-American culture and reinstall it. The company collects an average of $4 yearly from 25-cent phone calls He lectured widely before national conferences, civic groups, of the automobile and what it wrought on the national made from the booth. historical societies, and museums. He received a Guggenheim landscape.” Though the Airlight Outdoor telephone booth was meant to attract patrons to make fellowship in architectural criticism in 1978 and a 2003 Some of his books were: Signs of Our Time (1993), Fun phone calls, it also enticed others for very different reasons. College students loved the fellowship from the Alicia Patterson Foundation. He also Along the Road (1998), See the USA: The Art of the American phone booths for the crazy competition of seeing how many people they could fit in one. received several grants from the Architectural League of Travel Brochure (2000); Home Away from Home: Motels in The North American record, set at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California, is 22 while New York, where he was a frequent lecturer. Princeton America (1995); Pump and Circumstance (1993) and Ticket the world record set in South Africa is 25. Those installed in some National Parks also University Press published several of his books. to Paradise: American Movie Theaters and How We Had Fun attracted moose, who would mistake their reflections in the glass for rivals and charge RALPH WILCOX Prairie Grove, Arkansas Taschen Books issued a major coffee table book of his (1991). His book on miniature golf courses, now highly the booths, often destroying them. The Prairie Grove Airlight Outdoor telephone booth work four years ago, Roadside America. From Taschen’s website: collectible, was covered in green Astroturf. Advertising listing on the National Register highlights how much the preservation movement has “Before the advent of corporate communications and agencies routinely bought his images for various campaigns, evolved since the introduction of the National Historic Preservation Act 50 years ago. architectural uniformity, America’s built environment was a as did movie productions. This trend will likely continue as our ideas of what is significant grow. free-form landscape of individual expression. Signs, artifacts, He was born in New Canaan, CT and was a 1964 graduate and even buildings ranged from playful to eccentric, from of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University deliciously cartoonish to quasi-psychedelic. Photographer of Pennsylvania. He lived in Los Angeles in the late 1970s. Used to be a… Theatre John Margolies spent over three decades and drove more – Jeremy Ebersole than 100,000 miles documenting these fascinating and endearingly artisanal examples of roadside advertising and The transition from single-screen neighborhood theaters to suburban fantasy structures, a fast-fading aspect of Americana. multiplexes that began half a century ago has ensured that there is no shortage This book brings together approximately 400 color of former cinema real estate. Thankfully, strong emotional ties to the buildings, photographs of Main Street signs, movie theaters, gas stations, new non-profit ownership models, success in anchoring economic development, fast food restaurants, motels, roadside attractions, miniature and a resurgence of interest in city living have meant the preservation of many golf courses, dinosaurs, giant figures and animals, and fantasy of these gems. And even if the silver screen no longer shines, old movie houses coastal resorts. In an age when online shopping and offer unique locations for just about anything imaginable! mega-malls have reconfigured American consumerism, In Cooperstown, New York, baseball pays the bills, and thus the fate of stripping away idiosyncrasy in favor of a bland the Smalley’s/Cooperstown Theatre is the same as every other downtown structure. Venture inside the standard souvenir shop, however, to appreciate homogeneity, Margolies’s elegiac 30-year survey Seventh Inning Stretch, Cooperstown NY RALPH WILCOX reminds us of a more innocent unpredictable a beautiful little lobby and still-recognizable proscenium arch! and colorful past.” Who thinks the dart boards in Price, Utah’s Crown Theatre, now part of the bar next door, are shaped like the target design on the cinema’s marquee? As cool as these transformations are, wouldn’t it be great if these gorgeous palaces maintained their original purpose of providing affordable downtown entertainment in a magical environment? The Theatre Historical Society of America (www.historictheatres.org) is a fantastic organization that, like the SCA, provides excellent publications, gatherings, advocacy, and the community surrounding these iconic commercial roadside structures. Check them out, and don’t forget to send your UTBA photos and feedback to [email protected]. Until next time, the-a-the-a-the-a that’s all folks! JOHN TOSO 2 SCA NEWS FALL 2016 3 VSilver Dollar, Price UT – www.tosoworks.com #2 Cotton’s Wonder Bar - Commercial signs constructed before World War II were typically traditional rectangular designs that conveyed simple messages. With the postwar proliferation of signs, these outdoor advertisements evolved into dynamic abstract shapes to increase their effectiveness along the roadside, as illustrated by the kidney-shaped favs sign for Cotton’s, originally McNatts, Wonder Bar.