"Still, it's a race against the wrecking ball. Once there were eight White Spot coffee shops in Denver, classic Googie landmarks, but the last one in operation was demolished a few years ago.
The stunning hyperbolic paraboloid, vintage Googie, that formed Zeckendorf Plaza - built in Denver during the '50s by I.M. Pei - disappeared in 1996, a preservation battle lost by Historic Denver, to make room for the Adam's Mark Hotel.
And signs disappear overnight, vanishing into oblivion.
"They're gone before anyone realizes they will be gone," says Brooker.
In California, after the Googie landmark Ship's Coffee Shop was bulldozed, Hess lamented its loss in elegiac terms.
"While Ship's stood, we could be reminded of what we once believed and reflect on why our future has changed so dramatically," he writes in "Googie Redux."
In a phone interview, he reminisces about how Googie infused the technological image of Modernism into mass culture.
"If we tear down all these buildings," he says, "we are inflicting ourselves with cultural amnesia, purposely forgetting who we were, and this is dangerous to the soul."
In Denver, people like Roorda try to save what they can, but it is not easy. On this day's cruise, he notices that two Googie bowling alley signs have already disappeared.
But he takes comfort in places like Sam's No. 3 at 15th and Curtis streets. A former White Spot coffee shop, its swooping red roof is vintage Googie, designed by California architects Louis Armet and Eldon Davis, often called the fathers of Googie design, who built more than 400 Denny's and 650 Bob's Big Boys.
"It's the last and best of the (Googie) coffee shop architecture," he says.
"It reminds me of the time when my dad and I would hop in the car and go in search of the perfect chocolate soda." excerpted from 'In celebration of Space Age style - The Denver Post' (
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