LAX Theme Building

You recognize the structure at right as the iconic Theme Building of LAX--Los Angeles International Airport. But it looks different these days. Because of falling concrete, the space-age struts are being rebuilt, from the inside out.

Incidentally, that was an observation deck on top, where tourists and visitors could. . . well, observe. But it's been closed since September 11, 2001.

A one-thousand pound chunk of stucco fell from the underside of an arch back in February, 2007. It landed on top of the Encounter Restaurant (the multi-windowed circular room high above street level) and broke into pieces. No one was hurt.

Engineers quickly inspected the building and issued a report that shut down the building and restaurant for months. If you're traveling to Los Angeles in 2008, you're in luck: Encounter is not only reopened, but the owners took advantage of the engineering work to remodel the restaurant, and it's now very Googie and atmospheric, with lava lamps.

The engineers decided that the problem was caused by water seeping into the upper curves of the arches, which had not been changed since they were built in 1961. Since the arches weren't supporting anything, checking their integrity hadn't seemed necessary. Over the years, though, water has corroded the stucco and rusted the steel beneath it.

So now, and for months, all that steel in the 135-foot-high arches is being replaced, bit by bit, by galvanized and stainless steel. The whole job may cost $10 million and the scaffolding around the arches will be in place until autumn of 2008.

It doesn't look too inviting, does it? But Encounter, the restaurant and bar, reopened in November 2007.

LAX--Los Angeles International Airport--started as ranch and agricultural land. It became Mines Field in 1928. Right away, air races were held there and tens of thousands of people came out to see Charles Lindbergh and other pilots land on the dirt runways. Here's a description from Time Magazine dated September 24, 1928:

"Two months ago, in a field, not far from Los Angeles, Calif., they were harvesting barley. Then came hordes of men bearing tons of wood, truck loads of nails, 9,000 barrels of oil, 2,000,000 gallons of water, The wood and nails they made into a grandstand (capacity 17,000) into an exposition building, ultra modern, larger than a city block. The oil and water they sprinkled on the field so that whirling hundreds of propellers would not raise a dust.

"Last week the National Air carnival at Mines field reached its climax. A Navy aviator climbed 10,000 feet in four-and-a-half minutes. An Army flier, Lieut. J. J. Williams was killed in formation stunt flying, Col. Charles Augustus Lindbergh took his place, continued Immelman turns, loops, barrel rolls. . . .

In the exposition hall were 300 brightly colored booths, housing nearly every design of plane or accessory on the market. A professor demonstrated a fool-proof self-landing, self-balancing plane, dubbed "the flying pickle."

"There were many races, the most important of which was the non-stop transcontinental derby. Col. Arthur Goebel in a Wasp-motored Lockhead-Vega Yankee Doodle was the first to arrive. But he won no prize because he had stopped once to refuel. Even so his time from New York to Los Angeles was a record; 23 hours, 50 minutes. The other entrants in the race had been forced down. Col. William Thaw seriously injured, had said before starting on the race: "I'm fat, I'll bounce."

The carnival was attended by 400,000 (75,000 on the last day). Five million dollars worth of airplanes were sold. A statue of Col. Lindbergh was always a centre for a crowd.

Wow.

Commercial airliners didn't use the Los Angeles airport until 1946, when they moved their operations from Burbank.

Jet service came in 1959, and the current terminal complex was laid out in 1961, with the $2.2 million dollar Theme Building as a centerpiece. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson dedicated the new terminal that year.