"Port roads" such as Figueroa Street allowed travel north and southbound through L.A. before the 110 Harbor Freeway was built. The city widened the street so that by October 1926 the stretch from Pico down to Manchester was 100 feet wide. It would take several more years to condemn property and work southward down past 154th Street even with the Games of the Xth Olympiad happening in the summer of 1932.
Figueroa Street was well-traveled. Passenger ships arriving at the L.A. Harbor were the mode of travel from distant and foreign places. Short distance air service was in its early days.
The Old-Style Drive-In
Hungry visitors attending the Olympic Games must have provided the nearby Wich Stand drive-in with excellent business. Located at the northwest corner of Figueroa and Santa Barbara (today's Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard), it was operated by the Burford brothers, Glen and Lewis, who also had a location at 1250 South Vermont Avenue. Glen was in his early twenties and appeared to be the driving force. Lewis was about a year younger.
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| At 3995 South Figueroa Street shown in 1934 (Image courtesy of Automobile Club of Southern California Collection/University of Southern California Digital Library) |
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| Aerial view in 1936 with restaurant site along middle of bottom (Image courtesy of "Dick" Whittington Photography Collection/University of Southern California Digital Library) |
The 1939 city directory listed another Wich Stand location in a different part of town further away from the downtown area at 4500-4508 W. Slauson. The below matchbook cover depicted it. The building was eventually replaced by a modern structure as explained later in this post:
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| Aerial in 1959 of the Figueroa Street drive-in outlined in blue, with the newly built Sports Arena behind, and the Memorial Coliseum further behind. (Image courtesy of Kelly-Holiday Mid-Century Aerial Photo Coll/Los Angeles Public Library) |
In the 1940s, the restaurant at 3995 South Figueroa became Grace's Drive-In.
The Modern Drive-In
The Burford Brothers had moved on. They established a modern drive-in and rode the crest of the style popularized by architect Wayne McAllister. Their 1939 opening at 7111 South Figueroa (cross street at Florence and south of the original location) was detailed in the April 11, 1939, issue of the Southwest Wave newspaper:
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| (Image courtesy of Newspapers.com) |
The location again sat at the northwest corner. This "Wich Stand No. 1" remained in operation until the 1960s. No longer in the 1965 street address directory, the business and the entire address had dropped off.
Zep Diner
The new Wich Stand's next-door neighbor was a roadside architectural oddity shaped like a dirigible. It had been 515 West Florence since 1930. References in historical sources seem to dissipate about 1940, coincidentally a year following the arrival of the Wich. The Hindenburg Disaster in 1937 likely caused customers to equate the place with a sense of horror rather than humor.
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| It made a news splash in the Ann Arbor News in early 1930. (Image courtesy of Newspapers.com) |
Wich Stand at 4500-4508 West Slauson Avenue
As stated earlier, the Burford brothers had a Wich Stand location on Slauson away from the downtown area. It operated for nearly two decades before getting an update in the 1950s through the firm of Armet & Davis. Wikipedia mentions that the business fell into neglect in the early 1980s - Glen Burford died in 1978.
Today the modern 1958-era structure survives though no longer a restaurant and is readily remembered as a hot spot of southern California car culture.
Wayne McAllister
In 1998, the Los Angeles Conservancy celebrated the achievements of modern design by architect Wayne McAllister through a public event. See excerpts of a brochure below:
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