Door, 6

One the way to an event in a new building. Late day shadows darken a side door in an old building. I know my preference.

I wonder what it is about older architecture that makes me like it so much? Surely not every old building is worthy, and surely not every new one is soulless. Yet it seems that way. The histories that inhabit old buildings are part of what make the structures attractive, but even without those stories it's the architecture I love. To me, older architecture is simply more beautiful than most modern stuff.

Even the rooms are more comfortable. The wood and plaster used in walls and floors, the old window glass, the softer lighting (one hopes no one has added fluorescents) and the inferior air conditioning--all these things make a building more comfortable. I even like old radiators.

I'm not exactly scientific about this, am I? I haven't made a study and I'm not going to. Architecture is an emotional issue for me.

111111

We should commemorate today because it's Veteran's day. We should commemorate the date if only because it happens just once a century.

If you head up to Memorial Park at Walnut and Raymond today at 10:30 you can be part of the Veteran's Day commemoration. I predict music, a flyover and no rain. But don't try getting anything done at the library or City Hall. All city offices will be closed.

As for the date, I suggest you Google 11/11/11 and find all the fun stuff. There's history, numerology and predictions.

I like to think those sets of ones are auspicious. But I'll leave the details to the numerologists, the predictions to the soothsayers and the Nigel Tufnel jokes to you.

Royal Laundry Complex

I should probably call this post "Disney Stores World Headquarters," because that entity occupies the Royal Laundry Complex at 443-477 S. Raymond Avenue. But I poked around the web and discovered Disney's leasing the property, so I guess we can still call it the Royal Laundry.

Designed by Gordon B. Kaufmann, an accomplished architect credited with Greystone Mansion, the Los Angeles Times building and several buildings at Caltech, our regal laundry complex is on the National Register of Historic places. Its interior was redone for Disney Stores by Clive Wilkinson Architects.

I encourage you to look at all the links but especially that last one. When you walk along the Raymond side of the building you can peer in and catch glimpses of the giant honeycomb. (Along the Bellevue Drive side, you can see toys.)

There's a nice master shot by an uncredited photographer at you-are-here.com. They have a lot of great stuff.

Enlarge this one to see the printing painted over on the sign.

I love Raymond Avenue--all of it, south to north.