Bay Area Icons

Growing up in Cupertino in the early 60's, there were a few icons that were mainstays. Here's a couple I thought of. If you have lived in the Bay Area for a long time, post a few you can think of!

I dated a girl who's parents lived at the top of the road (About 1.5 miles to the end) past the gates of the Cats in Los Gatos. Awesome view from up there.
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Marriotts Great America
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That Flintstones home on 280.

 

Iconic and ugly!

Frank
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I live very close to the "Dome House". You should see it now. It's Oscar Mayer tan.

 

When I was 9 years old that used to be my dream house!!

 

I always thought the flinstones lives there..

 

geeze,there are a lot no longer around.....emeryville mudflats sculptures, any number of wrecking yards on the "wrong" side of bayshore [foreign, domestic],for you real oldsters-the san carlos speedway and the tannery at woodside road and 101....come to think of it, an undivided 101 with stoplights....and an undivided 2 lane highway 17.

still around- the vans, glass slipper motel, pulgas water temple, the stanford masoleum, redwood city's old city hall dome, the dish, 5 points tire [i used to buy 10" cinturatos for my mini there]

many more long gone and a few still with us,

 

"Top of the hill, Daily City" !

 

Who remembers the old corn / vegi stand on 237 East Bound when it was two lanes? My Dad and I always stoped there for stuff. You could always find a cat asleep in a box of fresh corn!

 

I used to love seeing what the local schools would do to this statue around the time of a big football game. They'd have the statue's finger holding a big football and they'd put a helmut on it's head. Very funny...

Frank
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Doggie Diner
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Carolands Mansion....
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9797171-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

From Pullman car fortune and Vaux-le-Vicomte....to heiress.....to ruin....to murder....back to greatness via financial mogul....movie about to be released on DVD, right here in Hillsborough
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I remember that on Stevens Creek Blvd. I think it bacame a flower shop.

I remember when I was about 5 or 6 at Kiddieworld. Accross the street was nothing but a dirt field. They had a promotion one Saturday morning in which a helecopter dropped 500 ping pong balls. Three were red. If you found a red one, you got a ride in the chopper and a $25 shopping spree in Kiddieworld. My dad would not let me look for a red ball. He told me that a kid had just got his nose whacked off by a chopper blade!....Ya, I believed him!

 

Living in Sacto and have no pics of these but...

1. The burned out "mansion" towards the top of Alpine Blvd. We used to sit on the second floor ledge and lookout over the Valley with our beverage of choice (no back half of mansion to obstruct the view)

2. The "lake" behind Stanford near that big radar dish. Great for midnight swims after too much to drink at the mansion.

3. Bob's Big Boy statue that ended up often @ MVHS, Awalt, or Los Altos High.

4. 98.5 KOME and its late 1970's marketing of "Don't touch that dial...it has KOME on it" or "Wake up in the morning with KOME in your ear" and of course the KOME black and yellow diamond stickers that were everywhere (and edited with a pencil eraser)

 

I think they resurrected the Doggie Diner head across the street from the SF Zoo again.

 

I remember driving by the gate with the tigers a few times and have always wonder where it leads to. Kind of a perculiar place for a resident.

 

I grew up in Danville so I'm trying to remember icons from when I lived there 8 years ago.

Obviously for Danville, the Danville Oak Tree.

1/4lb. Giant Hamburgers (Although we just called it Quarter Pounder). My father's sign business was in Oakland off of Hegenberger. There was a Quarter Pounder in Oakland near his shop, as well as in San Leandro. I remember one day when I went to work with my dad, we went to lunch there and a guy threatened to stab another guy with a broken and filed screwdriver.

Emeryville-Oakland Tower. My father's sign company built this.


I'm sure there are plenty of others but these are ones that stick out in my childhood.
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Glass Slipper Motel! I remember that...its still there? I used to go to Barron Park Elementry way back and thought it was out of date then!

 

There are five homes on that road, owned by Bruce and Diane Ogilvie, former owner of Pigalle restaurant in Los Gatos. Diane was a cool lady, should be in her eighties now. She was a triathelete in her early seventies! She owns the land past the Cat's gate and the Cat's restauramt.

 

how about the round house with the wind mobile next to 101 just outside Novato?

 

The big oil drums that were cut in half? That belongs in Berkeley!

Speakig of Berkeley, who remembers the marsh area at 880 & the bridge from the 60's with all the funky art?

 

The icon's from the 60's for me:

1) Doggie Diner at the SF Zoo
2) Transamerica Pyramid (I remember when it was being built as a kid. I thought the thing collapsed after the first 3 floors were constructed!)
3) AP Giannini (fomerly the BoA building).
4) Remember the lit-up "Coca Cola" billboard sign coming off the Bay Bridge? That and the smell of the Hills Brothers Coffee plant nearby.
6) Clown Alley Burger on Columbus
7) The old "camera" building at the Cliff House before that got torn down
8) The Laughing Lady at Playland at the Beach!

Trivia: As you travel up or down on the "curve" of the Cliff House, that mountain you see across from it that never seems to grow anything? You do know it's fake don't you?

9) The Windmills of GG Park
10) Coit Tower
11) The "Big Al" and "The Condor" signs all lit up on Broadway!
12) "Tommy's Joint" on Van Ness & Geary
13) St. Mary's Cathedral or as I say " the phillps screwdriver" (birds eye view.)
14) Remember the "Jack Tar Hotel" rotating sign (across from Tommy's Joint!"
15) Remember the "Hof Brau" lighted sign down around Geary and Powell ?

 

I actually do. That was back when Zanker and 1st streets were 4 way stops!!!! Oh, don't forget the great odor out of the Alviso water treatment plant!

 

playland at the beach

santas village

frontier village

wild mouse at santa cruz

museum of stuff at the remains of sutro baths [had a tucker torpedo there]

oh **** it...just rent "harold and maude" !!!