The 1960s in Livermore were a time of razing historic downtown buildings from the 1800s to erect fast food or other modern structures in their place. The old Farmers’ Hotel, for example, was replaced by Kentucky Fried Chicken, the Dutcher homes by a parking lot and Der Wienerschnitzel, the gracious Kennedy home by a commercial office building, the old wooden portion of the Valley Hotel by the Travel Bug building.
Now the Southern Pacific train depot site and the Hagemann farm have been purchased by developers, the Dutcher Hardware building was torn down for a fine arts theater, yet another downtown site is up for sale, and the city has come full circle in a sense.
The property for sale, on the east side of L Street between First and Second, holds an abandoned gas station but more significantly includes the rounded Donut Wheel and its accompanying little shops and parking lot.
The original structure on the site, another classic wooden hotel from the 1800s—the Washington Hotel—was torn down in May 1941 to accommodate a food market, newest of the Purity Stores then operating in Northern California. The Purity chain had been founded in the San Francisco area in 1929; it spread as far south as Fresno and as far north as Fort Bragg before its owners, the Niven family, liquidated it in 1972.
The Livermore market had 5,000 feet of floor space in an unusual futuristic architectural style called “Googie”—reminiscent of an airplane hanger with a vaulted ceiling. The building was made of reinforced concrete, with the western side entirely of plate glass. The large windows that were often a structural element of Googie broke down the traditional barriers between inside and outside. They also made the building itself a giant billboard to drivers and pedestrians.
The dome was an exotic new concrete shape made possible by advances in construction technology. It evoked extraterrestrial cities that appeared on the covers of science fiction books and magazines of the era. To modern eyes, it resembles a Quonset hut, but the Quonset was not designed until after our Purity Store was built on this site. The dome shape was a hallmark of Purity Stores architecture; photos of old Purity markets are on the web at David Gwynn’s www.groceteria.com/stores/purity.html.
The Herald’s article about the opening of the new Livermore building on September 26, 1941, included information about its unique cooling and heating system, which permitted air to be circulated beneath the floor and through store vents. The lighting was semi-direct “with silvered globes reflecting illumination from the firtex ceiling, completely eliminating glare and shadows.”
The eventual designation “Googie” for this style came from the name of Googie’s Coffee Shop, built in 1949 at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights in Los Angeles. Designer John Lautner is said by some architectural historians to be the founder of the style. Googie went out of fashion in the 1960s.
In 1959 the Purity Stores closed its L Street site and moved to a new building on First Street between P and Q Streets with more space for parking. It was torn down when the Safeway shopping center was built.
The original Purity store was divided into smaller shops by its new owners, with the Donut Wheel ultimately having prominence at the First Street end. Hans J. Schiller was the architect who changed the building from the single food market to a series of shops. He also probably added the aqua zigzag overhang.
A Historic Resources Inventory by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in 1988 noted the Googie style and listed the building at 2017 First Street as the “archetype of a ’50s strip commercial.”
Ownership has changed through the years. However, the Donut Wheel has retained many loyal customers who drop in to have a doughnut with their coffee and read a newspaper. Since the demise of Mally’s restaurant, it is the only all-night eatery in downtown Livermore. The current owners are Mary Naryung Tang and her husband, Mok Kim Tang, who immigrated to the United States from Cambodia in 1987.
Other tenants in the complex are Eliambrose’s Cut, Cosmo Wireless, Lee’s Total Body Care, and the Coin Operated Wash’n Dry. “
Today, the familiar boomerang arches, tapered columns, parabolas and curved domes are being bulldozed at an alarming rate,” says Chris Jepsen on his website www.spaceagecity.com/googie/introduction.htm. “These buildings stand at an unfortunate juncture: not new enough to look modern, yet not old enough to be considered historically significant.”
Perhaps the Donut Wheel building does not have the grace and majesty of a Victorian hotel. However, it is unique in Livermore architecture. Its very homeliness is somehow endearing. Rich Buckley’s real estate sign displays a three-story “concept rendering” of a commercial structure deemed suitable for the site.
(Readers can reach me via e-mail at am3homan@yahoo.com.)
