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  • John and Jane Adams Postcard Collection

El Cortez Hotel, "Sky Room" sign lit, San Diego

Digital Item
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PC-000-781
Night photograph of El Cortez Hotel, San Diego, with "Sky Room" sign superimposed on it, showing glass elevator
1950s
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R. W. Chase, photographer
H. S. Crocker Co., Inc., Los Angeles, California, US
The glass elevator (called "Starlight Express"), seen here with colored stars going up the front of the El Cortez Hotel in San Diego, was installed in 1956 by hotelier Harry Handlery, who had purchased the hotel in 1951. It went as far as the 15th floor Sky Room until it was removed during restoration to the hotel's pre-1950s appearance as a site listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The Cafe Cortez and the Pacifico Room on the ground floor of the hotel are also lit up. Since the Travolator moving walkway installed by Handlery is not in this photograph, this photograph must have been taken between 1956 and 1959. The 15-story elevator may have been the tallest hydraulic elevator in the world (175 feet), and it was the second exterior glass elevator ever installed. Its designer--and the designer of the Travolator--was architect C. J. Paderewski (1908-2007). The back of the postcard claims that the "Mirro-Krome"(R) process by H. S. Crocker Co., Inc. was used in printing this card. This was a type of photochrome manufactured using offset lithography. The publisher's number on the back of the card is SDC-15
El Cortez Hotel; Sky Room; Starlight Express; Glass elevators; Hydraulic elevators; Pacfico Room; Cafe Cortez; San Diego; C. J. Paderewski; R. W. Chase
702 Ash Street
California - San Diego
  • John and Jane Adams Postcard Collection
MS-0008
English
Chase's Color Card Co., San Diego, California, US
Postcard
3.5 inches x 5.5 inches
No
PC-000-518, -609, -615, -708, PC-000-769, -780,-782-788; Alisa Goetz, ed., Up Down Across, Merrell Pub Ltd, London/NY & National Building Museum, pp. 114 & 117; K. E. Ciani & C. Malinick, "From Spanish Romance ..." Journal of San Diego History 2000 v46 #1
[signs on building]
El Cortez Hotel
[superimposed on above] Sky Room
Cafe Portez
Pacifico Room
  • San Diego State University Library and Information Access, Special Collections and University Archives
Image
TIFF
20.47 MB