Post #663139 by bigbrotiki on Sat, Jan 5, 2013 10:19 AM

Love those "Sundrella" umbrellas! I looked through the previous pages, and noticed that some good images are not posted in this thread (though elsewhere). Here's a shot I took not too long ago:

The Tropics (now Caliente Tropics) being one of my earliest Tiki-loves this must be rectified. With the upcoming Modernism Week next month, let's walk down memory lane a bit:

In 1989, when I was still pretty Tiki-ignorant, right at the beginning of my quest, I managed to document the fabled Tiki saloon doors to the Reef bar, carved by Leroy Schmaltz (as well as the signage):

The other side:

It can safely be said that these kind of discoveries solidified my conviction that this curious art form deserved to be documented. They disappeared sometime in the 90s, nobody knows what happened to them. I forgot what the interior of the Reef looked like then, all I remember is it was dark, and certainly did not look like THIS any more, when it was the Congo Room:

Over a decade later, after the Book of Tiki had convinced new proprietor Casey Jones to keep the Tiki theme, he found the two Witco street lamps that can be seen way in the back corner of the bar shot above. They had been stuffed behind a vending machine in the hall way to the Reef, and he gave them to me:

Now these poor fellas must be the most unloved Witcos ever, because after having them up in my bed room for a few years, they were replaced by the more appropriate Witco "Primitic Man and Woman", and languished in my basement for a long time. Until, after offering them to a few friends with no takers, I liquidated them during my recent vending ventures :cry:

Now here is a fun Before And After: When I photographed the iconic pool Tiki in 1992, it still had a gas line running up its back to what used to be a Tiki torch:

I thought it was amazing then, but little did I know what it once looked like in all its tall, palm root glory!:

This Tiki....

...had its own little plaque,

...which, a rare occurrence, gave credit to O.A.' s Ed Crissman, with "Carvings by Crissman" stamped in small type on the bottom. It has disappeared since I photographed it. Here's Ed's business card:

And last not least, to explain the matchbook DC posted on the previous page and the ashtray above...

...here are some shots of the original sign in its "outrigger sail" shape, one of the coolest sign concepts in Tikidom in my opinion:

...which of course was long gone by the time I found the place.

And on goes the saga of the Tropics, with its many twisted turns and ups and downs of not only one but THREE dedicated Tiki event organizers being chased away by the hard-ass majority owner, the most recent one being yet another grave disappointment. The place lingers on, and is still, in spite of all the misgivings, one of THE sites to see for the Tikiphile in Palm Springs.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2013-01-05 10:23 ]