Amazing A-Frame in Scottsdale AZ

I was in Scottsdale, AZ recently and just happened by this A-Frame. It certainly looked as though it had been there a long long time and is now an Enterprise Rent-A-Car. It is located on McDowell St. just west of N. Scottsdale Blvd.

Digitiki,

You beat me to the punch. I was also in Scottsdale over the holidays, and came across the same building. Really amazing to see it, considering none of the other buildings along this stretch of McDowell is of the same architecture.

Here is my photo of the place.

Digitiki/Tikipedia

That is a very cool building, did you go inside? Surprised this place has stayed under the TC radar. What could it have been?

DC

Man, it's been years since this place was discussed here. If I'm not mistaken that place was part of a larger Polynesian-themed strip mall (and maybe an apartment complex?). I don't think the strip mall lasted all that long and I am pretty sure the building in question was a Dairy Queen or some such back in the 80's. There are a few old posts floating around TC somewhere...

Amazing that the outrigger beam is still intact! Thanks to the dry Arizona climate.

Some pics I took in 2005:

As great as it is that the place is still standing, it kills me to not have any photos of it in its original state. What was the now grey face of the A covered with? Bamboo? Tapa designs! Was there a float hanging from the outrigger beam? Was it really a Dairy Queen? For some inexplicable reason the A-frame is not mentioned in the "great moments of Dairy Queen history"!:

1961: The Mr. Misty slush treat cools throats in the warm South.

1962: International Dairy Queen, Inc. (IDQ) is formed.

1965: First national radio advertising sends DQ message 169 million times a week.

1966: First national TV commercial is aired, "Live a Little"

1968: The Buster Bar® bursts forth.

1970: Hot Fudge Brownie Delight™ debuts

1972: First DQ store opens in Japan and Dennis the Menace becomes the spokescharacter for DQ.

There used to be a tiki themed strip mall in that area. Maybe this is a remnant of that. I think there was also an a-frame poly-pop style Norge Cleaners down there somewhere. Might have been closer to the airport. I lived there in the 90's. All the midcentury buildings still intact there got me really into vintage/midcentury stuff. Growing up on 'Forbidden Island' I wasn't exposed to midcentury stuff much-just bungalows and Victorians. Sadly, alot of these buildings were torn down in the late 90's before the preservation groups got going.

I think I may have rented a car from that A-frame-back in the day when I'd escape the heat by driving over to Huntington Beach for Mai Tais at Tony's on the Pier in Redondo Beach. Those were the days...

:drink:
Tacky

BINGO! Ten points for the candidate above! Your memory served you well. I could not rest and dug up this EARLY Tiki revival article from the Phoenix New Times from December '93, bemoaning the imminent destruction of the grand Kon Tiki Hotel:

Too bad that they never made any postcards or brochures for strip malls or cleaners. I guess we will never get to see the place in its original splendor :(

Here is a link to the full (text only) article from the Phoenix New Times.

Big profs for finding that article!!! Its way too small for a full restaurant, but it would make a hell of a bar!! All except for the location. Its at the end of a strip of car dealers and NOTHING else.

On 2009-01-07 14:30, Digitiki wrote:
Big profs for finding that article!!! Its way too small for a full restaurant, but it would make a hell of a bar!! All except for the location. Its at the end of a strip of car dealers and NOTHING else.

Hey, Car dealers need to drink too :)

Great article! It really describes the story of Tiki culture and could probably apply to the decline of some of the novel googie and tiki structures in orange county (beach blvd.)

That was a great article! The 2nd and 3rd to last paragraphs are so true-entire blocks were torn down every 20 years or so and completely rebuilt. Coming from the SF Bay Area I thought it was so strange. For the most part, anything built there was just remodeled-it's too expensive to rebuild every few years in the Bay Area.

Was there a cheap cafeteria Mexican restaurant on the corner next to the Kon Tiki? This has been bothering me for years. Something like Senor Pancho. Maybe it was on Indian School, one mile up? Or was it right next to the Kon Tiki? Someone help me out with this one!

:drink:
Tacky

I used to live near Old Town in Scottsdale and always wondered what that building used to be, thanks for all the info.
Not tiki related, but if anyone's in that area and a little thirsty... one of the world's great beer bars is hidden right down the street there there in Papago Plaza at the corner of McDowell and Scottsdale.
It's called Papago Brewing... 32 taps and several hundred bottles from all over the world. Friggin' awesome place.

I found the following paragraph very interesting:

" "This wasn't the interpretive stuff of someone like Frank Lloyd Wright or some of the others who were interested in the abstract simplicity of Asian architecture," says Reed Kroloff, assistant director of Arizona State University's college of architecture. "This was outright stylistic grabbing. The guys who were doing places like the Kon Tiki were doing the Googie's of Asian architecture." (Googie's" refers to the look-at-me school of space-age coffee shop/bowling alley design popular in the mid-Fifties.) "

went to check this out the other day. It is now empty & available. It is small, but I wonder if the ceiling could be opened up for a little crows nest action, to add to the square footage. kinda like smugglers cove.
Neat building, but it needs much work & off the beaten track for sure. Spoke to a couple of the owners' employees next door & they want it to be a bar AND promised to be the best customers if that should happen.
When they told me it WAS originally a Dairy Queen, I didn't believe them. Maybe in a LATER incarnation, I thought. Still hard to believe, but the factoids are all here!
WEIRD!