Home - Mid-Century Style Magazine

From Flame to Flicker: Inside a Working Neon Shop

You walk into a neon shop expecting nostalgia. You leave thinking about chemistry, electricity, municipal zoning codes, and 1940s craftsmanship. That’s what happened when I toured Morry’s Neon, a family business opened in 1985 by Morry and his son Glen, a business built on a neon legacy that began in 1946 when Morry first started bending glass. Established the same year America decided diners, drive-ins, and optimism were perfectly reasonable things to mass-produce, Morry’s has

Route 66 at 100: Why the Centennial Is Igniting a New Era of Retro Road Trips

As the Route 66 Centennial approaches, something interesting is happening. This isn’t just an anniversary tour or a nostalgia lap. It’s a full-scale reawakening of interest in the American road trip—one rooted in history, preservation, and the lived experience of the road itself. The centennial is acting like a spotlight, illuminating not just the highway, but the stories, architecture, roadside culture, and communities that grew up along it. And people are paying attention. Travelers want

Los Angeles Potteries: A Whimsical Walk Through Mid-Century Ceramic Dreams

From our retro coffee table to yours comes a great book – an awesome gift or something to pour over in our own home! Suppose you’ve ever spotted a cookie jar shaped like a hamburger or a canister set with tropical fruit motifs and thought, “I remember that design!” or “I have to have that design!”. In that case, you’ll want to get your hands on Los Angeles Potteries: A Collector’s Journey through Artistry, Craft,

El Cortez Hotel: Where Vintage Vegas Still Lives

Opened in 1941, the El Cortez Hotel & Casino is one of Las Vegas’s oldest operating casinos — and one of its most authentic. In a city obsessed with reinvention, the El Cortez is a rare survivor, maintaining its vintage spirit while still feeling alive and relevant. Preservation That Matters In 2013, the El Cortez earned its place on the National Register of Historic Places, and it’s easy to see why. The building’s Spanish Colonial

Terra Cotta windowsill detail and fire safety

It’s a bit hard to see, but we have cool curved walls into each of the windows and terra cotta window sills (I think they’re terra cotta). Unfortunately we also have plastic storm windows, bleck! However, they’re better than no storm windows at all! On the subject of windows, we’re taking off the bars on our lower back side of our house (pictures to come later). I got particularly freaked out by the fire safety

Final Trading Spaces Post

Ok, so I finally got over to take photos of my friends completed home…the 2nd of the Trading Spaces houses: The piece of furniture they built! It looks great…not sure if you can see in the picture, but there are lots of little details (like the one on the upper left on the ceiling). It did have a refrigerator and microwave in there, but she has removed it because the kids aren’t allowed to eat

Save the Houston Astrodome

The Houston Astrodome was designed by architects Hermon Lloyd & W.B. Morgan, and Wilson, Morris, Crain and Anderson. The world’s first indoor, air conditioned stadium. The home of Astroturf. An architecture icon known as the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” On Opening Day, April 9, 1965, a sold-out crowd of 47,879 watched an exhibition game between the Houston Astros and the New York Yankees. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife Lady Bird were in

The influence of the Atom Bomb on 1950’s America

In surfing around the web, we find some folks who have done a fantastic job of capturing important parts of Mid-Century life. One of our favorites is Uncle Jack’s veryvintagevegas.com and in surfing his site we came across this fantastic online master’s thesis from Monique Gaudin on the topic of the Atomic bomb’s influence on pop culture – both then and now. Besides being packed with fabulous links about atomic culture, the page also has