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The vintage-loving entertainer will flip the switch on a midcentury gas station in Palm Springs this Friday
Stores have been full of Christmas decorations for weeks now, with the snowmen following hot on the heels of the skeletons from October. The holiday season kicks off for many this Friday, and for Charles Phoenix, that means throwing the switch on an outrageous display of Christmas lights. On Friday afternoon, he’s taking the show to a former gas station in Palm Springs that has become the Palm Springs Visitor Center. “That building was screaming to be lit!,” enthuses the entertainer, known for his comedy slide shows of midcentury culture. “It’s been there for 60 years and never been lit.”
The dynamic building that welcomes visitors to the desert oasis was built in 1965 as the Tramway gas station and designed by one of the powerhouse architects of the desert, Albert Frey with Robson Chambers. Developers proposed tearing it down in the 1990s as the entrance to a huge housing development that was never built.
The fight for it sparked the craze for midcentury architecture in the desert and kick-started the historic preservation movement there. “I had this crazy idea, let’s light it up and how are we going to get it done? Who do you call? Peter Moruzzi!” Moruzzi is the founder of the Palm Springs Modern Committee and recently won the group’s lifetime achievement award. “Pete hopped right on board. He’s pretty persistent, and it still took two years to push it through the city.”
Phoenix has been lighting L.A.-area landmarks for years, starting with the Route 66 roadside icon Wigwam Motel in Rialto, where the teepee-shaped structure had the same shape as a rotund pine tree. He followed with the 1960s space capsule at the Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey, the Big Boy statue at Bob’s Big Boy Broiler and Vince’s Spaghetti, a 1940s dinner house in Ontario. He hopes to light up more L.A. landmarks in the future, maybe the 76 station in Beverly Hills or the Cinerama Dome, but this year, he’s taking the show to the desert.
“The world needs more color,” Phoenix says. “We’re talking multicolored LED lights from Tru-Tone. These guys figured out how to make them look and feel and act like the classic lights. There are bigger bulbs along the hyperbolic parabaloid roofline and smaller ones underneath holding it up.” Phoenix promises songs, merriment and a hot cocoa truck. The event is free and the lighting is sponsored by Tru-Tone.
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Chris Nichols
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