Van Ness avenue is sole. Nowhere in the wide world does the proud and
culminating automobile own and dominate such a wide and sweeping display
boulevard.
The automobile, what a magnificent animal it is, long, low, luxurious,
purring softly, full of a great reserve, ready to dart forward, not to
the cruel touch of a spur or bit, but to the magic touch of a button.
It is the culminating achievement of this period of the machine age. The
airplane, clumsy and awkward as yet, belongs for its consummation to the
men of tomorrow. The automobile is the zenith of today’s accomplishment,
and that is why men speak of it as “super” this and “super” that.
The machine age has its own cruelties and its own, ugliness, but it
also has its own art and its own beauty, of which the automobile and the
houses which men have built to accommodate it, are the consummate art.
Not all will agree with me here. The critics will damn me with disdain,
and the King of Van Ness, who ought to agree, but is too busy talking
cars, will only remark, if he listens at all: “Pretty good dope at
that.” But argumentatively I proceed.
Not that I can name them. I am only sure, really sure, of a Ford. But
I admire them with a great pride in my human kind. They sit so
majestically in their palaces on Van Ness, great limousines, powerful
roadsters, luxurious touring cars, waiting there on display and
containing in themselves all the skill, energy, artifice, and beauty of
line, color and trim that the machine age can produce.
And the buildings on Van Ness strike a new and independent note in
architecture. All that the ages have contributed of arches, columns,
coloring and lighting are utilized and made into palaces of great
dignity and beauty. There is something about the arched and windowed
walls and the spacious, open look of the buildings that is entirely
distinctive and Van Ness. It is not Mission, Grecian or Colonial, but
it is all of them. It is as new and distinctive as the service stations
that have sprung out of the automobile needs. If we dared we would call
it entirely American.
And the printing that high lights each building is an achievement in
modern art. Who but Americans would dream of using printing instead of
gargoyles or classic medallions as ornamentation. Some of it is very
beautiful and almost none is ugly. The use of the word “Paige,” the
printing of “Buick,” the “H” of Hupmobile, the Mercury “A” of Arnold are
to me very beautiful.
Van Ness avenue. It is exactly like its name. A long wide sweep for the
regal motor car, the most wonderful and proudest automobile row in
the world. The ghosts of the old, aristocratic and residential
before-the-fire Van Ness have seen to it that even commercialized it
shall still be--Van Ness.