Strange, Hidden, Cheap Places of Vintage Interest Near Where You Live

[Dr Doran]

I am an aficionado of the inexpensive. I usually get my vintage clothing from thrift stores. I occasionally buy new shoes (e.g. decent wing tips) but on a student's budget I cannot justify spending 300-900 dollars or more on a suit (usually, although I still manage to own about 25 suits and I wear one almost every day). I am always interested in cheap ways to experience the pre-1950 past.

For several years now, I have been going to a little gem of a cheap hotel tucked away an hour or so northeast of San Francisco and Berkeley. The town it is in is called Port Costa, just east of Crockett and south of Vallejo and the hotel is called the Burlington. The town is quite hidden and almost no one I have ever met has ever heard of it, even people who have been living in the San Francisco Bay Area for twenty years or longer. The town has exactly five establishments: a post office, a single restaurant, a weird and cool-looking "Theater of Mystery" which seems to be a Wunderkammer kind of place -- a collection of curiosities like old skulls and dressmakers' dummies -- and finally, a huge, strange bar built inside of a former grain warehouse and, across the street from it and owned by the same people (Czechs) the Burlington Hotel. The bar (I'll get to the hotel in a moment) has an entire stuffed polar bear in a glass case and much unusual antique furniture mixed with other junk and boasts 450 beers from at least 100 countries including Israel and Poland. It's frequented by locals and (friendly) bikers from a demi-gang called E Clampus Vitus as well as the few other people who know about it, and it has steak and lobster dinners on the weekend. It also has a patio upon which one can sit and smoke, watching the ships go by from the Richmond shipyards.

The hotel, the Burlington, is, as I said, in a Victorian. You pay for it at the bar and get the key there as well. A brass plaque the hotel outside claims that it had been a whorehouse after the Gold Rush for the dockworkers. I do not know if this is true. What I do know is that instead of room numbers, each room has a largely obsolete 19th-century working-class woman's name, like Ethyl or Myra. The rooms have mostly antique furniture but often a bit busted up, and perfectly modern bathrooms. There are old brass chandeliers, crown molding everywhere, archaic wallpaper, ancient wardrobes and armoires, and so on. The beds are all antiques, somewhat lumpy. The place is amazing as a getaway. No TVs. From the sounds one occasionally hears from the next room, couples do not come there to watch TV but certainly are titillated at the fact that it is an alleged former whorehouse. http://www.thefedoralounge.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif On the weekdays, the you usually hear nothing at all. The kicker: the rooms are only 39 dollars a night. And if you don't mind taking a room with a bathroom down the hall, it's only 29 dollars.

I don't tell many people about this place because it's so special to me as my secret getaway, but I figure if ANYONE could appreciate it, it would be the people on this website ... the place is a cross between a hotel and a hostel, so if you're too "boozhy" (bourgeois) you might be offended at its somewhat rundown, down-home homeliness; for the rest of us, it's pretty amazing, completely unique, thoroughly vintage, possibly authentic, and a place I highly recommend if you have time when visiting the San Francisco Bay Area (and a must if you live here).

If anyone knows of other such unique places, especially in the Bay Area, but really anywhere else, as we all seem to travel, do tell.

 

[Cherriexo]

Theres two places I enjoy around here,that might be known to locals (maybe) but for out of towners visiting AND those that enjoy vintage buildings these places might not be mentioned in a guide.

Glen Echo,MD- Glen Echo is known to the local swing community because they do dances frequently at the Spanish Ballroom. With goregous hard wood floors,it makes it a great places for dances.

As my understanding goes,this was a jumping places in the 30's,40's and 50's.My grandfather would take a train from where he lived in the city out to Maryland.There is a swimming pool you can still see although it has been covered with plants.Some of the "carnival" like games,last I heard are being repainted and might be open to the public soon.

A place like this saddens me that time and people didnt take better care of it.I wish they had preserved all the art deco,rides,and amusements.

"The amusement park's heyday began in the early 1930s, when people flocked here to escape their troubles, if only for an evening, brought on by the Great Depression. Through the 1960s, visitors could play miniature golf, see a distorted version of themselves in the Hall of Mirrors, dance to the music of big bands in the Spanish Ballroom, or sun themselves on the sand beach of Crystal Pool. Remnants of the park's Art Deco period grace the paved walkways today. "

Old Town,Alexandria VA You can visit Old Town for the shops,and the Victorian Ice Cream parlor.Aside,from all the Civil War/George Washington history of this town there is one WWII gem. The Torpedo Factory. At the end of King Street,to the right is the renovated Torpedo Factory.It is now being used as an Art collective and archealogical center,but you can still see remnants and pictures throughout of its heyday.

As you can see this wouldve been an easy access for transportation on the Potomac to Norfolk for the Navy.

Southern Virginia still has a 1950's South feel to it.You can wander through Richmond and see remanants of Art Deco and 1950's buildings.The further away west you go,and away from highways the more you can find diners and people that still own blue cadillacs.My hometown,in Fredericksburg still has the old fashioned soda/pharmacy shop called Goolrick's.

And we still have the best frozen custard in town.

I cannot imagine a childhood without either.

Hopefully,soon Ill start venturing out to the handful of drive-ins that still exist around here.