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The Theme Building opens at LAX

Theme Building, Los Angeles International Airport · Los Angeles, California, United States · 1961-08-01

The Theme Building opens at LAX
Junkyardsparkle via Wikimedia Commons (LAX Theme Building and moon from northwest 2016-07-21.jpg) · CC0

Two parabolic arches over a restaurant, built as the front door of the jet age in Los Angeles.

The record

Date1961-08-01
PlaceTheme Building, Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, California, United States
Coordinates33.943, -118.402 (landmark-level precision)
ScopeLocal interest
SourcesWikipedia
Added2026-08-14 · source: editors

Coordinates are given at landmark level. A landmark-level coordinate points at the structure; a city-level one points at the settlement, not at a parcel.

Finding photographs

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Check the licence before you reuse anything. A photograph being online, or being old, does not make it free; in most countries a 1960s press photograph is still in copyright.

Footage

Newsreel and archive film of events like this often survives. Search YouTube for this event If you find good footage, send us the link and we will attach it to this page.

Time layers within the surrounding city

One place, several moments in time. This location has 14 recorded time layers between 1925 and 2006 — slide through them:

1925
Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall
1926
Venice, Los Angeles
1929
Venice Canal Historic District
1951
California Science Center
1961
The Theme Building opens at LAX
1967
The first Super Bowl
1983
72 Market Street Oyster Bar and Grill
1984
weightlifting at the 1984 Summer Olympics
1986
Warren Wilson Beach House
1992
Los Angeles, April 1992
2001
Venice of America House
2003
Santa Monica Farmers Market crash
2006
death of Christopher Lamont Hunter
2006
death of Jeffery Lynn Smith Jr.

Seeded by the editors. This entry was compiled by us from public reference works and is labelled as such, not presented as a reader’s contribution. Sources are listed on the entry. If you know more, or we have it wrong, tell us — corrections are published.

You can add to this page

This entry is a skeleton on purpose. If you were there, if your family was, or if you simply know the place: photographs (yours or ones you have the right to share), comments and corrections to the record above, and observations — what the place was like before, after, what the books get wrong. Everything is read by a person before publication and credited the way you ask.

What readers have added

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