Photo Essay: Paramount Iceland, Home of the Zamboni (Updated for 2022)

[Update 6/13/22 9:17 AM PT—The NHL has announced that the L.A. Kings hockey team has taken over Paramount Iceland along with AEG and American Sports Entertainment Company (ASEC) and has renamed the facility "L.A. Kings Iceland." It's currently closed and will reopen to the public after renovations in August 2022. ]

Starting vaguely in 1984 when I was nine years old, and definitely during the 1988 Winter Olympics, figure skating became, for some time, a big part of my life.

But like many of my childhood interests, it was something I could only watch on TV, and not actually  do myself.

Even though my sister and I begged—and even though my high school was next door to an ice rink—we never got to live out our fantasies of becoming Katerina Witt or Nancy Kerrigan or even Debi Thomas.

We would never encircle a partner in a death spiral.

We would never land any salchow, axel, toe loop, flip, or lutz.

We wouldn't even fall trying. We would never get the chance to try.

I held onto my love for the sport as a spectator well after college, sitting in the nosebleed section of Madison Square Garden for one of those Stars on Ice shows just to catch a glimpse of Kurt Browning through the window of a tour bus.

Of course, during a New York City winter or two, I'd tried to ice skate a couple of times—but my old ankles and frustrated brain and intensely strong gravity pull always seemed to sabotage my attempts.

At some point, far into my adult years, I had to accept that my time had passed.

So, I kind of forgot about skating rinks and my ice dancing dreams until I saw an invite for an "open console" event at a place called Paramount Iceland.

Since I'm a sucker for a good pipe organ—especially if I get special access to it—I showed up, not knowing what to expect.



Oh my, I had no idea about Paramount Iceland!



First of all, it was built by the Zamboni brothers in 1939 and opened in 1940. Yes—those Zamboni brothers! But they hadn't developed their infamous ice resurfacer machine yet, because they were still just manufacturing ice at a plant across the street. It was originally an open-air skating facility, though a roof was added just months after it opened. Currently, it's got some nice zig-zag interior features akin to what you might find on a Googie-style bank or supermarket.



Secondly, Iceland is where figure skating legends like Sonja Henie and Peggy Fleming practiced—and probably skated along to music played on the vintage Wurlitzer "Hope-Jones Unit Orchestra," the theater pipe organ that ultimately became known as "The Mighty Wurlitzer." (This is the same type of Wurlitzer that can be found at The Nethercutt Collection.)



It's pretty unusual for a theater pipe organ like this to be such a mainstay in a facility like an ice rink, but it's still regularly in use. [Update 2022: Pipe organ concerts ceased during the COVID-19 pandemic but will resume upon the rink's reopening.] The console room and organ loft are accessible via a wooden ladder from inside the rink, or a more stable "stage door"-style back entryway.



Built in 1926, the horseshoe-shaped console was relocated from the Fox Theater in San Jose (now operated as the California Theatre) to Iceland in 1941. It originally had two keyboards and ten ranks, but it's been updated to have three manuals and 19 ranks.



The ranks are important for this type of Wurlitzer, because the "Unit Orchestra" is supposed to essentially substitute a full orchestra. Each rank represents a different instrument that its operator can play—so the more instruments, the better. And I must admit: The Grease medley sounded pretty incredible. "You're the One That I Want" had a distinctly polka vibe.



One of the distinguishing characteristics of the theatre organ console as opposed to the church organ console is the replacement of the draw knobs with color-coded stop tabs, which are well within the organist's reach to activate or deactivate any of the ranks by being flipped up or down.



This was actually the third console for the rink after two others (in two different locations) failed to deliver the desired effect. The console came with its current relays—which still uses air pressure combined with electrical currents running along a multitude of wires to push air out of all of those different types of pipes.



Theatre organs like this one differ from those found in more ecclesiastical settings, because they were designed to accompany silent films—with a variety of musical styles creating ambiance for all sorts of cinematic hijinks.



But in a sports arena like this, which wasn't built with musical acoustics in mind, it needs to make an even bigger impact. Fortunately, there are slats called "swell shades" that can open and close to control how big of a boom you want to send out to the skaters. (Those flaps apparently came from the since-demolished Paramount Theatre in LA.)



The pipes in the organ loft surround the console room on each side...



...and there's a room devoted to percussion as well, including drums and cymbals.



This was a hallmark of the "Unit Orchestra" style of organ, whose pneumatic and electrical controls could be used as well to shake a tambourine or beat a drum—remotely, while seated on a bench at the console.



Iceland is one of the oldest continuously-operated rinks in the country, but it has an even bigger claim to fame: It's home to the world's first Zamboni ice surface scraping machine, known now as "Model A."


Photo: Zamboni Archives

The Model A was invented at Iceland and completed in 1949. It was the first of many models to have been developed by Frank Zamboni—who, by 1953, had already completed ten more models and started selling them outside of Southern California (which, as you might imagine, doesn't have a lot of ice to resurface). You can see an antique Model A on display at Iceland, which was restored in 1998. [Update 2022: This model will be moved to the lobby and be displayed as part of a mini Zamboni museum at the new L.A. Kings Iceland.]


Photo: Zamboni Archives

There's also a C-model (technically C-11) at Iceland, built upon a civilian version of a World War II-era military jeep, the Willys CJ-3B. The Zamboni company got it back from a private collector in 2011, restored it to its original working order, and put it out on display.

There are other ice resurfacing machines available out there, so Zamboni is actually only one brand of a few. But the Zamboni company sells more of their machines than all of their competitors combined.

Prior to the invention of the Zamboni, it would take as many as five people—with scrapers, shovels, and a hose—an hour and a half to clear the ice. Now, with the modern Zamboni models (many of which are electric / battery-powered), you can resurface the three-quarter-mile distance in about 12 minutes—even though they only go 8 or 9 mph.

During my visit, I didn't strap on some skates and get on the ice. I didn't play the pipe organ (though I was welcome to).

But you know what I did do?

I drove the Zamboni. Very slowly. A few inches. In forward and reverse.

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Photo Essay: Bristlecone Pine Cabins at the Deserted Mexican Mine

One of the tangental walks you can take from the Visitors Center at Schulman Grove in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is the Bristlecone Cabin Trail to the Mexican Mine Site.



If you walk slowly enough, and don't make too much noise, a bird might come and land on a nearby branch.



He might sing to you, or he might pose for you, too.



But you can't linger too long in the trees, because in the clearing ahead, the cabins made of both limber and bristlecone pine await.



There was a time when these pine trees were well sought-after for building materials to make log cabins, doors, and furniture because of how sturdy the wood is.



Now these trees are protected and can't be legally chopped down—and even the fallen ones seem to take up permanent residence wherever they land.



But back in 1863, when this area was adjacent to a place called "Reed Flat," nothing kept miners looking for silver from setting up camp here.



Reed silver miners came up more or less empty-handed, but some lead and zinc was found here—and that was a boon to the Mexican Mining Company.



The Carson City, Nevada-based company bought the Reed mine with stars in their eyes and huge development plans.

But they didn't account for the brutal winters there—10,000 feet above sea level, in frigid temperatures.



And they didn't find much ore to extract, either.



So while they'd dug 400-foot shafts by hand at two different mine sites, they abandoned the whole thing in the early 1950s (which coincides with when the Navy set up nearby to conduct high altitude field tests of the heat sensors of infrared-seeking missiles).



They quite simply flew the coop...



...and started prospecting elsewhere.

Fortunately, the site has been turned into public land and preserved, although it hasn't been stabilized.

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Photo Essay: Manzanar, The Wartime Japanese Prison Village

There's an issue that plagued me as a child, that I haven't quite shaken off.

I was constantly blamed for things I didn't do.

I don't really know why. In my immediate family, I was villainized—even demonized. (Literally. They called me "the devil child.")

My parents and sister considered me not only naughty, but bad—and born bad. Bad to the core.

So, they thought, I must've done all the things that went wrong in the house.

It was like I was their own little poltergeist. And they were constantly trying to exorcise me from the family.

Eventually, it worked.

Growing up under a constantly suspicious pallor made me relate to the wrongfully accused and wrongfully convicted.

And that may be why I found my visit to the Manzanar site so disturbing.


Photo: Scene of barrack homes at Manzanar by Dorothea Lange, Public Domain

Manzanar, and other "war relocation camps" of its ilk in the World War II era, isn't something we learned about in history class in Upstate New York. I had no idea about the anti-Japanese sentiment that prevailed on our shores after the bombing of Pearl Harbor—that is, until I moved to California.



And after over five years of living here, it was time to finally make my pilgrimage to Manzanar, where over ten thousand people with Japanese ancestry of any degree were interned.



They were not "evacuated." And if there's any question as to whether or not they were, in fact, incarcerated here, just look at that tower that once housed armed guards (now a rebuilt replica standing in place of the original). You can't miss it—no matter where you are in Manzanar.



Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans alike were given little notice to pack up their families and whatever they could carry and move several hours north of Los Angeles, to the middle of the desert, until it was deemed "safe" for them to return (presumably, after the war was over).



When they entered the site, they were greeted by military police...

...specifically, a sentry who guarded the camp to control who came in, and make sure nobody got out.



Sure, it had all the makings of a real town, like its own fire station...



...but these so-called "evacuees" left their homes and businesses behind to come live in military-grade barracks, surrounded by barbed wire.



The restored former auditorium is one of the few original buildings still standing—once used for public assemblies like high school graduation, memorial services, and dances, and now serving as the historic site's visitors' center.



But perhaps the most recognizable part of the Manzanar site is the cemetery, though only six people are actually still buried there. (The rest were removed at their loved ones' request, at some point or another after the war ended.)



The obelisk at the center has an inscription that loosely translates to mean "Soul Consoling Tower."



People visit and leave trinkets, toys, and other mementos—perhaps to console themselves, and perhaps to console the souls that were lost.



Manzanar wasn't a concentration camp linked to a genocide the way that, say, Auschwitz was—but people did die there, and people were buried here.



Garlands of paper cranes have been left as offerings...



....both on the cemetery boundary fenceposts...



...and on individual graves.



There's even a pet cemetery. There's no evidence as to whether or not the animals were of Japanese ancestry, too.



But mostly, Manzanar is a ghost town.



If you walk through or take the "auto tour," you've got to imagine what life must've been like there, in this place where its inhabitants had to make the best of it—because there was no other choice.



There's the historic orchard...



...the ponds and the Japanese gardens and playgrounds...



...the nurses' and doctors' quarters...



...and the hospital wards.



You can see where the incarcerates once ate, slept, prayed, went to school, and played baseball...



....where they crocheted camouflage nets for the war effort...



...and where they were reminded that they couldn't leave until the war effort was over.

Manzanar wasn't the only site of its kind during World War II—it was actually the sixth of 10 total such internment camps throughout the United States, though you rarely hear about them.

Although the war ended in August of 1945 and Manzanar closed just three months later, Japanese "aliens" weren't allowed to become naturalized citizens of the U.S. until 1952.

Twenty years later, Manzanar was designated a National Historic Landmark; and twenty years after that, it was established as a National Historic Site (only one of two in the nation).

In fact, it wasn't really until the 1970s that anyone even acknowledged that Manzanar happened—or the effect it had on the people who were sent there.

In 1988, the U.S. government finally apologized to 82,000 former internees.

Is it possible that some of them might have actually been scheming against the U.S. on our own soil, on behalf of their ancestral motherland? Maybe.

But they weren't imprisoned based on suspicious activity or having pledged allegiance to the enemy of the time. The powers-that-be designated them a threat without provocation. They were suspected of villainy and demonized.

There's too much to say about Manzanar in just one post, but at least it's a start. If you're interested in learning (and seeing) more, there are tons of historic photos available online here.

Or just go visit in person. Photographs just can't do it justice.

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Don't Blame It On Me