Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-01-24

lEsAGAA@ Dealers association of
Southern California, yesterday, the
classic motor car show of the Pacific
coast, if, indeed, not of America, was
auspiciously begun.
Certain it is that such designation
may be attached to the show from
the standpoint of decorations and stage
setting, if not from the viewpoint of
number of machines actually displayed.
Nothing more chaste, more elegant,
more brilliant, more beautiful nor more
richly simple has ever been seen IN
this city-a city of scores of elegant
functions, whether in the shape of an
automobile show or some elaborate So
cial event.
OF all show places in the country 1t
is doubtful whether so ideal a place,
possessing such sweeps of level floor
space and susceptible of such exquisite
and artistic decoration could be found
in one unbroken room. The aggregate
floor space of the basement of the
Hamburger building is said by those
who assume to speak with authority
to be considerably greater than that of
famous Madison Square garden itself,
and it is quite certain that the latter
does not present such really advan-
tageous opportunities for competitive
display as does the Hamburger build
ing basement.
place may be CLEANED from the fact
that over ninety immense steel col
umns, fully three feet in diameter
punctuate the floor space of this i'm
menSe room, and yet these columns
make but little impression on the num-
Der of square feet in which the aggre-
gate total is written. These columns
have really served as the base of the
entire arrangement of the exhibiting
manufacturers and dealers, and for the
groundwork upon which to predicate
the decoration schemes as well, MAX
ing possible the complete and very
gratifying elimination of anything that
might remotely suggest the partition or
railing between rival exhibits and leav-
ing the eye to gaze in every direction
through a labyrinth of chaste white
columns, suggestive of that infinity If
eXpanse beyond that attaches to an
immense forest of giant trees.
Thanks to the marvellous possibilities
of the decorators art these immense
columns have been transformed into
classic picture suggestive of some great
baronial hall or corridor of exquisite
sculpturing, made dazzling beautiful
by the enhancement of sculptor work
with thousands of cleo ric light bulbs of
many HUGS and colors.
Ten thousand bulbs is probably an
underestimate of the lights actually
pressed lnIO service III enhancing lue
fairy picture and making the mann
moth display more brilliant than the
midday sun.
For two weeks the electricians-a
small army of them-under the imme-
diate supervision of G. E. Arbogast, SUI
perintendent of F. z. Newbery & Co,
have labored like heroes in running the
wires that carry these thousands of
bulbs along the ceilings, around the
scores of columns and through the hun
dreds of openings left for them by the
StuccO workers, whose decorative de-
signing has served to transform the
bare, barnlike room into the artistic
exposition hall that excited the admira-
ton and the delighted pleasure of the
thousands who visited the show yes
terday and last evening.
The stucco work itself was the handi-
work, both creative and constructive
of the eminent firm of Italian decora-
tors of Lugo & Delmanico, the design
consisting of an endless series of spran-