hen it comes to roadside attractions, sleek and modern signage is not what entices Syd Nagoshi, the Los Angeles-based site owner of Roadside Peek. He holds a special place in his heart for the unique signs and buildings of yesteryear, which have been slowly disappearing. Nagoshi, a project manager for a Southern California utility company, decided to document nostalgic roadside attractions after photographing a Los Angeles car dealership sign bearing the neon likeness of a giant Felix the Cat. His reason? The 34-year-old Nagoshi says he simply "felt like documenting this stuff."

During a drive last year on Route 66, the historic Mother Road that linked Chicago to Los Angeles, Nagoshi recalled a family road trip to the Grand Canyon when he was 4 or 5 years old. "I wondered whether the motels that I had slept at as a child were the ones that now appeared decrepit and aged." Nagoshi says he has fond memories of the buildings and signs he remembers and wondered whether they still existed: "When I was a child, these were places that I used to wish we were stopping at every time we'd pass by." He says that now, as an adult, it's neat to see what the buildings that sparked his childhood imagination look like today.

Roadside Attraction
"The most intriguing part of visiting an old site or seeing an old sign is wondering what that place was like in its heyday," Nagoshi says. These ghosts of times long past have a historic significance, according to Nagoshi, unlike today's generic signage and mass-developed buildings, which he finds dull and unimaginative: "Many of the old signs had character and boldly attempted to catch your attention with lettering or eye-catching art work. It's this uniqueness that is missing in much of today's roadside landscape."

His fondness for this uniqueness led Nagoshi to begin photographing old buildings and signs. "As I photographed more and more places, a few distinct styles stood out from the rest, which were the googie, tiki and neon," Nagoshi explains. In case you're not familiar with these styles, Roadside Peek defines these terms with photographs of buildings and signage best exemplifying each style. His current favorites include "any building or sign sporting the Modern — or googie — design of the '50s and '60s."

Racing Against Time
Documenting the roadside attractions of yesteryear is a "race against time," according to Nagoshi. "If you skip over something, the next time it's gone." For example, Anaheim, Calif., known by some for its googie-style signs and architecture, recently replaced the grand old signs around Disneyland with new, generic looking signs, Nagoshi says. Alarmed and saddened by the disappearance of such historic landmarks, Nagoshi decided that a Web site would be the perfect way of displaying his growing photo gallery of roadside attractions and launched Roadside Peek in July 1998. "I enjoy taking pictures and creating things and Web site design brings it all together," he says.

Roadside Peek brings it all together with various sections, organized by type — such as Automobile Alley, Drive-In's and Motels and Wigwams — as well as by style. Also included is a section documenting Nagoshi's more recent journeys along Route 66 from California to New Mexico. "Traveling down the old road brings out a nostalgic feeling for what road trips were once all about," Nagoshi writes on his Web site. For the near future, Nagoshi's aim is to continue to preserve old roadside attractions, at least in digital form, to share that nostalgic feeling with others. "I enjoy documenting the sites that depict our mid-century culture," Nagoshi says.

Reported by Jennifer Braginsky, cars.com

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ROADSIDE PEEK EAST
Find the googie, the tiki and the neon in locations outside of Southern California and all across the United States.

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Visit this guide to the nation's classic roadside diners.