Press

Staying Hip to the Past: Many Pre-1930 Buildings Dot
Fullerton, but Merchants Keep Atmosphere Current

By: Dennis Arp
Special To The Times

Turning back time is as easy as turning a corner in downtown Fullerton, where more than a dozen buildings predate 1930 and where venerable businesses anchor just about every block.

But more than tradition and traffic flow along downtown arteries. New blood has fostered new shopping, dining and entertainment options, making it impossible to dismiss the area as yesterday's news.

Pam and Mike Atta all but dare you to pass their Commonwealth Avenue store without stopping to ogle. Picture windows display slick furniture and slender lamps in every color of the '60s rainbow.

For many a baby boomer, one look triggers an orange, avocado and turquoise flashback to the styles of childhood.

The Attas opened Out of Vogue (109 E. Commonwealth Ave., 1/8714 3/8 879-6647) less than two years ago to tap their interest in the trappings of the '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s.

They describe it as a vintage department store, home to everything from clothes to housewares, wall hangings to guitars, all aimed at the retro-minded shopper who prefers originals to reproductions. Most everything they offer is modern or contemporary in style.

"A lot of these designs are hot in stores like Ikea, but instead of particleboard, you get real wood," Mike Atta said.

A hot seller this season: silver aluminum Christmas trees. The Attas started with five, but two weeks before Christmas, only one remained. A 7-footer sold for $250.

Other popular items include barware, fondue sets and "any kind of bowling stuff," Pam Atta said.

Near the center of the store, a chrome dinette set with four yellow vinyl chairs ($375) glistens like new. A 1940 Heywood-Wakefield birch desk ($1,500) draws stares near the front window, while against the back wall rests a black 1968 Schwinn Sting-Ray bike ($650), complete with banana seat and spring shock absorbers. The only things missing are the baseball cards for the spokes.

The Attas say the store attracts shoppers from as far away as Europe and Japan, some of whom are on rail tours and plan stopovers so they can walk to the store from the nearby station.

"It's fun to just talk to people who love this stuff as much as we do," Pam Atta said. "It's definitely a social thing as much as a business."

GETTING THERE: From the westbound Riverside Freeway, take Lemon Street north for two miles and turn left on Commonwealth Avenue to Harbor Boulevard. From the eastbound Riverside Freeway, take Euclid Street north to downtown. From the Orange Freeway, take the Chapman/Nutwood exit and go west on Chapman Avenue to Harbor.