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Do you remember Big Boy?

With that big dumb grin, controlled cowlick and a belly full of burgers, held aloft by those trademark red-and-white-checkered overalls, I certainly do.

Big Boy looms large in my psyche for another reason: He may be responsible for my lifelong love of California modern, or “Googie” architecture. Growing up in an older, Depression-era neighbourhood at Coxwell and Danforth avenues in the early 1970s, there wasn't much space-age architecture to admire. I suppose the intricately stacked beehive hairdos atop the heads of the lunch-counter ladies at the local Woolworth's came close. But, when I think about it, it was the JB's Big Boy restaurant that sprang up near Shoppers World at Danforth and Victoria Park Avenue that sent me over the moon.

Not only was Shopper's World just about the limit of how far I could walk with my mom, it was also the limit of the known world. Beyond it was a mythical place — Scarborough — where folks had swimming pools in their giant backyards and drove their cars to buy a jug of milk.

In addition to the grinning Big Boy standing in front of the little modernist building at Luttrell Avenue like an emissary from “Googieland” (California), there were a few other futuristic things in the neighbourhood: New Era Furniture with its rocket-ship logo, the A&W Drive-In just east of Victoria Park (how I marvelled at the roller-skating waitresses), and the stores of Shoppers World itself.

Since only about a decade had passed since it opened in 1962, the mall's signage and colour schemes were still very Kennedy-era and therefore slightly Googie. In the middle was an open-concept restaurant, the Garden Court, with an exotic elixir called Tahiti Treat on draught. Recently, I walked the neighbourhood and found that some of those things are still there, sort of. Big Boy's building has seen better days since John Bitove Sr. brought the chain to Canada in 1969 (and sold to Michigan-based Elias Brothers 10 years later), but it still stands, along with the tall, rusting pylon that once supported its distinctive sign. Speaking of which, high up on a building across the street, New Era still promotes itself even though the store is long gone.

Shoppers World continues to operate, although the enclosed portion of the mall is radically different since Zeller's gobbled up most of the space, including where I quaffed glasses of that bright red elixir. The A&W building is still there, but the current establishment doesn't have roller-skating waiters.

When I learned about Googie in my late 20s — the architectural byproduct of California's car culture, unbridled consumerism, space-age optimism and young architects obsessed with futuristic forms of steel, glass and concrete — I realized I had been given a little taste of it via the landmarks of my childhood. Since then, I've kept my eye out for survivors, whether grocery stores (the subject of a fall, 2004, column), apartment building porte cochères (summer of 2006) or even houses (many columns).

Readers have e-mailed their Googie sightings: A Mississauga man pointed me in the direction of the old Canadian Tire gas bar with a concrete wing sheltering the pumps at Southdown and Bromsgrove roads. (There was a similar one on Kennedy Road just north of Lawrence Avenue until a few years ago.) He also mentioned the amazing Satellite Family Restaurant (“since 1958”) a few blocks away at 1969 Lakeshore Road West — a “googiriffic” building if ever there was one, although the posted rezoning notice out front leads me to believe its days may be numbered.

Along Royal York Road north of Eglinton Avenue, I discovered the Royal York Medical Arts building — an amazing round structure designed by Dutch architect/engineer Jan Horatius Albarda (1910 – 1993). He worked with Eb Zeidler in Peterborough in the 1950s but spent most of his life in Elora, making and restoring harpsichords.

With metal screens shielding the windows, the building seems to crave bombardment by Palm Springs sunshine rather than frigid Etobicoke winds. Further up the road, a Dominion store with a “floating” folded-plate roof, and an Imperial Oil gas station with original signage and fieldstone walls are right out of the early 1960s.

Googie buildings can be clues to locating mid-century homes and neighbourhoods. In the case of Mr. Albarda's building, for instance, ducking into adjacent streets such as Renault Crescent and Matane Court and Ridgemount Road reveal many fine examples.

Which reminds me, dear reader: If you own a particularly interesting and/or architect-designed home from the postwar period and would like to be the subject of a column, feel free to drop me a line. And, as always, your Googie findings are encouraged, including any vintage photographs of the long-lost Shopper's World Big Boy (or interiors of Shopper's World itself).

I wish you a Googie New Year.

Dave LeBlanc hosts The Architourist on CFRB Wednesdays during Toronto at Noon and Sunday mornings. Send inquiries to dave.leblanc@globeandmail.com.