Showing results by author "John McCall" in All Categories

That there ever was a 1951 Frazer was a materialization brought on by an interesting set of circumstances having little to do with traditional automotive product planning. One glance at the photographs in this book tells the story. Due to Henry J. Kaiser's "never retrenching" policy borne out in 1949-50 against Joseph W. Frazer's warnings, the fledgling company of Kaiser-Frazer had over-produced and over-produced big. Willow-Run's body bank was knee-deep in "cars-in-the-white" by 1950. There were no standing orders for few if any of them. K-F had already used its sleight-of-hand to re-...

A historical novel based on the real infiltration of German saboteurs to the U.S. in the summer of 1942. The novel is focused on Werner Thiel, a real-life participant in the German Abewher II and its plan to disable the major arteries or industry and transportation in the United States.

The Atlanta Paramount Theatre, which opened as the Howard in 1920, was perhaps the finest example of Palladian architecture ever adapted as a motion picture theatre. Originally conceived by Troup Howard and designed primarily by architect Philip Trammell Shutze, the theatre was raised in 1960. But its facade lives on in a gracious Palazzo-styled residence in Moultrie, Georgia. This is the story through written accounts and photographs of this theatre's unique journey and the vision of Robert Byrd Wright, Jr., owner, and architect William Frank McCall, Jr. who brilliantly adapted hundreds of...

In the depths of the Great Depression a group of soaring skyscrapers took shape in New York City. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. financed a project comprised of office buildings, plazas, and theatres on a scale never imagined for any metropolis. And to complete the dream he lured Samuel Lionel Rothafel--"Roxy"--to work his magic on two magnificent theatres: the cavernous Radio City Music Hall and a smaller, now-demolished sister theatre, the R-K-O Roxy. Both of these modern entertainment houses were equipped with pipe organs--resources that Roxy required to create his special and well-known brand...

When the Radio City Theatres complex was conceived by New York's Associated Architects in the 1930's, the RKO Roxy Theatre was an important part of the scheme. Later renamed the Center Theatre due to a lawsuit over the use of the name "Roxy" by the owners of S.L. Rothafel's original "cathedral," the brilliantly designed building is the only major portion of Rockefeller Center to ever be destroyed. It fell to the wreckers in 1954 in a time when a full appreciation for its deco and moderne style had not come to fruition. It is a regrettable part of man's destructiveness in the name of ...

Packard's last automotive statement from Detroit (the 1955-56 models) is a legacy worth recalling. Accounts of these iconic cars--overseen by Packard President's hard-driving James J. Nance--exists in hundreds of pages, but heretofore, never in the form of a book solely devoted to their now-iconic status in the lore of automotive history. The author, owner of __ Packards and Clippers (in addition to other model years) has designed this book around his own experiences with the marque...supported by a wealth of personal, shared and factory photographs. Here is a memory book accentuated with ...

The era of the great trans-Atlantic liners has come and gone. Most of these grand ships--proudly turning away from the reality of jet travel--kept on churning in the Atlantic for much longer than economics should have allowed. The French were particularly fond of theirs, and one, the Ile de France found the reprieve as a floating set for the reality of Andrew and Virginia Stone's docu-thriller, The Last Voyage in 1960. Author John McCall offers up a novel--based on careful research--of the ship's tragic end, from M-G-M's cameras documenting explosions and flooding of her art moderne ...