Local News in Brief : McDonald’s Arch Can Stay
The Downey Planning Commission agreed Wednesday night to save a 60-foot-tall arch that is part of the oldest McDonald’s hamburger stand in the world.
The arch was in violation of a sign ordinance that the city adopted several years after the restaurant was built in 1953 at Lakewood Boulevard and Florence Avenue.
The commission voiced unanimous approval for the drafting of a variance that would allow McDonald’s to keep its sign and a neighboring Pep Boys store to erect a 40-foot sign that would also be at odds with the city’s sign law.
The restaurant’s architecture was praised as a landmark by 11 speakers, including architectural historian Alan Hess and representatives of the Downey Historical Society, who compared it to everything from a time capsule to the Eiffel Tower and the Great Pyramid.
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