Tail o' the Pup
- Year
- 1946
- Style
- novelty
- City
- Los Angeles, CA
Tail o' the Pup is a hot dog stand shaped like an actual hot dog, designed by Milton J. Black and opened at 311 La Cienega Boulevard in 1946. It's one of the last surviving examples of programmatic architecture in Los Angeles — buildings shaped like the product they sold — and became one of the city's most photographed roadside landmarks. The stand survived a demolition threat in the mid-1980s only because of public outcry, which got it relocated instead of torn down.
the building
A stand on the move. Facing demolition in the mid-1980s, the hot-dog-shaped stand was moved 0.3 miles to 329 North San Vicente Boulevard rather than razed. After Regent Properties bought the site from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the early 2000s to build 152 condominium and apartment units, the Pup closed in 2005 and was trucked to a warehouse in Torrance, where it sat in storage for over a decade.
the style
Tail o' the Pup belongs to programmatic, or "novelty," architecture, the mid-20th-century practice of building a structure in the literal shape of what it sells. Its giant bun-and-frank form made the point without any signage needed, and it survives as one of the last examples of the genre still standing.
the architect
Milton J. Black designed the stand for its 1946 opening on La Cienega Boulevard. No further biographical details are recorded here.
significance
The City of Los Angeles declared Tail o' the Pup a cultural landmark in 2006, the year after it closed and was placed in storage. Ownership passed through Eddie Blake, who bought the business in 1976 and ran it with his son Dennis, to grandson Jay Miller and his wife Nicole in 2017; after a failed partnership with Killer Shrimp, the structure was donated to the Valley Relics Museum before the 1933 Group purchased it in 2018.
nearby
- Beverly Hills Main Post Office
- Schindler House
- Saban Theatre
- Lloyd Wright Home and Studio
- El Greco Apartments
- Beverly Hills City Hall