L.A.'s new million-dollar gas station

Greg Goldin in the LA Weekly considers the new Moorish-palace Exxon station at Beverly and Fairfax, which opened last weekend. The design alone -- incorporating century-old French roof tiles, a glass tower and a waterfall -- cost a million bucks. It's an old idea revisited. Goldin doesn't go into it, but gas stations on major boulevards like Wilshire used to be architecturally conscious. The Cal-Pet, which opened in the 1920s in the same neighborhood as Bullock's Wilshire, had an Egyptian theme with a stylish waiting room and female attendants.