I love driving through the industrial areas. On a Saturday in 2011, while everybody was probably at the beach, I was following a railroad track up San Fernando Road in L.A.

I came to a very unusual streamlined entrance. Inside was the newly opened International College of Beauty Arts & Sciences. No one knew who the former tenants were or what what the AE or AFE or AFL on the door stood for.

So what was this place before it became a beauty academy? Recently, I spotted an auction for some 1940s aviation magazines and there it was, the Aero Industries Technical Institute.