A City Hall Story

There are some things one just cannot explain. For me, I have never been able to understand or explain my constant fascination with the city of Los Angeles in general and Hollywood specifically. If I believed in reincarnation, I could easily write it off as a place where I lived and worked in a previous life; but, seeing how I don't believe in reincarnation, that won't work.

Whatever the reason, I am totally engrossed by all things historic Los Angeles. So much so, that my spouse and I spent the better part of this past week there. I have visited LA dozens of times, but never stopped to visit downtown LA, so this vacation, that was our destination.

We spent two days in downtown LA walking and seeing and photographing all the cool old buildings (e.g. the Eastern Columbia building), staying in a cool old-ish hotel (The Bonaventure) and marveling at how neat a city is LA.

One specific part of my fascination with LA is the iconic city hall. You don't have to have ever been in California to recognize this structure because it has appeared in probably thousands of movies and television episodes. It is the epitome of historic LA.

As part of our marathon downtown tour, on Monday we walked up to this gorgeous building and took some photographs. A very nice man came up and told us we could actually go inside the building and go right to the top to take photographs. What? The thought never occurred to us that we might actually be able to go inside -- let alone to the top -- what with all the security restrictions in place around famous buildings. So, we did just what this man suggested -- right to the top of the coolest building in LA. It was a highlight in a trip filled with highlights.

One thing that strikes me about downtown LA is how much it has changed in less than 100 years. Much of the area that is now tall buildings was once called Bunker Hill -- home to mansions and more humble residences that were cleared away starting in the mid 1950s.

For nearly 40 years, the Los Angeles City Hall was the tallest structure in downtown. Now, it is dwarfed by the massive skyscrapers nearby.

I thought you would find it as interesting as I did to see how downtown has changed through the years, so I assembled some photographs (click to enlarge):

The top photo, looking roughly north, is the city hall in 1930 (it was built in 1928).

The next photo shows roughly the same view and is probably from the 1970s. (I have placed the letter "A" on both photos to help you orient.)

The third photo, looking roughly south, shows the city hall and the downtown area probably in the 1980s. (The open space just right and up from center is now the site of the Disney Symphony Hall. To the right of that is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.)

The last photo is one we took on Monday of this week from atop the city hall. It shows just how much downtown has changed in about 30 years. (The Bonaventure is just behind and left of the building marked "B.")

You can learn more about the cool city hall building here.