Los Angeles City Hall

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message.
This article has been tagged since September 2006.

Los Angeles City Hall is the center of government in the city of Los Angeles, California. It is located in the Civic Center district of Downtown Los Angeles in the city block bordered by Main, Temple, 1st, and Spring Streets.

1 History
2 Trivia
3 Popular culture
4 References
5 External link

[edit] History

The building was designed by John Parkinson, John C. Austin, and Albert C. Martin, and was completed in 1928. It has 32 floors and stands at 454 feet high. Due in part to seismic concerns, prior to the late 1950s the City of Los Angeles did not permit any portion of any building other than a purely decorative tower to be more than 150 feet high. Therefore, from its completion in 1928 until 1964, the City Hall was the tallest building in Los Angeles, and shared the skyline with only a few structures having decorative towers, including the Richfield Tower and the Eastern Columbia Building. The city hall's distinctive top portion was based on the Mausoleum of Maussollos.

[edit] Trivia

Tallest base-isolated structure in the world.^[1]
The concrete in its tower was made with sand from each of California's 58 counties and water from its 21 historical missions.^[2]
An observation level is open to the public on the 27th floor.
The Mayor of Los Angeles has an office in room 300 of this building.
Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Fridays at 10:00am the Los Angeles City Council meets here.
City Hall and the adjacent federal, state, and county buildings are served by the Civic Center station on the Metro Red Line.
An image of City Hall has been on Los Angeles Police Department badges since 1940.^[3]

[edit] Popular culture

The striking work of architecture has been used in popular media, for example:

In April 2006, the popular rock band AFI shot music video for their song "Miss Murder" there. They won the MTV VMA Best Rock Nomination in August of the same year.
As the Daily Planet building beginning in the second season of the 1950s TV series, Adventures of Superman. Various stock shots were used, some showing the Hollywood Freeway (U.S. Route 101) with many 1950s cars tooling along.
As itself in the TV series Dragnet.The first episode of Dragnet (1951)Season 1, Episode 1: "The Human Bomb", Original Air Date: 16 December 1951 was filmed at Los Angeles City Hall. L.A. City Hall always appeared in the series one way or another, as it was embossed on Sgt. Joe Friday's famous badge number 714 that was displayed under the credits.
The 2003 Dragnet remake used through-out its introduction, the L.A. City Hall building ariel shot and on the badge.
On the popular television series Alias, the CIA black ops unit Authorized Personnel Only is located behind a maintenance door at Civic Station.
In the Japanese manga series Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, The building serves as the headquarters for one of the main occupation armies of the antagonist Principality of Zeon, under Garma Zabi.
The City Hall was destroyed in the 1953 film version of War of the Worlds (although the H.G. Wells book has the aliens attacking London, the setting was changed to Los Angeles for the film).

The distinctive silhouette of City Hall, at sunrise	City Hall from Skid Row	L.A. City Hall as Daily Planet Bldg.	L A City Hall dissolving into George Reeves "flying"
L.A. City Hall on Dragnet badge	As seen from San Pedro and 2nd St	As seen from ground floor	Ground Floor view