I love all those 'then and now' pics, and I like some skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles. So, let's play to the 'then and now' game with some particular pictures that were taken from the Water Courtyard of the DPW Building, located at 111 N. Hope Street. The next following photos maintain almost the same angle, so it's pretty much the same view
1.Redevelopment years.
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Just a question came to my mind when I first saw that pic: Did I miss something? And I didn't mean a few skyscrapers yet to built, neither a lost neighborhood. I was just that it looked to me an unrecognizable place...
Is there still someone out there who still remember when all Downtown skyscrapers were only the Union Plaza or the Bunker Hill (ugly) Towers as seen in the picture?
2. Plaza, plaza, plaza, and so on and on...
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And in less of 15 years (from 1970 to 1985) we get this... Awesome? Ugly? They call it progress and redevelopment. The skyscraper seen in the middle, the former SPB tower, is pershaps the most controversial, due the fact that the tower stands diagonally in relation to the surrounding streets grid. Weird?
3. High-rise fever
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The Library Tower still in construction in this 1988 picture, gives you the idea that the 'high-rise' fever won't stop... In S. Figueroa St, not seen in the picture, they're busy feeling that fever on that period (Figueroa at Wilshire, 777 Tower, etc) But on Grand, to the left of the image, I miss my all time favourite tower of L.A. soon to be built! Guess what is it?
4-Present time (2012)
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Beautiful panorama of DTLA. There're some new approved projects that will soon change that skyline. Ironically we have gone from the darkness (first pic) to the light (last pic)... It's not quite a noirish excercise but it's the same city.
Source:
1,2 pics from LALP (
http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/F...Number=4795835 and
http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/F...Number=4795834)
3,4 from L.A. Incredible photos of the city (
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showth...21270&page=182)