Man, to this day I still love One American Center. That building was instrumental in nurturing my fascination with tall buildings very early on. It's not exactly the most ornate or architecturally significant, though, it was Austin's first 400 footer, but it just felt like such an 80s building and was the one I remember knowing was special somehow, and that was many many years before we even had a confirmed height for it after I was able to see the original building elevations a few years back. Prior to that, we had always heard it was 395 feet. That was the height that was listed everywhere, including the World Almanac that I pored over as a kid. The true height is 401 feet. I still remember in the late 80s and very early 90s us going downtown and me craning my neck through the sunroof of my mom and dad's '77 Cadillac Coupe DeVille to see the buildings rising above, especially at Christmas time, back when they actually decorated Congress Avenue for Christmas (man, I miss those days). That one, the Capitol, and 100 Congress were always the ones I'd be looking for. We usually ended up at the Capitol whenever we were downtown, but I would always end up gawking at the One American Center.
By the way, Mopacs, you beat me to it.
That was the video I was coming here to post.
By the way, those three cranes to the north of the One American Center were working on the Omni Hotel. I don't remember it too much as I wasn't quite old enough then to notice, but that must have been a unique project to watch with the huge atrium in the middle of the two uses - hotel and office floors. Austin had a lot of cranes flying around even back then.
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