The Transamerica_Pyramid was permitted to be about 400 feet taller than the LA+City+Hall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transamerica_Pyramid#Gallery
The very narrow pyramid in SF is almost twice the height of the tallest pyramid in Egypt. Will LA ever be allowed to have a pyramid tower as tall or taller than the one in SF?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2ljqamDgwg
Back in the day, the KEEP L.A. SHORT crowd really wanted to make sure that no building in SoCal was as tall as the tallest Egyptian_pyramid. Thus, the Giza_pyramid_complex was taller than anything in LA until the late 1960s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza "Initially standing at 146.6 meters (481 feet), the Great Pyramid was the world's tallest human-made structure for more than 3,800 years."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_City_Hall#History "It has 32 floors and, at 454 feet (138 m) high..." https://calisphere.org/item/cf1903e53170db536690f3f8690925a0 Just a little pyramid on top of a building that is shorter than the tallest pyramid in Egypt.
.jpg/960px-Los_Angeles_City_Hall_(from_the_West).jpg)
.tif/lossy-page1-800px-Pyramids_from_afar_(2).tif.jpg)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giza
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/vintage-photos-los-angeles-1940s-1960s
Of course LA would eventually allow some buildings to be twice as tall as the tallest Egyptian pyramid.
https://www.commercialcafe.com/blog/evolution-downtown-la-visual-timeline/
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=26&status=15
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=LA+City+Hall
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=The+Transamerica+Pyramid+in+SF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7CxiqNnm80
While LA has a subway, it's not that extensive. Of course several other cities have more lines.
What the future has in store for Sydney's Metro! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZlV329Ba8g
Inside the $60 Billion Metro Transforming Sydney https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe3y7Rlhk9c&t=2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CipNVHhOER8
Why is the Purple Line in L.A. so Short? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4F0hB2nEcE
Why fixing LA’s transit crisis feels impossible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIlLC0KNCYc
Why Traffic Is So Bad In Los Angeles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S76lKWeU_xc
Why LA Destroyed Its World-Class Transit System https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwKv3_WwD4o There was such a drive to have nice, wide highways, but no one seemed to realize that eventually just having an extensive highway system will become overloaded.
Why is LA traffic so bad? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbiI9ainetY
The real cost of freeways in LA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS6WrJZKbjs Wide highways can certainly accommodate a large volume of traffic, but if there isn't an efficient bus and rail system, it all gets overloaded.
Did GM really kill the streetcar in Los Angeles? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnFVBfhpprU
LA's $40 Billion Plan to Transform for the 2028 Olympics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkKsiIaycU8
https://vancouversun.com/news/quadreal-sells-the-post-heritage-building-vancouver This stump building+complex doesn't even have 26 floors. It's not much taller than this 22 story stump in LA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_National_Plaza This was the first office complex to rise over 50 floors in LA.
https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=2301 52 stories opened in 1972.
https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/building/city-national-tower/1395
LA and then Calgary were able to have a double tower complex of over 50 floors, but Vancouver just has a double stump thats not even 25 floors.
https://www.brookfieldproperties.com/en/our-properties/bankers-hall-west-175 47 stories
https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=6993 1989
https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=7073 2000
52 floors in total.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bankers_Hall_Towers_%281%29_%288068206826%29.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TsUH1tmmBM , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAX/Metro_Transit_Center
https://www.flylax.com , https://www.flylax.com/lax-traffic-and-ground-transportation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAX_Consolidated_Rent-A-Car_Facility
Although not as grand as a 10 car BART train, at least LA never opted to have a 2 car joke of an airport train like YVR has.
Evolution of the Los Angeles Metro 1900-2028 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH9toJw6-k8
It's so depressing to see the Greater LA Area get Seattle & Vancouver like rain.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/weather/california-rain-flood-storm-los-angeles-forecast.html
the Greater LA Area
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9dfPOpdNxI
LAX Finally Has A Train Station! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft7eS_EAFzk
The LA Regional Connector https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu0wIc_3IfE
Why the LA Metro (Mostly) isn't a Metro Train or a Subway System https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukG5whsjTIs
Metro Los Angeles G and J Lines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0wc0UQ-SOg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-9O8UYX3FQ
The Amazing Transit Comeback of Los Angeles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd0Zm7T1npE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2eam0Zhdac
The Abandoned - Oceanwide Plaza (Los Angeles’ Graffiti Towers) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=840EVoHAyvE
The only thing worse than Seattle rain in L.A. is Vancouver rain in L.A.
https://abc7.com/post/la-city-hall-crash-car-slams-steps/17933164/
Sometimes a person just might be having a bad day, but other times a person might want to take over a building.
https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/downtown-la-city-hall-crash
If its determined after due process, that this person had malicious intent, they will be facing sever punishment.
L.A. City Hall evacuated after vehicle crashes near steps; driver in custody after standoff https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-10-03/vehicle-crashes-into-steps-of-l-a-city-hall-prompting-closure-of-surrounding-streets
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 Two decades before Ray_Bradbury would start writing what would eventually lead to his F 451 novel, LA was sort of close to imposing a 451 foot height limit. However, the LA City Hall would end up being slightly taller than 451 feet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_City_Hall "Dedication ceremonies were held on April 26, 1928. It has 32 floors and, at 454 feet (138 m) high..."
"A City Council ordinance passed in 1905 did not permit any new construction to be taller than 13 stories or 150 ft (46 m) in order to keep the city's architecture harmonious. City Hall's 454 ft (138 m) height was deemed exempt as a public building and assured that no building would surpass one third its height for over three decades until the ordinance was repealed by voter referendum in 1957." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_City_Hall#History
https://laist.com/news/entertainment/city-hall-tall 454' not 451 feet, but close nonetheless. LA didn't have to wait until 1953, because it was pondering a 450'-455 foot height restriction in the mid to late 1920s. Of course NYC and Chicago already had tall buildings in the 1920s, so perhaps LA wanted to symbolize an F-U to them by keeping buildings under 500 feet until the mid to late 1960s.
"The writing and theme within Fahrenheit 451 was explored by Bradbury in some of his previous short stories. Between 1947 and 1948, Bradbury wrote "Bright Phoenix", a short story about a librarian who confronts a "Chief Censor", who burns books. An encounter Bradbury had in 1949 with the police inspired him to write the short story "The Pedestrian" in 1951. In "The Pedestrian", a man going for a nighttime walk in his neighborhood is harassed and detained by the police. In the society of "The Pedestrian", citizens are expected to watch television as a leisurely activity, a detail that would be included in Fahrenheit 451. Elements of both "Bright Phoenix" and "The Pedestrian" would be combined into The Fireman, a novella published in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1951. Bradbury was urged by Stanley Kauffmann, an editor at Ballantine Books, to make The Fireman into a full novel. Bradbury finished the manuscript for Fahrenheit 451 in 1953, and the novel was published later that year." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451#Writing_and_development
F 451 was published in 1953, on 10-19.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13079982-fahrenheit-451
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451#Historical_and_biographical_context
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/451/summary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451#Writing_and_development
Did Metropolis_(1927_film) help to restrict the height of tall buildings in LA for several decades?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(1927_film)#Influences
Whether the LA City Hall is 454', 453' or 452 feet, it's not exactly 451 feet, but still close enough.
https://www.latimes.com/visuals/photography/la-me-fw-archives-20190403-htmlstory.html "The 32-story, 454-foot-tall Los Angeles City Hall opened with a three-day public celebration April 26-28, 1928. Construction started in 1926."
https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/building/city-hall/4376 138.4 m / 454 ft
https://buildingsdb.com/CA/los-angeles/los-angeles-city-hall "The Los Angeles City Hall reaches an architectural height of 453ft (138m). It has a total of 32 floors, 28 above ground and 4 basements..."
https://www.travelinusa.us/visit-los-angeles-city-hall "At the time of construction, a regulation was in effect in the city that prohibited buildings taller than 150 feet. Los Angeles City Hall was therefore an exception and, at an impressive 32 stories and a height of 452 feet, it remained the tallest building in Los Angeles until 1964 when Union Bank Plaza opened."
https://waterandpower.org/Museum2/Los_Angeles_City_Hall_1928.html
https://www.c40.org/cities/los-angeles
By the 1970s, LA, SF, Sydney, Melbourne, Tokyo, Toronto, Montreal and Paris, all had some buildings over 600 feet or even over 200 m.
https://www.c40.org/cities/vancouver
Unfortunately by the 1970s, stubborn and backwards Vancouver wanted to go in the opposite direction of most cities. Thus, a kind of censoring agenda was implemented. SF and Sydney and even Seattle, proved that a scenic city by the water can have taller buildings, wider bridges and longer trains than what little Vancouver would allow.
While there isn't any direct correlation with the F 451 story and Vancouver, BC imposing a height limit, there is something peculiar. Some people might consider that if a building is around 500 feet in height, or at least 150 m, that's in the category of starting to be a tall building.
Well, Vancouver, always looking for ways to symbolically project a watered down or scaled back city, height restrictions were at the top of the list.
Somewhere in-between the 1950s & 60s, Vancouver started to refine its height restriction mandate. Thus, as several cities in the 1970s started to allow for taller buildings, Vancouver has never allowed any office tower to have 40 floors. Perhaps an imposed 451 foot height limit would have been too obvious, so Vancouver generally had an imposed height restriction of 450 feet, with some occasional variations.
Right through the 1960s only one building in Vancouver, or anywhere in BC had a 30th floor.
The first residential building to have at least 40 floors. https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=921 1973 https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=110144876&page=3
The first residential building to have more than 45 floors. https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=3 2001 https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=110144876&page=6
It wouldn't be until the early 21st century before Vancouver would permit 2 buildings to rise above 600 feet. https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=110144876&page=8 , https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=110144876&page=9
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?countryID=1 Vancouver has no building that makes it onto the first page. Burnaby just barely makes it.
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=110144876&page=10 However, Vancouver has another chance to actually have some taller buildings. https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?countryID=1&status=15 Over the decades, various plans have been stopped, due to all the red tape B$ and extreme restrictions.
Vancouver has had quite a history of limiting, restricting, thwarting & censoring proper big city stuff.
The Westin_Bonaventure_Hotel should have been twice the height. It's only a 367-foot (112 m), 33-story hotel, but it should have been at least as tall as the Westin_Peachtree_Plaza_Hotel in Atlanta or the Renaissance_Center in Detroit, or The_Stamford in Singapore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westin_Bonaventure_Hotel#Floors_and_elevators
https://socallandmarks.com/index.php/2022/09/16/bonaventure-hotel/
https://www.sfgate.com/la/article/los-angeles-bonaventure-hotel-history-19511087.php
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-bonaventure-hotel-los-angeles-california
https://movie-locations.com/travel/la/travel-downtown-05.php
http://www.experiencingla.com/2013/02/tour-o-downtown-part-i.html
https://portmanarchitects.com/project/the-westin-bonaventure
| Number of rooms | 1,358 |
|---|---|
| Number of suites | 135 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westin_Bonaventure_Hotel#Floors_and_elevators
It would take LA a long time to have a much taller hotel tower.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Center 73 floors at 727 ft (222 m)
| Number of rooms | 1,246 |
|---|---|
| Number of suites | 52 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Center#History
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westin_Peachtree_Plaza_Hotel
| Number of rooms | 1,068 |
|---|---|
| Number of suites | 40 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westin_Peachtree_Plaza_Hotel#Architectural_details
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swisshtel_The_Stamford 73 floors at 226 metres (741 ft)
| Number of rooms | 1,252 |
|---|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swisshotel_The_Stamford#History
_V2.jpg)
SF is just as scenic as Sydney. They allow taller buildings, longer trains and wider bridges than backwater Vancouver. Unfortunatly, backwards Vancouver keeps going in the opposite direction, despite more people wanting to move to SW BC.
The longstanding argument is that since Vancouver is in a scenic setting, every excuse should be used to scale back or water down the urban prescience.
.jpg)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/False_Creek%2C_Vancouver_%282025%29.jpg
Fortunately, this watered down approach hasn't made it to Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, SF, LA and Seattle. Thus, all of them are able to have taller buildings, longer trains and wider bridges. The Vancouver Mind Virus (VMV) or the Backwards Vancouver Mentality (BVM) is an intertwined horrible concept.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Vancouver_Skyline_and_Mountains.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Los_Angeles_with_Mount_Baldy.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_San_Antonio 10,064 ft (3,068 m)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lions_(peaks)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Mountain_(North_Shore_Mountains)
