The LA_City_Hall should have been at least 500' tall, but it's only 454'. That still makes the Los_Angeles_City_Hall one of the taller ones around the planet, but it's become a stump of a building in downtown L.A.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_City_Hall#History "...was completed in 1928. 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building and assured that no building would surpass one third its height for over three decades until the ordinance was repealed by voter referendum in 1957.[9] Therefore, from its completion in 1928 until finally surpassed by the topping off of Union Bank Plaza in 1966, City Hall was the tallest building in Los Angeles..."
https://laist.com/news/entertainment/city-hall-tall Not 451 feet, but 454 feet, because there was no F 451 novel yet. The 454' LA City Hall was like an unofficial F-you to the taller buildings in NYC and Chicago. Perhaps even Metropolis_(1927_film). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(1927_film)#Influences
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick PKD was born in 1928, the same year that the LA City Hall opened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 "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#Title
If you look hard enough you can see how small the LA City Hall actually is now in the 21st century.
https://laist.com/news/entertainment/city-hall-tall From 2016.
The agenda to not permit any building in LA to be taller than City Hall was the case for several decades. Even Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane & Perth weren't allowed to have buildings taller than the LA_City_Hall for a long time. Of course it took until the early 1970s for Vancouver to allow a building to be a little taller than the LA_City_Hall.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Los_Angeles_with_Mount_Baldy.jpgCity Hall is really like a stump on the modern LA skyline. It can easily be obscured by the taller towers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Los_Angeles#Tallest_buildings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Bank_Plaza Completed in 1968.
| Roof | 157.28 m (516.0 ft) |
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| Floor count | 40 |
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| Floor area | 68,525 m2 (737,600 sq ft) |
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Bank_Plaza#History Not only the first building permitted in LA to be over 500 feet, but having at least a 40th floor.
Just as LA got its first 40 story building in 1968, PKD had a book out in the same year. Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep?#Plot
https://medium.com/@ejasp2/metropolis-v-s-blade-runner-1982-871baea0eea0
https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Comparison-between-Metropolis-and-Blade-Runner-P3JDKCLEC8BRS#
While Philip_K._Dick set E. Sheep in SF, Blade_Runner was set in LA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner#Production
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=LA+City+Hall
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=stumps
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