SIDE STROLL LIBRARY TOWER

This soaring 1017-foot structure crowns downtown and is the tallest office building west of the Mississippi, designed by architect Henry Cobb at Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. The Tower gives the illusion of a modern- clad classic Roman column. In 1996 this tower was attacked and blown up by an alien spaceship in the blockbuster hit Independence Day. Fortunately, it was only a movie so you can still enter the glass tower.

Hinting at a style of the past but also very much in the spirit of the present, the Library Tower has murals titled "Unity", 1991-1992, by Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid and are an interpretation of three Renaissance angels painted in a chapel called "Porciúncula" that inspired a roaming Father Juan Crespi to christen the Los Angeles river in 1769 "el Rio de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula." A dozen years later, the river lent its name to a pueblo settlement, and that settlement grew to become Los Angeles.

The Library Tower, 633 West Fifth Street
Lobby open 24 hours

Walk a few steps east on Fifth to see a building with a spectacular lobby from the 1930's...