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Good rant by Michael Schneider at Franklin Avenue on the renaming of L.A.'s tallest skyscraper. He wonders if many people even knew its old name -- and wonders what that says about Los Angeles.
The original First Interstate Tower he refers to (yes, there were two) is the highrise with the AON sign on its forehead, known at street level as the 707 Wilshire. It was the tallest building in L.A. in 1988 when a night fire broke out on the 12th floor and raged upward through the tower while the city watched on live TV. Amazingly, the 62-story tower was built with no sprinklers. The fire chief later admitted he feared the whole thing was a goner -- an unthinkable disaster before 9-11. Firefighters humped up from the street and down from the roof to contain the structural damage to five floors. A maintenance man felled in a freight elevator was the only death.
When the tower reopened many months later, it had sprinklers.