Not Just Any Skyscraper

Nice photo, right? As seen in Sunday's Los Angeles Times. All fine and dandy, until you read the cutline:



"A skyscraper peeks through the fog layer enshrouding downtown Los Angeles on Saturday morning as viewed from the 134 freeway in Glendale."

"A skyscraper"?! Uh, guys, that's "THE skyscraper." As in the defining presence in Los Angeles' skyline, the U.S. Bank Tower (formerly known as the Library Tower).

Can you imagine if a New York paper ran a pic of the Empire State Building, and in the cutline said, "A building..."? No! That would be odd.

How about a picture of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa walking down the street, but with a cutline that said, "A man walks down the street." That would be odd too -- why not just say it's the mayor?

And that's the same thing here. It's the tallest building west of the Mississippi. It's the well-known tower seen in countless movies.

** But perhaps I do know why. And it's been a subject I've brought up from time to time through the years. The U.S. Bank Tower may be the tallest building west of the Mississippi, and the defining feature of our skyline, but no one knows what it's called.

It doesn't help that the building has been renamed several times over its 17-year existence.

I ranted about this at length in 2003; read it here.