This was the view of downtown L.A. on January 12^th, 1951 as taken from the top of L.A. City Hall. The city’s skyline was still completely free from the skyscrapers that now dominate it. Of the two most distinctive buildings we can see here, only one of them (the L.A. Times building in the foreground) is still around; the other (the Richfield Oil tower with the tall spire, in the far background) is long—and lamentably—gone.