The Automobile Club of Southern California building on Figueroa St. south of downtown Los Angeles is a marvelous example highly photogenic architecture, and has often been captured on film over the years. But it’s rare to see a shot taken directly overhead, as this one was sometime in the 1930s. What’s even more interesting is that on its roof is painted the names, distance, and direction of four local airfields: Vail Airfield in Montebello, Griffith Park Aerodrome (which was the California National Guard’s airfield), Clover Field, which later became Santa Monica Airport, and Mines Field, which later became LA International Airport.

This is how the building looks from the air these days (2022.)

This is the building as seen from the street in May 2022.