Sunday, February 27, 2011

what is this?



we have lived in southern california for three and a half years.  i've often wondered what this downtown building is.

some kind of abstract art?
a water slide?
a loading ramp for when the aliens arrive?

so locals - help me out.  what are we looking at here?

5 comments:

Tash said...

It's the dancing elevator shaft at the new Central LA HS #9 or the Arts HS.
http://www.laschools.org/project-status/one-project?project_number=55.98037
"The new Central Los Angeles High School #9 is located in downtown Los Angeles at the northern end of Grand Avenue on the historic Fort Moore Hill, the prior site for LAUSD headquarters..."
The school buidings are quite interesting looking (from the web site photos, this one looks better at night) and the price tag is even more amazing...$228.5 MILLION.

ben wideman said...

Waaa??? A high school? Wow - so is that curvy thing functional at all? For a city that seems to always lack funding for schools, this had to be somewhat controversial when it was built.

Cafe Observer said...

Thanks for the info.
I wunder how much Staples Center cost 10yrs ago?

ben wideman said...

Wikipedia says $375 Mil for the Staples Center.

I know there is a lot of angry debate happening now because the city says it will help finance an NFL stadium.

Cafe Observer said...

We had very low inflation the past decade. So I assume Staples could still be rebuilt less than $500mil.

"The city says it will help finance an NFL stadium!" That's news to me. I didn't hear that at their 1st press conference 2 weeks ago!