Los Angeles City Hall, the city's fourth city hall building, became one of its most recognizable landmarks and a prominent presence in both civic life and popular culture. For decades its 27 stories made it, by law, the tallest building permitted in Los Angeles, and in that role it appeared in hundreds of films and television programs, serving as settings as varied as the Daily Planet, Congress, the Vatican, and the city hall of Chinatown, while in real life it hosted kings, queens, presidents, generals, public celebrations, and scenes of hardship. After Los Angeles incorporated in 1850 with 1,160 residents, 28 square miles, and no public building, city government first operated from a hotel, then from a leased adobe house, later from a brick building on Second Street, and then from a red sandstone city hall on Broadway that served until the late 1920s. The present building, designed by John Parkinson, John Austin, and Albert C. Martin, opened in April 1928 at a cost of $5 million, using sand from every California county and water from wells at each of the state's 21 missions to symbolize Los Angeles' central role in the state. It was the tallest building in Southern California until the city's height limit was repealed in 1958, and it was engineered with compressible joints at each floor to better withstand earthquakes. City Hall also stood at the center of the city's political history, from the 1865 suicide of former mayor Damien Marchessault in an earlier city building after a scandal over faulty wooden water pipes, to the graft and corruption associated with later administrations, especially the Depression-era regime of Mayor Frank L Shaw, whose system of bribery, patronage, and violence ended when newly elected officials marked the building in 1938 as being under new management. Before World War II, the Lindbergh Beacon atop the tower guided pilots and flashed L.A. in Morse code until wartime fears led to its shutdown, and over time the rotunda became a rare place of honor for figures including Mary Emily Foy, William Mulholland, William Parker, Joseph Scott, and Tom Bradley. As the landmark neared its diamond jubilee, Los Angeles began a $300 million restoration and retrofit to preserve its interior and its long-standing place on the skyline.
