Buildings that Aren't Buildings

By Eric Richardson
Published: Tuesday, March 14, 2006, at 01:35PM

Parking in Disguise Eric Richardson [Flickr]

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — It's a little disconcerting when what you think is a building actually turns out to be a parking garage. This structure, the AON Center Garage, looks from the street like any of the other buildings around it. On the ground floor are a few retail spaces, and you might well be fooled into thinking there are offices behind the glass on the upper floors. But no, it's all parking.

We were in the conference room at work the other day when Mark noticed a car parked on the roof (which you can see in this Live Local photo). That seemed odd, and seemed even more odd the more I thought about it. As a garage, though, it makes perfect sense.

While I'm not a huge fan of the architectural period the garage is from, this sort of hidden parking is a nice touch.

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Comments

1
Tony writes:

I happen to over look that parking structure. Lot's of filming on the roof too. 1 Wilshire is the best "not an office building" building in DT.

# on Mar.14.2006 AT 03:08 PM
2
green LA girl writes:

Wow -- That's really depressing. As unique as a garage building is, it really makes me sad that we NEED a whole building that's a garage in downtown LA -- Dammit -- Wish there was more I could do to improve public transportation --

# on Mar.14.2006 AT 11:56 PM
3
Franklin Avenue writes:

I feel the same way about some of the cool old buildings that turn out to be DWP pumping stations, or routing stations for SBC/AT&T.

# on Mar.16.2006 AT 10:55 AM
4
Nic Cha Kim writes:

At least it doesn't look like a garage ala future LAPD Motor Pool. I'm all for it as long as the movie production semis have to park in there too.

# on Mar.16.2006 AT 03:54 PM
5
Raul writes:

Well i live and work downtown and Im just tired of the parking lots taking too much space and making downtown look so isolated. Why is the 2nd largest city in the united states so late to making downtown a vibrant place to live and work. We need more and more residences and we all need to start taking the transportation systems and or start walking. The city needs to make a more easily friendly transportation system to get people to leave there cars home..

# on Aug.31.2006 AT 08:14 PM

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