Look up and ahead for the tall, sleek skyscraper with a distinctive grid of square windows and a crown featuring a glassy upper section-South Park Center’s main tower stands boldly above the lower buildings nearby.
Right here in front of you rises the South Park Center, once known by so many names it could fill a phone book-Occidental Life, Transamerica, AT&T Center, SBC Tower, and now, proudly, the USC Tower. Back in 1965, this 32-story marvel shot up into the Los Angeles skyline, making jaws drop as the city’s second-tallest building. Designed by William Pereira & Associates, its crisp International Style gave it a futuristic look for the time-a monument to white-collar ambition. Just imagine: inside those gleaming rows of windows, the Occidental Life Insurance Company’s computers hummed away, crunching numbers with all the cutting-edge power of the ‘60s.
But this tower wasn’t the lone star in the neighborhood. The original Occidental Center covered a whopping 12 acres, tying together multiple buildings with secret underground tunnels. Legend has it that if you worked late, you might escape through these corridors to avoid a surprise rainstorm or a nosy boss! Up top, The Tower restaurant once served French cuisine with views to match-just picture a perfectly crisp soufflé hundreds of feet above LA’s endless sprawl.
Ownership shuffled like a Vegas dealer, and before long, the California State Bar Association and even the LAPD moved into the neighboring buildings. The crown was spruced up in the 2000s with a $35 million renovation, making the old tower sparkle like a disco ball at sunset. And for pop culture fans, glance upward-you may recognize this very exterior from Avicii’s “Levels” music video, when it advertised not insurance, but “Levels/Le7vels.inc.” Now, as South Park Center, this building stands as a not-so-quiet witness to L.A.’s style, ambition, and maybe a few secret after-hours escapades. Even on a sunny afternoon, the story of this skyscraper soars as high as its glass crown.
