High Tower Apartments

Excerpt From Echo Park (Photo by Wendy Werris)

     Bosch stepped out from beneath the overhead door and looked up at the High Tower apartments. It was a place unique to Hollywood. A conglomeration of apartments built into the extruded granite of the hills behind the Hollywood Bowl. They were of Streamline Moderne design and all linked at the center by the slim structure that housed the elevator—the high tower for which the street and complex took its name. Bosch had lived in this neighborhood for a time as a boy. From his home on nearby Camrose he could hear the orchestras practicing in the bowl on summer days. If he stood on the roof he could see the fireworks on the Fourth and at the close of the season.
     At night he had seen the windows on the High Tower glowing with light. He'd see the elevator pass in front of them on its way up, delivering another person home. He had thought as a boy that living in a place where you took an elevator home had to be the height of luxury.