Here are a couple of photos taken in Long Beach, California, nearly a century apart.

I took the top photo while we were in Long Beach earlier this month. The building on the left with the unusual green spire is the Villa Riviera, now a condominium that is on the national historic register. It was originally build in 1928-1929 as a luxury residential cooperative, but has seen different uses over its lifetime.

Wikipedia has an entry on the building that provides a quick history.

From Wikipedia:

Built from 1927 to 1929 at a cost of $2.75 million, the Villa Riviera is a 16-story French Gothic Building. The steel-framed[3] structure is topped with a steeply pitched verdigris copper roof. The building was designed by architect Richard King who won a grand prize at an international contest for the design that he referred to as “Tudor Gothic.” The structure features fierce-looking gargoyles perched along the ridges of the higher floors. The building was also equipped with luxurious features, including a ballroom, Italianate roof garden, lounges, high-speed elevators, “vacuum-type heating,” and a 100-car garage.

It was the second tallest building in Southern California until being surpassed by new construction in the 1950s.

The same building dominated the Long Beach skyline in the second photo, which was taken somewhere around 1930-31, soon after it was completed.

The woman on the left of the photo is Betty Peabody, who was my dad’s girlfriend when he was still a student at Wilson High School, somewhere around 1930-1931. Peabody’s family had a farm in Birmingham, Michigan, near Detroit, but they met when she she spent a summer with a relative in Long Beach.

See:

In search of Betty Peabody, iLind.net, October 10, 2016

In search of Betty Peabody, Part II, March 18, 2017