High Rise

It's night in Los Angeles, and I am working late in the 26th floor of a downtown office tower. I see the lights of other towers, and the headlights on the freeway winding their way into the distance like a silver carpet. Leon Whiteson, who wrote "City at a Crossroads," (Nov. 2) would be shocked. But I felt quite at home. Perhaps I haven't listened hard enough to the architectural critics in their great wisdom. But I notice something exhilarating about being in a place like downtown or Century City, with skyscrapers leaping upward as far as the eye can see. And I see something prosaic about the various low-rise strip centers and small office buildings that dot this city.

Currently under consideration by the City of Santa Monica is the future of the Sand and Sea Club property on Pacific Coast Highway. Most of the development proposals call for replacing the facility with expensive restaurants and high-rise hotels. Who will this benefit? Certainly not the senior citizens and youth groups who currently use the facility. I urge the city to award the contract to the developer who will preserve the facility as a community resource without further congesting the beach area.

I have to object to Lucy Izon's reference in "On Budget at Expo 88" (Dec. 27)-- . . . "the high-rise jungle known as Surfers Paradise." I am a former resident of Australia's Surfers Paradise and an official of its chamber of commerce and progress association. In the early '60s, we defined the boundaries of this leading Australian resort. So many people wanted to visit there that house and land values soared and the influx of visitors could only be catered to by high-rise hotels and condominiums.

Your article concerning the ordeal of the survivors of the fire brought back vivid memories of my own experience in the Las Vegas hotel fire. I was trapped under identical circumstances and have complete empathy for their courage and survival. From the outside people watch in mute horror, from the inside victims run an emotional gamut and each decision made, literally, dictates life or death. The reason for my letter is to give strong praise for the stoic heroism of the men and women who fight the high-rise fires.