A High-Rise of Tired Eyes : Doors Never Shut at Downtown Office Tower

The view from Floor 41 was a spectacular midnight landscape of freeways and shimmering lights. But Scott Samet was not enjoying the scenery. The young financial analyst was cloistered in a small, windowless room, poring over charts and fiscal projections.

He had been at it for nearly 15 hours. With eyes fixed on a computer screen, he was staring hard at a morning deadline.

“I’m here cranking away, burning the midnight oil,” Samet remarked as he balanced a keyboard in his lap, rocking back momentarily to run a hand through his dark hair. The task--a complex investment report on a proposed corporate joint-venture--had kept him here long after nearly everyone else on his floor had gone home. But he wasn’t complaining. It was just part of the job, part of high finance atop his Bunker Hill high-rise.

“I’ll probably call it quits about 1 or 2 (o’clock),” Samet predicted. “I’ll probably be back in at 7:30 (in the morning) because I’ll have to get on the phone to New York. It’s a pretty busy week.”

Although the financial floors were largely deserted, Samet was far from alone inside One California Plaza, a 42-story, 960,000-square-foot office tower in downtown Los Angeles. Built within a “financial corridor” of new skyscrapers on Grand Avenue, One California Plaza is part of a growing complex that includes the Museum of Contemporary Art, with a second office tower--52 stories--and a luxury hotel now being built.

The high-rise opened in 1986 and is best known for its curved, mirrored exterior and a purple “halo” of neon illuminating the edge of the roof. But, like many other new, high-tech towers, it is also a 24-hour building with revolving glass doors that are never locked. By day, about 2,000 people work here--mostly bankers, traders and attorneys. By night, the work force shrinks to about 100 and the mix changes.

Here and there, financial brokers and attorneys remain, many of them dour and tense as they struggle to orchestrate difficult worlds. But the halls and offices are invaded by a sizable army of maids and janitors, who move from floor to floor, polishing tile and emptying trash cans. Security guards and night engineers prowl the stairwells and ride the elevators, on constant lookout for leaking pipes and dead light bulbs.

For many, it is a long night’s journey into day, consumed with tedious and repetitive tasks. Luis Rivas, 21, is one such employee, assigned to clean restrooms. He is the tower’s version of the “permanent latrine orderly.”

Every night, all night long, Rivas cleans restroom mirrors, tile, commodes. He damp-mops floors, empties trash cans and replaces rolls of toilet tissue. Beginning each night on the 28th floor, he works his way down to the 15th.

“He does the same 13 floors every night,” said Andrew Bassin, a project manager who oversees the tower’s janitorial services for American Building Maintenance. “Men’s and women’s both.”

At this moment, the lanky Rivas, who speaks only Spanish, was busy on the 24th floor, pushing a blue cart loaded with glass cleaners, mildew removers, trash-can liners and paper towels.

Elsewhere, two-person janitorial teams dusted and vacuumed. Down on the seventh floor, security guard Gustavo Lopez was moving through a two-hour check of the building’s lighting fixtures, pipes, sockets and coffee makers, from the 42nd floor down. In his hand was an electronic device programmed to read bar codes similar to those used in grocery stores.

At 168 checkpoints--most of them at office kitchenettes and in stairwells--Lopez waved the tiny wand across the bar code, proving that he was there and telling a computer downstairs that all was well.

Sophisticated electronics have made the work of the nighttime security crew so routine that many could do it in their sleep. As veteran guard Darryl Lockett put it, “The hardest thing on graveyard is staying awake.”

Several guards were stationed at a mammoth control panel in the lobby, keeping a vigil via 15 electronic monitors. Many were connected to cameras in stairwells, corridors and the loading dock; others showed the position and destination of all 28 elevators.

“This elevator’s at 36,” security supervisor Carl Gordon said, pointing to a blip on one screen. “There’s one person on it, and it’s going to 33.”

The guards watch the panel and roam the building constantly, except for floors 32 through 36. Those are occupied by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, a 24-hour law firm as discreet as its name is long.

Employing its own security force and enforcing a strict policy of no admittance to outsiders, the firm handles major corporate cases that require the utmost confidentiality. Its offices are accessible only by elevator card key, but its employees come and go all night long.

Legal assistants Steve Tapp, 35, and Doug Walker, 27, were riding the elevator down at the end of the 3-to-midnight shift, having dealt with “6 million documents” on the 33rd floor. Until last fall, Walker had been working the midnight-to-morning stint, which he described as “hell.”

“You never get any sleep at all,” he said. “You’re a zombie.”

Now, he was heading home to work on a screenplay. Walker, Tapp and perhaps 20 others at Skadden work night shifts to support themselves while pursuing artistic dreams, mostly as writers and actors.

“It’s like a little subculture we have,” Walker said.

While Tapp and Walker were leaving, building engineer Frank Escobedo was completing his own rounds, which begin at the fire pumps in basement level P-5.

Working his way up, Escobedo had made a long list of checks and adjustments on boilers, water chillers, air compressors, dampers and other heavy machinery within secluded catacombs on many levels.

Now, ascending a staircase, he emerged on the roof, where city lights gave a glow to an overcast sky. Nearby, the tops of two other buildings--Wells Fargo and First Interstate Library Tower--loomed like mountain peaks. He was here to check on the neon halo.

“I just make sure the light’s fully on all the way around,” Escobedo said.

The halo was in full glory, so Escobedo moved on, descending to lower levels.

Meanwhile, red-eyed attorneys were leaving.

Ben Whitwell, who had been arguing in court before working late on a bankruptcy case, made his way down the elevators shortly after midnight and got in a yellow compact car cluttered with dry-cleaned shirts. He was due back by 7:30 a.m. but was in surprisingly good spirits.

“I may be here this late tomorrow night,” the 33-year-old lawyer said. “It’s not that unusual lately.”

Half an hour later, attorney George Eshaghian, 25, appeared in the lobby with legal secretary Deborah Scheer. She was heading home. He was taking a break before returning to his stacks of papers up in the Skadden offices.

“There are times I’ve slept on the floor,” he said. “If I get home before 9 (at night), I feel like I’m getting home real early.”

As the wee hours passed, the building checks continued. Guard Darryl Lockett was taking a shift in the huge underground garage, maneuvering his gas-powered cart up and down levels, negotiating curves as if driving in Disneyland’s Autopia. On one empty cavern four levels underground, he passed a solitary figure toting a broom and dustpan. Elsewhere, a man was kneeling under a “Wrong Way” sign, preparing to repaint a yellow arrow on the garage floor.

At a little after 4 a.m., two men entered the building lobby in muscle T-shirts, dropping off newspapers.

Then, at 4:23 a.m., John Spees walked in. The 33-year-old securities trader called himself part of the “vanguard” of the daytime crew. It was still black outside, but Spees was in a hurry. There were overnight reports to read, stock tapes to study. He had to get on the phone to London.

“We have a 24-hour market,” he said briskly. “I’ve got to see how the dollar’s doing.”