L.A. CLASSICS / Wave On

It’s a pleasure to stumble upon urban artifacts that are just . . . there. The oil derrick-style radio towers that cropped up here in the ‘20s, for example--the city once bristled with them. A pair topped Aimee Semple McPherson’s Angelus Temple in Echo Park; another sprouted near Rodeo Drive in the heart of Beverly Hills. Ravishing symbols of progress in their day, only a handful survive--poking silently above skyscraper roofs (the KRKD antennas downtown) or gilding an already bizarre lily (the former KFWB towers crowning the Pacific Theater in Hollywood, top left). Their futures are uncertain. Still, KTLA says it wants to keep the vintage tower (bottom left), disconnected for decades, that stands in front of its headquarters in the former Warner Bros. studios on Sunset Boulevard, where “The Jazz Singer” was filmed in 1927. And when L.A.’s first TV tower, erected in 1939 above the Hollywood sign on Mt. Lee, was replaced this year, the new one was duplicated, strut for strut, from the original--not for aesthetics, but because it stood up so well for so long. Imagine.