Photos: Wilshire Grand Center opens with a flourish
A drone view of the new Wilshire Grand Center.
(Jason H. Neubert / Los Angeles Times)The $1.35-billion skyscraper debuts on the downtown L.A. skyline.
The Wilshire Grand Center, a 73 story skyscraper, at 1100 feet high, including the spire, it is the tallest building west of the Mississippi.
(Travis Geske / For the Times)The Wilshire Grand Center, a 73 story skyscraper, at 1100 feet high, including the spire, it is the tallest building west of the Mississippi.
(Travis Geske / For the Times)The Wilshire Grand Center, a 73 story skyscraper, at 1100 feet high, including the spire, it is the tallest building west of the Mississippi.
(Travis Geske / For the Times)A construction worker uses a blower to clean away shavings after helping to install a grate over the drainage area on the skylight at the Wilshire Grand Center.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Enrique Paredes works on a railing alongside a water fountain in the front of the center.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Scaffolding is used to install louvers and a three-story-high chandelier at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown hotel at the Wilshire Grand Center.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Artists Victor Hernandez, left, and Mike Tauber put the finishing touches on a 20-foot-by-35-foot mural in the pool area of the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown hotel.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)The Wilshire Grand Center, a 73-story skyscraper, as seen from 7th Street. At 1,100 feet high including the spire, it is the tallest building west of the Mississippi.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Leonel Jimenez, left, and Robert Rasmussen apply primer to steel connections inside the sail that rises above the 73rd floor. The sail is an architectural feature that conceals window-washing and mechanical equipment.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Hortencia Esparza prepares a bed in an InterContinental hotel room.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Glaziers Emanuel Gonzalez, left, and George Silvas help install a glass door leading from the hotel tower to the pool deck.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Workers install wiring for automatic doors in the gallery at the Wilshire Grand.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Ricardo Bailon, left, and Alejandro Armendariz deliver a couch to a room on the 56th floor.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Design Principal Chris King inspects a door in the men’s room of La Boucherie, a French steakhouse on the 71st floor.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Architects Jorge Medrano, left, and Grit Leipert inspect a digitally printed photo of a San Gabriel Mountain scene on a wood veneer panel at the entrance to the Club InterContinental, on the 70th floor.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Jose Jaquez, left, and Jose Cortez grout the marble steps leading to the front entrance of the Wilshire Grand.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Irwing Loreto, left, installs letters on an exterior wall.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Boxes containing furniture are wheeled into the loading dock area.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Scott Grevious hangs drapes in a 48th-floor hotel room.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Construction workers haul equipment in the porte cochere.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Workers clean the parquet wood floor in the restaurant La Boucherie.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Interior designer Gary Broeker decorates inside the presidential suite on the 66th floor.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Marble fabricator Leoncio Franco installs a countertop in the master bathroom of the presidential suite.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)The hotel lobby on the 70th floor.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)The pool area on the seventh floor.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)A construction worker photographs the three-story-high chandelier.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Hortencia Esparza, left, and other members of the housekeeping team prepare a hotel room.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Marble finisher Bravlio Fuentes, foreground, works on a hotel check-in pod made of Luccon fiber-optic concrete in the 70th-floor lobby.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)Window washer Antonio Roman at the front entrance of the center.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)An overhead view of the seventh-floor swimming pool.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)The Wilshire Grand Center, the third skyscraper from the left, is photographed at dusk.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)