Beverly Hills City Hall opened in 1932, deep in the Depression, at a cost the Los Angeles Times pronounced the priciest for any municipality its size in the country. Before then, the town ran its affairs out of the Beverly Hills Hotel, until two thousand residents petitioned for something grander.

Architects William Gage and Harry Koerner obliged with an eight story tower crowned in a tiled dome and gilded cupola, done up in the ornate Spanish style known as Churrigueresque. Inside, past the terrazzo floors, sits a small Rodin bronze, an unlikely companion to the mayor's paperwork. The building has moonlighted on screen too, turning up in Beverly Hills Cop and the noir classic In a Lonely Place.

On VoiceMap's Beverly Hills walking tour, City Hall marks the turn from the neighborhood's railroad and lima bean beginnings toward the polished, camera ready civic image it wears today.