Since 1956 the Capitol Records Tower has stacked its thirteen circular floors here at Hollywood and Vine. The Capitol Records Tower was completed in 1956, designed by architect Welton Becket, and its circular floors stacked thirteen stories high to look like a stack of 45 rpm records — or so the legend says. In fact the design predated the records-on-a-spindle story, but it became the building's identity.
A blinking light atop the antenna spells out Hollywood in Morse code, as it has since 1956. Capitol Records was founded in Hollywood in 1942 by songwriter Johnny Mercer, singer-songwriter Buddy DeSylva, and record store owner Glenn Wallichs, the first major record label based on the West Coast. It signed Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, the Beach Boys, and the Beatles — when the Beatles signed with Capitol in America in 1964, it transformed both the label and American popular music.
Notice the stacked cylinders from the corner of Hollywood and Vine, seeming to hover in the California light on a clear day.