Among the many agreeable things about the Tower Life Building is that you can decide for yourself what to call it, choosing from among the Smith-Young Tower, the Transit Tower, the Transit Building, the Pan American Building, or the Tower Life Building. My own relationship to this building is friendly, I'm always glad to see it, it's a rewarding relaxed relationship only slightly tinged by a feeling that -- that it should do more tricks.

That's unfair to ask, I know that. The Tower Life Building's best trick, and it's a powerful one, is its romantic appearance in the night sky over San Antonio, lit up like a Gothic wedding cake, complicated and simple, looking brighter and closer than you sometimes expect, a sort of beacon visible between the branches of the live oak trees as you navigate the turns and twists of the Riverwalk, sometimes visible in the river itself, upside down and rippling, beneficient, encouraging, protective.

It was designed in 1929 by Atlee B. and Robert M. Ayers for the corner of St. Mary's and Villita Streets, an odd-shaped lot with frontage on the river, and opened on June 1, 1929. The clients were the Smith Brothers and their lawyer and partner J.W. Young, and it's built on a former island called Bowen's Island.

It's 35 stories of brick and terra cotta, and the main part of the tower is said to be octagonal. It's eight-sided but not octagonal. You'll notice projecting gargoyles, which people seem excited about. Until the Tower of the Americas was built for Hemisphere '68 this was the tallest building in the city, and now the tallest building in San Antonio is the Marriott Rivercenter. (The first one is merely a dull mid-Century pod, the other one takes the biscuit, as they say, for insensitivity, so this remains the tallest real building.)

Those personable young jackasses on the boat rides will tell you that the Depression hit shortly after the Smith-Young Tower opened, and either Young or one of the Smiths, or all three of them at once maybe, leapt off the observation deck and took a short eventful flight down to the sidewalk. Don't know if that's true. Doubt it.

It's true that the Depression slammed San Antonio hard. There was a building boom here in 1926-1930 that left us a good percentage of the landmark buildings downtown, like the Medical Arts Building where my father was born, the Express-News Building, the Majestic Theater and its office tower, the Nix Medical Building, the Milam Building, and the old Carnagie library on the river which wasn't developed or safe yet. Then the Depression hit, the boom was over, and San Antonio's vision of itself as the gateway to Mexico and the Americas leapt off the observation deck and took a short eventful flight down to the sidewalk. Things were never the same. That part of the story is true.

The promotional image above is shown in the lobby, and it says,

PANORAMIC VIEW of the SMITH BROTHERS AND YOUNG SAN ANTONIO PROPERTIES

Aladin and his lamp of Arabian Nights never brought about grander transformations than those brought about by Messrs. J.H. Smith, F.A. Smith, and J.W. Young, owners of the Smith Brothers Properties Company.

...which is very nice. It reminds me of the some of the real estate advertising copy quoted in Carey McWilliams' awesome and evocative book about Los Angeles called Southern California: An Island on the Land, where a silver-tongued Colonel Tom Fitch describes a bit of bleak waterless land he's about to auction:

Then the slopes of the arroyos will be flecked with the purple violets and the pink anemones and white star flowers, and over all the wind-blown heights the scarlet poppies and big yellow buttercups will wave in the breeze like the plumes and banners of an elfin army. And when you behold the earth covered with fragrant children, born of her marriage to the clouds, and when you know that this charming effect of a few showers can be increased and perpetuated the year round with a little water from the mains and a little labor with the hoe and rake, you will be thankful to us for having called your attention to Middleton Heights Lots.

Elfin freaking army! Back then when you got cheated by a real estate agent, you received the mental image of an elfin freaking army as part of the deal.

In the spirit of discussing the deficiencies of an old friend, I don't understand the relationship of the Tower Life Building to the river. There is no relationship. It's a blank wall down there, a dead spot on the Riverwalk.

Powerfully attractive, especially at night, but not an attraction. Well Jesus what is it that I want the Tower Life Building to do?

I want it to be the secret headquarters and library of the Native Sons of the Plumed Serpent. I want it to change colors according to its mood. I want it to shoot a fountain of beer out the top -- not Bud Light either, I want something good, something like Zwyiec -- and I want the top floor to contain the Crypt of Biggie Smalls hung with the flags of all nations that honor his memory. I want an underground tunnel straight to the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City lined all the way with Rivera murals. I want it to disappear occasionally and come back taller and more Gothic. I want 30-foot angels carved on the side with terrifying faces and inscriptions in a language nobody can read. I want it to spin. I want it to glow.

Oh, right, from about dark to about midnight it glows already.

Okay, that's good enough.