American Notes LOS ANGELES

In its search for a monument to rival New York's Statue of Liberty and St. Louis' Gateway Arch, the city of Los Angeles last week came up with something so bizarre that visitors may never forget it. After surveying about 150 entries, including a giant bird, a gargantuan baseball glove and a towering fountain of water, the selection committee settled on Steel Cloud, designed by New York architects Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture. When the first stage is completed in 1992, the $33 million glass-and-steel structure will rise up to twelve stories above the Hollywood Freeway in downtown Los Angeles and will be linked by bridges to the city's ethnic neighborhoods. Passersby will peer at 140-ft.-high aquariums and view scenes from Hollywood films projected on large silver screens.

Committee chairman Nick Patsaouras brushed aside skepticism and promised that the structure would be "uplifting, giving one the feeling of soaring to the heavens."