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Originally Posted by MichaelRyerson
Yeah, carnage. This photo should have yellow-police-tape around it. The first thing that occurred to me when I saw it was, 'Where the heck is the Garnier Building?' I actually thought for an instant that they had somehow moved it temporarily, then I saw the pitiful remains. Some 'official' sites say that the southern 'half' was lost to the construction of the 101 but you can clearly see in this picture that the southern half that was lost more closely amounts to 75-80% of the original building. Sad, sad picture.
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There was another building next to the Garnier on the freeway side that was completely wiped out, so the end that you're seeing in the earliest picture is that building. The Garnier is the building next to it with the roof in 3 segments.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MichaelRyerson
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In the pic below you can see the other building to the left of the Garnier. The Garnier itself was nicely symmetrical at the front - a central portion with 7 windows and a higher roofline, plus equal segments on either side with nine windows each, further divided into thirds.
Chinese American Museum
In the second aerial pic you can see that the roof is reduced to the north segment and half of the middle segment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MichaelRyerson
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They tore down everything to the south of the central front door, so there was just over exactly half of the building frontage left. When they did the restoration, they re-added a portion to the left of that door (including the fancy open arched portion at the southwest corner), restoring the full center segment.
In the pic below, you can tell what portion was added back. This was once the central portion of the building, corresponding to the middle segment of the 3-segment roof. Look at the stone over the second floor windows. The stone to the left of the central window is new; the older stone from there rightward is worn down so it no longer has a nice face on it.
Photo by me