Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith P.
I am dubious it ever looked like this. This picture from the NS Archives dates to 1941:
The rendering looks nice, but I question how much of a "restoration" it is.
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Since buildings often do not retain their original form throughout their life, there's often a debate attached to which era they should be restored for. Often the choices would be for its original "as new" condition, or perhaps in its most famous iteration at some point in its history.
One recent case was the debate over the Morse's Teas sign on the old Jerusalem Warehouse building. Is it best to restore it to the original Jerusalem Warehouse configuration or the best known Morse's version? In that case, since the building had a couple of floors added on in its lifetime and was best known for Morse's Teas, I think this was the decision made (though I don't recall hearing much about that since the spring).
I think this is another one of those cases. When you look at the Green Lantern from another angle (1945 pic below), the restaurant frontage was clearly an "add on" from some point in its history. I read somewhere that the building was built around 1896, and the Green Lantern restaurant opened sometime around 1917. I haven't seen any photographic evidence to back it up, but I would hazard to guess that when the building was originally built, it had an appearance similar to the rendering above.
In this case, I would suggest that given that the Green Lantern no longer exists and that its original configuration is arguably more attractive and more fitting to its new purpose, that this would be the best way to go. If there was still a Green Lantern restaurant in that location, my preference would be more to that version, as it is what the building is most known for in general.
Source of photo