Near the corner of Temple and Hoover there was a fenced in lot that slowly got demolished over the course of several months earlier this year.

Before it disappeared tags had gone up all over it. Everyone knew it was coming down, so most of this seems like “practice” for lack of another word (and there might very well be other words that are more appropriate, like “creative expression”).

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Still, there were a few interesting tags, like this wide-lettered “B M” along on the top of a shell.

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The whole thing was like watching a film of urban decay playing in fast forward. Every day there were more tags and yet fewer walls.

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Now the destruction of the old buildings has been completed, and it's just an ugly, empty lot. Dirt. Across the street sits the weird, new freighter-like public school, dry-docked into the wedge of Temple, Virgil, Silver Lake and Beverly.

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No great artistic statements here. But interesting anyway.

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More after the jump.

Photos by Mark Mauer

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Above, the 101 just a little north of the lot. All of this work is of course now gone.

All photos by Mark Mauer