The most compact format in Hayashi’s Century Freeway series, this 20×52-inch work suggests tighter framing on specific displacement evidence—perhaps surviving structures surrounded by freeway construction, isolated buildings awaiting final demolition, or particular intersections where infrastructure dominated what remained of former residential blocks.

The seven-work series structure mirrors Hayashi’s Power House documentation in Cleveland: seven locations providing sufficient geographic sampling to establish patterns and capture variation without excessive redundancy. Distributed approximately every 2.5 miles along the 17.3-mile corridor, the documentation encompasses eastern, central, and western sections through neighborhoods experiencing varied displacement impacts.

By 1991, Century Freeway construction was over 90% complete. Elevated structures dominated former residential areas. Vacant lots stretched in every direction around the corridor. The promised replacement housing—3,400 units mandated by the landmark 1979 consent decree—remained far from complete. Families displaced before new units became available scattered across Los Angeles, their communities permanently dissolved.

The compact format distinguishes this work from the sweeping 79-88 inch panoramas that characterize other series entries. Where those extreme horizontal formats document the corridor’s relentless lateral extension, this tighter composition focuses attention on specific displacement sites—the human scale of loss rather than infrastructure’s overwhelming scale.

The work documents what official Caltrans photography systematically overlooked: not construction progress but community destruction, not engineering achievement but social devastation. Hayashi’s independent documentation preserves evidence of displacement’s permanent impacts largely absent from government records focused on transportation metrics rather than human costs.