As of lunchtime, more than half of the MAGIC & COMEDY SHOW lettering has been removed from the sloped wall of vacant freeway-side magic club and faux Egyptian temple Magic Island. A reader spotted the scene — “just the cherry picker and the demolished letters on the ground” — during a feeder road drive-by around noon.

Talk of rebooting and reopening the former magic club (which became increasingly family-oriented until its Ike-and-fire-fueled shutdown in 2008) has been going on periodically since 2012; some permits for sign renewal and restaurant repairs were issued back in 2013, and a representative of owner and neurologist Mohammed Athari told Leah Binkovitz in early 2015 that some contracts for work on the building had finally been signed, even though things were moving slower than originally planned.

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The update plans tossed around in 2012 included a redo of the pharaoh-headed facade, as well the addition of a ballroom. The structure sits between the Green Bank midrise and the now-empty lot formerly holding the Smile Dental Group building; Athari owns that property as well, along with the neighboring United Neurology building, next to Chair King (now sitting in Glick Textiles‘s former spot).

Photo: Swamplot inbox

Beneath the Pharaoh’s Gaze