Empress Theatre (California) repainted and the "Empress Theatre" sign was painted into the pediment. Its window panels were uncovered and refurbished, seats from Fox Theatres were salvaged and installed, gypsum decoration was re-gilded, and period-appropriate carpeting was laid. The Empress thrived throughout the decade. 1989 On Tuesday October 17, the Loma Prieta earthquake, measuring 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale, shook the San Francisco Bay Area; the Empress Theatre was not spared. To repair damage from the quake and make the building seismically safe for use was a task so monumental that it caused the theatre to sit vacant and derelict for nearly
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake removed and replaced the collapsed section, and re-opened the bridge on November 18. The worst disaster of the earthquake was the collapse of the two-level Cypress Street Viaduct of Interstate 880 in West Oakland. The failure of a section of the viaduct, also known as the "Cypress Structure" and the "Cypress Freeway", killed 42 and injured many more. Built in the late 1950s, the Cypress Street Viaduct, a stretch of Interstate 880, was a double-deck freeway section made of nonductile reinforced concrete that was constructed above and astride Cypress Street in Oakland. Roughly half of the land the Cypress Viaduct