Interesting. On the right we see a Gold Medallion (Cassia leptophylla), and on the left the same kind of tree. A few days ago they were roughly the same size. And for that reason, I didn't think to take a picture of them. Now one looks pretty -- an asset to the community, providing shade, beauty, and oxygen -- and one has been butchered. No one knows for sure who did the cutting, or who hired whom to do the deed, which is illegal. The tree is on public property; it belongs to the people of Los Angeles. The city is responsible for pruning.

But Michael O'Brien posted on the Echo-Elysian neighborhood list that the "pruning" was...

...not done by the City because they have no money to do pruning now, they would have done the entire block, and they NEVER butcher trees like that. ... It's a good example of everything that should NOT be done when it comes to pruning a tree. It's unclear why that particular tree gets picked on over again, but there it is.