The single, spray-painted word that has appeared on the side of the 127-year-old building's remains spoke volumes, reading simply: "Shame."
The graffiti appeared sometime on Wednesday night or early on Thursday, hours after contractors using a mechanical excavator demolished the top section of the old building's facade before leaving for the night.
Contacted yesterday, Oakley Gray Architects director John Gray, contracted by the site owners to oversee the project, said whoever was responsible for the slogan appeared to have climbed over security fences to gain access to the site.
"It's damned dangerous, actually, for someone to be going on to the site in any shape or form.
"For people's own sake, they need to keep off the site until it's a total flat site. It's a very dangerous situation."
Mr Gray said those with a soft-spot for old buildings were "welcome to their opinion", but he believed there was "a lot of uninformed comment" around the state of the two High St buildings.
"It's always a pity to see a historic building demolished, but they were both demolished for a very good reason," he said.
The site was expected to be cleared in about five weeks, and would be developed into a single-level car park to be shared by the Scenic Circle Southern Cross Hotel and Dunedin Casino, he said.
