I assume that A. Salamid is a descendant of Frank Salamid, whose marks date from the 1900s to the 1940s. A sidewalk by A. Salamid is distinctive for its fine-grained concrete as well as its discreet, always undated stamp.
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Oakland Underfoot 
6 August 2008 at 8:07 pm
In the About/Discussion section, Patrick Salamid has posted the following:
“Andrew
I was interested in knowing more about side walk stamps with the name Salamid. My great uncle was Frank, my grandfather, angelo and father, Anthony, also did cement work throughout oakland in the first and second haf of the last century.
Thx
Patrick”
Oh man, you’re the one who should be telling ME. So Frank was the original Salamid, I knew that. Then was “A Salamid” your grandpa Angelo or your father Anthony? Where did the family come from and when? I see that Google only turns up Frank Jr., who died just recently and lived in Oakland.
I have seen “Frank Salamid” marks with dates up to 1948. “A Salamid” marks never have dates, but they are everywhere I go. Do you know when the company ended and why? My impression, just from seeing lots of concrete, is that “A Salamid” began around 1950 and thrived until the 1970s. The concrete is a distinctive fine-grained, slightly bluish mixture of high quality, always well laid.
An A SALAMID mark is in front of my own house.
7 August 2008 at 6:10 pm
Andrew
Ummmmmmmmmm, Where to begin. Frank Sr’ name was changed from Salamido or maybe Salamida, not sure. He came from the Italian area near Bari, in southern Italy. Not sure when he came to the states or who sponsered him. He was in Oakland during he 1906 quake, so sometime before then. He was a barber then and my dad does not know who/how he learned cement masonry.
Angelo, Frank’s younger brother, came over in 1914 with his cousin. After a few years in Penn working in the mines he came to Oakland and started working for frank.
Frank Sr. who started the business, sold it to his brother, Angelo, in 1951. Angelo, for which the A stands for, worked the business with my dad, Anthony until the early 1970′. When he retired the business died as my dad went to work for larger contractor’s.
Frank Sr. died in the 60’s, but Angelo, my grandfather, died in 1996 at 101 and my dad is still kicking at 75 yrs old.
I would like to know more about address’ with the Salamid stamp. I have always wanted to start a pictoral history of the stamps. My dad can’t remember all the places which are stamped and can no longer find the stamp.
Let me know if you want more history. My dad and my aunt know much more then I.
Thx
Patrick
8 August 2008 at 9:50 am
Oh, there are lots of Salamid stamps where I live. I’ve covered maybe 30 miles of North Oakland sidewalk so far, and there are well over a hundred locations. If you pay a visit to Oakland, start from the Rockridge BART station and walk a mile or so along the streets running off of College Avenue, or do the same on Piedmont Avenue, you’ll certainly see several (and you can shop or have a nice dinner on either street). Another good walk is along both sides of Broadway above (east of) College Avenue.
The “A SALAMID” stamp is always the same, and they are never dated, so that’s as far as you can go with a history. “Frank Salamid” stamps often have dates, but they fade away with time because the marks are shallow and the concrete is coarser, so they have a spotty history. If your family doesn’t have the old business records, you’ll have a lot of work to do trying to assemble a history. I wouldn’t try, and I’m a fanatic! But I do record every Frank Salamid mark I see with a decent date. Over the coming months, as I start to put up duplicate years, you’ll see them, and I’ll be tagging each maker to make searching easier.
Too bad that the actual stamps seem to be lost. If you ever turn them up, the Oakland Museum might welcome the donation because they’re living history as long as the sidewalks endure.
25 February 2014 at 2:49 pm
I would like to get in touch with Patrick Salamid who wrote on this blog. A group of parents with kids at Oakland Tech are working on a memory book in honor of the school’s centennial in 1914-15. A woman I interviewed who has lived in the Temescal District all of her 83 years mentioned, as we looked at the sidewalk where we were standing and saw the “A Salamid” cement mark, that Angelo went to Tech. I would love to know whether that is true, what year he graduated, and whether any other Salamids went to Tech. If anyone sees this who can pass this on to Patrick Salamid, please ask him to email me at: otcentennialbook@gmail.com.
THANKS!
Cathy Rosenfeld
[done — Andrew]