Oakland Underfoot

No mater how carefully you build, someone will come along and make incisions in your work. When streets are re-asphalted, it seems like it happens within weeks. And the only time the repairs are seamless is when the city’s heritage ordinances require a complete restoration.

Until your building is historic, it’s at the mercy of history, and we just accept that degradation as the tax time imposes on existence. In this case, the patch-up crew not only couldn’t replace the original yellow bricks — and they could have if they hadn’t been in such a hurry — they couldn’t even figure out an easy way to match the original pattern. The result is not as bad as tagging, but it’s on the spectrum.

This is at that former bank on Broadway at Grand, the place I think of as the golden building. At least moments like this still happen regularly, if you’re looking.

Be grateful for good buildings and the conscientious owners who keep them that way.

This entry was posted on 9 December 2016 at 8:03 am and is filed under  Streetscape. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.