Oakland Underfoot

Frank Paul Salamid was born Francisco Paolo Salamido in the town of Monopoli, way down in the heel of Italy, on 23 October 1881. Family lore has it that he was in town for the 1906 earthquake and was a barber at the time. However, his name first appeared in the 1900 directory, in the classifieds as a cement contractor. Then and thereafter, his address was on Manila Avenue.

I’ve documented the triangular Frank Salamid stamp from 1909 to 1949, one of Oakland’s longest records. From the start, his marks always varied. Here are three different examples from 1909.

Although the stamps read “Frank Salamid & Co.,” in 1911 and 1912 he started wiping out the “& Co.” part. My only clue about this is that in the 1910 directory he used the address 619 47th Street. I surmise that he started a proper company at that address and soon thought better of it, reverting to a one-man practice or a small team based out of his home.

Frank’s brother Angelo (1896-1997) came to America in 1914, working first in Pennsylvania and then in Oakland with Frank. Angelo Salamid first appeared in the 1917 directory at the same address as Frank, 5348 Manila Avenue. They and their respective families seem to have lived together, or at least within a few homes of each other, into the 1940s.

I haven’t found a mark from 1920, but in 1921 Frank appeared to have lost one of his most important numerals.

After that he acquired a new set of smaller numerals that allowed him to customize his marks even more capriciously — sometimes with months and days, sometimes inside the triangle instead of out. I’ve always thought this example from 23 December 1929 was poignant, coming as it did after the October stock-market crash and just two days before Christmas, when every extra dollar must have meant a lot.

The 1930s were good for Frank and Angelo. Their work is integral to the Idora Park development, the remarkable 3700 block of Elston Avenue, and elsewhere. In this period he got lax about wiping away the “& Co.”

The latest really good date I have is 1948.

Soon thereafter (the family source puts it at 1951), Frank sold the business to Angelo, retired to Glenn County and that was it. The family home for most of their time was at 5350 Manila, but the sidewalk there is blank.

Frank died in December 1969. Angelo and his son Anthony (Tony) carried on with the ubiquitous “A Salamid” stamp from 1951 into the 1970s, although none of their marks were dated.

Angelo lived to the age of 100. Tony, now retired, lives in Pleasant Hill, and other descendants live in the East Bay. My thanks to Patrick Salamid for the family stories.

As I surveyed Oakland’s sidewalks, I came to be amused by the marks of M. Cvetich for the variety of stamps he used over his career. At first, in 1928, he had this ordinary, understated mark.

At the time, he was listed as Michael Cvetich in the phone book, living and practicing with his wife Annie at 2515 Adeline Street.

In the mid-1930s, he was listed as Mike Cvetich and he used at least three different stamps. Two included his address and phone number.

The third left off the address, and the phone exchange had changed. This was the stamp he stayed with through the 1940s to 1950, the latest date I have from him.

By 1940, he was giving his name as Milan, which I assume was his real name. But eventually he dropped the phone number.

In addition to these basic stamps, he varied in the way he marked the year, sometimes inside the mark and sometime outside, sometimes with the month and day and sometimes not. He wasn’t very consistent. To me that implies a certain playfulness for someone in this exacting line of work.

So now I have to ask, because I don’t know anyone named Cvetich: How is it pronounced? It looks suspiciously like it might sound like “quidditch.”

Rosas Brothers Construction, our leading current provider of sidewalk repairs, has left marks all over this town in recent years. When contracts come up for bid in the East Bay they compete hard, then get the job done and done well.

Although they don’t have a website, their sidewalk stamps have their phone number, an effective marketing tool used by Oakland concrete contractors since the mid-1920s. When I called that number, I learned that Victor, Umberto and Luis Rosas are the brothers who started this Oakland-based general contracting business in 2002. The offices are still in a little old house on Coliseum Way by the freeway. Their earliest stamp I’ve seen in Oakland is from 2009.

They have used two different marks. The one above came first, then the one below appeared in 2010. It appears that each crew carries its own stamp, because there’s a lot of variety in the marks. Some stamps have a complete set of numbers in the date, while others have the final digit of the date drawn by hand.

One day in early 2014, I happened to walk past one of their work sites in the Laurel district, and there on the ground was one of their silicone rubber stamps.

So this mark prints the data “201—” and the concrete finisher writes the last digit. The stamp goes on after the fresh concrete has begun to set — a worker sprays the job to soften the surface, then pushes the stamp in.

Some of Oakland’s sidewalk makers left 40 years’ worth of dates. Rosas Brothers has a ways to go, but they’ve made a very good start.