Oakland Underfoot

4001 Oak Hill Road

I’m in love for the first time

Don’t you know it’s gonna last

It’s a love that lasts forever

It’s a love that had no past.

Over the last seven years and four months on this site, I’ve paraded about 2800 examples of sidewalk markings from throughout the city of Oakland. Each one included a name of some sort; most included a date of some sort. In selecting them I left at least ten times as many unremarked, either duplicates of what I had or truly anonymous marks. But every one was somebody’s contribution to our cityscape, expressing pride or ownership or just his or her existence here and now, once upon a time.

This mark was the work of a moment, a gesture of something timeless impressed on the most durable canvas available. Not even concrete is permanent, but it’s sturdy enough to ferry a message some distance down the stream of time. Nearly nameless and without a date, this mark goes at the end of my great parade because some of the most important things are outside time. Like true love.

Thanks for reading. From here on out, I’ll be putting up a new post every week. Sometimes there will be new marks to document, but I have a lot of other interesting material.

10108 Dante Avenue

I feel safe in saying this is the only mark by G. Vander Dussen existing in Oakland.

This may be George Vander Dussen, who is recorded at age 11 in the 1940 census, living in Oakland’s council district 5 at the time.

2115 102nd Avenue

Oakland has a couple dozen marks by Jay Holt. I’ve featured two of them previously, the second cleaner than the first. This third one is pretty much pristine, showing the phone number LO 2-3369. I can’t find out anything about him.

10211 Longfellow Avenue

There are only two of these in all of Oakland. This is by far the best. The other one includes all the historical info I’ve gathered on it so far.