Castle Park Way is a little loop hidden off of Castle Drive, at the southern end of the Piedmont Pines neighborhood. All the concrete work was done by John R. Kemble, who did very good work all over Oakland from the mid-1920s until roughly 1941. When I surveyed this street I was struck by its unity, in which the homes and landscaping take part as well as the paving. And all this time later, it still has great integrity.
Welcome to phase 2 of this blog. I’ll be posting every Friday morning from now on, so add this to your feed, or subscribe, or whatever you do to keep up with the cool new stuff.
Oakland has lots of streets that are special for one reason or another. As I threaded its labyrinth I wished I could show them to you, but didn’t want to interrupt the parade. Now I’m getting around to them.
The Work Projects Administration or WPA gave millions of skilled and unskilled people jobs during the Great Depression. Their work added a great deal to Oakland’s cityscape, not least in its sidewalks. Lawlor Avenue seems to have been entirely paved by WPA workers in 1941 — curbs, sidewalks and driveways. It has an unusual unity of appearance for that reason, and the work is almost unmarred even 75 years after the last trowel was washed dry. In that respect, it’s a heritage street.
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.
Cavour Street at Shafter Avenue
Despite AJW leaving these marks abundantly all over Oakland, I’m missing a few recent years. I’ve probably overlooked them, or they were emplaced on blocks I surveyed several years ago. That’s why this collection of sidewalk stamps will never really end — the present never stops.
Oakland Underfoot 