Oakland train station 1: outside
08/23/04
The Oakland train station was abandoned after sustaining heavy damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Across the street, two hotels (one of them named after the railroad) have also seen better days:
Oakland, CA
My take on love.
Using the word "hipster" ten times in one article: shameless stats-padding or cry for help?
10:06 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)
Comments
Hey, I read that article about the Brooklyn hipsters and was confused. How did that get the front page of the Metro Section?
Mike, keep up the good work!
Posted by: AJ at August 23, 2004 09:10 PM
Found this site just by chance and I'm glad I did ! :)
Wonderful pictures !!
I wish I lived somewhere so beautiful and interesting.
Oakland train station is a gem.
I am now inspried to take my camera down to the back allys of China Town in Los Angeles.
You folks must be very interesting to know :)
Posted by: jackie at August 24, 2004 09:49 AM
Great job on the take on love, and on the train station! I like the 'souvenir' counter.
Posted by: Caren at August 24, 2004 01:36 PM
You know everytime I stop by, I am eager to see your photos and I greedily take in each one and then feel kinda a sad when I come to the end. The same way I feel with Stephen King novels. He can't write fast enough for me, and you can't post photos fast enough....I am never disappointed.
Posted by: Robin at August 25, 2004 02:28 PM
more alarming is the fact that the article uses the word "dope" three times.
Posted by: Jimmy Legs at August 26, 2004 03:21 PM
having witnessed the transformation of my neighborhood Williamsburg first-hand, it's all too predictable that the times is all over the hipster trend. and I am not at all surprised by the decadent self-appreciation of the hipsters at gawker.com. artsy-yuppie-emopunk-hipster crowds appear to be the new "flower-power" generation.
I like that they at least mention Norman Mailer, a true "prophet" of our times. and it is not a cry for help, but probably the former.
Posted by: Johnny B at August 27, 2004 05:23 PM
i used to live three blocks from the amtrak station circa 1999-2001. back then, the word on the street was that microsoft bought the property from sp to develop it. this rumor was reinforced by the endless parade of sbc trucks tearing up wood street and laying fiber optic cable...however, they hadn't gotten around to fencing it off yet so we pretty much had run of the place. i used to have one of the old steel shelving units in my bedroom- it took almost an hour to get it out of the station and haul it back, i heard. all of the bricks and marble we could find were put to use as flagstones in our backyard. at the time, it kind of looked like sp/amtrak just walked away from the site, much to our delight. tons of office furniture, supplies, etc. just there for the taking...this girl i know bagged a working photocopier, and i still have old sp stationery i use as scratch paper laying around. my old roommate and i kept meaning to go camp there one night for kicks but we ran into some sketchy crackheads (is there any other kind?) one night- they were cool, but....staying at home seemed like a better idea.
when it got cleaned up, we realized the end was near- i got to go to a roller disco party there before the rent-a-cops pulled the plug and they fully fenced in the site. it seems pretty heavily patrolled now- i got sweated recently just for being in the empty lot just south of there. people are obviously still going in though- there's a lot more graff there now....not sure how i feel about that. i used to paint in west oakland a lot but i always respected the beauty and history of the sp depot and left it alone.
regarding the history of the depot, it was the west coast headquarters for the porter's union (the first black union in the u.s.) from, i believe, the 20's till shortly after world war 2. once the shipyards and related industry in and around oakland closed after the war, the neighborhood went into a steady decline and is now sort of like detroit, but with better weather. unfortunately, our mayor is commited to redeveloping downtown and for some reason that seems to include west oakland, too- mandela parkway (site of the cypress structure that collapsed in the '89 quake) is now 80% landscaped with a bike path and benches- kind of like a really long, narrow park. lots of stupid looking lofts going up everywhere and hipsters riding around on track bikes...there's even a rock climbing gym- the golf course of the 21st century. it's an old story, though- pretty soon, west oakland will be the mission's eastern annex. the official story is that "responsible redevelopment" will be inclusive to the people that already live there but i have yet to see that urban myth come true. probably by the time i turn forty, the ghetto will have been relocated (read:sold out) to east oakland or richmond and i'll be paying seven bucks for a drink to hang out in my old hood....
i think i've rambled enough. btw, there's an old dynamite factory on the bay in pinole you should check out- definitely worth the trip. thanks for the flashback- hope the little history lesson is appreciated.
Posted by: Chris B. at August 14, 2005 05:11 PM
Do you know of any way to get inside the station? I'm a photographer in Redwood City who finds abandoned places whenever I can in the Bay Area. I checked out the station only to find the security and fencing. Please let me know if you have any advice for gaining permission to photograph the interior.
By the way, the dynamite plant near Pinole you mentioned (actually in Hercules) is completely demolished. I followed this as a 7-month photo-project, recording the demise of this amazing site to the very end.
Thanks for any advice on the train station entry,
Charles
Posted by: Charles at March 9, 2006 04:16 AM
How do you get inside the building?