(rshsdepot) West Oakland, CA

[I95BERNIEW_@_aol.com]

From the San Jose Mercury News.
 
Bernie Wagenblast
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
 
Oakland train station reopens one day for tour
 
By Annalee Allen
MediaNews
 
Article Launched: 09/16/2007 01:43:48 AM  PDT




During today's Urban Living Tour, West Oakland's historic train  station on 
16th and Wood streets will be open for a rare look.  
In addition to the train station, which has been vacant since the 1989 Loma  
Prieta Earthquake, unique urban dwellings and industrial loft projects in  
Oakland, Emeryville and Berkeley will be featured on the tour.  
The tour begins at 11 a.m. today. Tickets can be ordered online and will be  
available at the registration site, event organizers say.  
Proceeds from the self-guided tour, which is co-sponsored by the East Bay  
American Institute of Architects, Oakland Magazine and Holliday Development  
among others, benefit the group Rebuilding Together Oakland.  
Rebuilding Together Oakland, or RTO, is part of the nationwide volunteer  
rehabilitation organization providing free services to low-income homeowners who  
are elderly, disabled or families with children. Founded in 1988 and known 
then  as "Christmas in April," the organization has grown to include affiliates 
in 865  cities and towns in all 50 states.  
Oakland's chapter was established in 1993 and has renovated more than 300  
homes throughout the city. Over the past 14 years, 19,000 volunteers have signed 
 on to help with the rebuilding projects.  
The train station was built between 1910 and 1912 as part of a grand plan for 
 then-owner Southern Pacific to meet the needs of commuters who lived in the 
East  Bay and worked in San Francisco. 
The monumental terminal replaced an 1870s wooden building on the site.  The 
new complex featured raised platforms on its west-facing facade that led to  
elevated tracks for Southern Pacific's local electric interurban train cars.  
Long-haul steam trains carrying freight ran alongside the station on ground  
level tracks. Accommodating both uses concurrently was a unique aspect of this  
early example of intermodal transportation.  
The station's notable interior includes the grand waiting area, with its  
highly decorated coffered ceiling, finely veined marble wainscoting and an  
impressive trio of east-facing arched windows.  
Architect Jarvis Hunt (1859-1941) was based in Chicago and carried out  
numerous train station commissions for Southern Pacific during his 30-year  career. 
 
At the time of the 1989 earthquake, the venerable station (which received  
landmark designation from the Oakland City Council in 1983) served customers  
riding Amtrak trains. Earthquake damage to the structure caused the building to  
be closed, while a new station, dedicated to labor leader C.L. Dellums, near  
Jack London Square, was subsequently built.  
Several years would pass before plans for the land surrounding the shuttered  
station would receive the necessary City Council approvals for redevelopment. 
 Currently under way is construction of 1,000 units of market rate housing by 
 Rick Holliday, of Emeryville-based Holliday Development and BRIDGE Housing 
Inc.,  affordable housing specialists. It is expected that the soon-to-be 
restored  station will be used as a community center and a museum honoring the 
legacy of  the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, formerly led by C.L. Dellums, 
whose  nephew is Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums.  
Tour-goers today also may visit the Victorian-style home of the late West  
Oakland activist Lillian Love who successfully challenged the "slum clearance"  
and public-housing approach of urban renewal, starting in the 1960s. Love and  
her co-activists secured a $15 million grant from the federal government to  
rehabilitate other Victorians in the Oak Center neighborhood, which has since  
been designated a historic district.  
Love's successful approach - stressing restoration rather than demolition in  
her neighborhood - marked a turning point in the preservation of Oakland's  
historic buildings.





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