Piedmont Avenue (Oakland, California)
Piedmont Avenue (Oakland, California) | |
|---|---|
 A look up Piedmont Avenue | |
 Location in Oakland | |
| Coordinates: 37°49′35″N 122°15′09″W / 37.8264°N 122.2524°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | California |
| County | Alameda |
| City | Oakland |
The Piedmont Avenue neighborhood is a district in North Oakland, California. It is named for Piedmont Avenue, the main commercial street of the district. The neighborhood is bounded by Broadway on the west, Oakland Avenue and City of Piedmont (a separate municipality, an enclave within Oakland) on the east, the Mountain View Cemetery on the north, and the MacArthur Freeway section of Interstate 580 on the south.
The Piedmont Avenue shopping area has provided retail shopping for the town of Piedmont, California, as well as Oakland's own affluent Montclair neighborhood, which along with the city's wealthy Rockridge neighborhood, converge on the north and east borders of the Piedmont Avenue neighborhood. Many restaurants and boutique retailers line the street.
History
The Piedmont Avenue neighborhood was founded in the late 1800s.[1] It was annexed into Oakland in 1897.[2]
Landmarks and features
At the north end of Piedmont Avenue and Pleasant Valley Avenue is the hillside Mountain View Cemetery, which was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and opened in 1863. It is known for Millionaire's Row, a section high on the hill lined with the ornate mausoleums of wealthy families, including those of Domingo Ghirardelli, Henry J. Kaiser, and Charles Crocker. Other notable people buried in the cemetery include civil rights activists Fred Korematsu and Bobby Hutton, poet Ina Coolbrith, and architect Julia Morgan, who also designed the nearby Chapel of the Chimes. The cemetery was featured prominently in the 2018 movie Blindspotting.[3]
Near the center of the Piedmont Avenue commercial strip, at 4021 Piedmont Ave. is another Julia Morgan-designed building, originally built as the Fred C. Turner Stores. This 1916 red brick building hosts both restaurants and retail, and features glazed terra cotta in the style of the della Robbia family.[4]
Next door, at 4037 Piedmont Ave., is the location of the original Longs Drugs store, which opened in 1938.[5] The building currently hosts a Posh Bagel.
Piedmont Avenue also has "the Bay Area's Book Row," with multiple independent bookstores concentrated within a six-block radius;[6] the Piedmont Theatre, which is the oldest still-operating theater in Oakland (built in 1917);[7] and the 1893 ice cream parlor Fentons Creamery, which was featured in Pixar's 2009 movie Up.[8]
At Piedmont Avenue and 41st Street are the Key Route Plaza and what is left of the Key System's C-line terminus station. The former station is an angular building with a clock tower. In 2005, with support from the Piedmont Avenue Neighborhood Improvement League, Rocky Riche-Baird painted a mural recognizing the building's history, including the Key System's founder, Francis Marion Smith. However, the wall holding the mural was controversially destroyed during renovations in 2014. Another of Riche-Baird's murals can be seen on the exterior wall of Gaylord’s Caffe Espresso at 4150 Piedmont Ave.[9]
Kaiser Permanente's flagship hospital campus is located in the southern part of the neighborhood. Nearby is Oak Glen Park, which contains an open-air section of Glen Echo Creek.[10]
Education
- Piedmont Avenue Elementary School of Oakland Unified School District
- The school's campus hosts the Piedmont Avenue Branch of the Oakland Public Library
- St. Leo the Great Catholic School
References
- ^ "Piedmont Avenue | The Piedmont Neighborhood in Oakland, CA". www.visitoakland.com. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
- ^ "PANIL - Neighborhood Chronology". panil.org. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
- ^ "'Blindspotting' is a Spot-On Portrait of an Oakland in Flux". KQED. 2018-07-17. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
- ^ Wurm, Ted (Winter–Spring 1990). "Historic Piedmont Avenue". Oakland Heritage Alliance News. Retrieved 5 September 2018.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date format (link) - ^ "Longs was the last regional chain drugstore". SFGate. 2008-08-14. Retrieved 2018-09-06.
- ^ "Drummond: Oakland's Piedmont Avenue show bookstores' death reports exaggerated". www.marinij.com. Retrieved 2016-02-13.
- ^ https://www.landmarktheatres.com/san-francisco-east-bay/piedmont-theatre/info/
- ^ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/27/DDK517QG6J.DTL
- ^ "Piedmont Avenue: Landmark neighborhood mural is destroyed". East Bay Times. 2014-12-17. Retrieved 2018-09-06.
- ^ "Glen Echo Creek's Parks - Oakland Magazine - July-August 2012 - Oakland, California". www.oaklandmagazine.com. Retrieved 2018-09-05.