I went out with a group to explore and photograph the old 16th Street Station in West Oakland. It is such a cool building with a really cool history and it is sad to see it in such disrepair. We lived over in West Oakland for a long time and I used to go over that way to take trampoline lessons.
old postcard of West Oakland 16th Street Station
The station was operating up until the 1989 earthquake and was the end of the transcontinental railroad. It was built in 1912 by the Southern Pacific Railroad with the architect Jarvis Hunt in the Beaux Arts style. It’s so fancy! I love it. And I love how dilapidated it is now even though it is also sad to see it that way. Like, why is this not a building being used for stuff! It has been used for a few things like I’m pretty sure there was an opera preformed there and some other arty things. I’m assuming it is because of earthquake safety.
This is going to be another image heavy post. It was so much fun to prowl around this building and the grounds!
So much neat graffiti.
And then I love to see nature intruding in all the cracks and crevices. Why is it that humans find post apocalyptic, overgrown old industrial sites so fascinating?
I was also excited to see that the surrounding land was being used by an urban flower form to cultivate cut flowers! It is called Wow Farm Flowers and the I think they got a grant to help prep the site and the Oakland Zoo provided soil. How cool is that!?
