Introducing Glenview

The original idea behind my walking project was to get to know parts of Oakland that I knew very little about. I’m definitely still interested in that, but right now, I’m taking a little bit of a break by exploring the Glenview neighborhood. This area is not far from where I live, so I do know it a little already.

Glenview has the distinction of being the last neighborhood I will be able to walk to. Any other unexplored neighborhoods are far enough away that by the time I walk to them, that will be my exercise for the day. So soon I will be in the odd position of always having to drive to take a walk.

Not too soon, I hope. I’m afraid that driving to exercise will make me irreformably Californian.

I’ll Come Back Later

Another thing the guard told me is that the whole eastern side of the base is going to be bulldozed, and that a car dealership plaza will be constructed in the area that is already torn up and covered in gravel. So one day I probably will be able to walk around the old Army base again. It just won’t look anything like it does now.

Not-So-Warm Welcome

Here’s the funny thing, though: Actually, you’re not particularly welcome. In fact, I got kicked off recently.

The guard was nice enough. I think he was just surprised to see a walker meandering between the warehouses. He wanted to know if I’d “come off a truck.” I wondered for a second if he thought I was part of a human smuggling operation, but I think he just wondered if I were a truck driver, because those are about the only people around the base during the day.

The guard politely informed me that the base is private property, and I politely offered to leave, since I was done for the day anyway.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t entirely done with the base. There are still a few streets I haven’t been on yet. One doesn’t seem to exist anymore—it’s under a parking lot now. A couple more may not exist—if they do, they’re buried under a mountain of construction-site debris, and in any case are in the private area. Two more short streets are outside the area marked “private,” but they seem to lead to a truck loading zone and you have to go past a guard post to get to them. I don’t think I’ll be walking on them, either. I did say I wouldn’t trespass, so I appear to be done with the Oakland Army Base, and with it, West Oakland in general. I’ll miss the area, even the base, which was a little desolate, but full of history.

Spoke too Soon

I may be happily wrong about the supposedly abandoned train engine I saw last week. The Oakland Terminal Railway is still a going concern, operating on about 10 miles of track in West Oakland. It’s a switching line, owned jointly by Union Pacific and the Santa Fe Railroad. The headquarters are right on Engineer Street. So this little engine may still find work now and then.

The Little Engine That Couldn’t

Some days it’s hard to think of a title for my blog entry. Other days, the title’s easy, but I don’t really know where to go from there.

This is one of those days.

I took this picture on scenic (not really) Engineer Street, which goes past the wastewater treatment plant. This sad little engine appears to have found its final depot here, hard by an Army Reserve center and a giant empty lot. I don’t think the tracks in this area are even functional anymore. The Army base region is criss-crossed with them, and Amtrak still goes through West Oakland on its way to Jack London Square and Emeryville, but I think this particular engine has whistled its last. I hope I’m wrong, though. What’s more lonely than a train without a destination?

Where the Names Have No Streets

The Oakland Army Base doesn’t have enough abandoned buildings left that you could call it a ghost town. But here’s one thing it does have: ghost streets.

I don’t know how long it’s been since A Street was a real thoroughfare, and I can only guess where it originally went. There’s a freeway on top of it now.