Where on San Pablo?

shipyards in Richmond – world famous for manufacturing wartime ships at a furious clip.

Avalon’s parking lot was actually tracks for the Key Route F train and the garden was a station stop. According to one of the Museum historians, the Avalon parking lot is still under a 75-year lease to AC Transit and is not owned by EBALDC, Avalon’s management company.

Within the next decade or so, San Pablo Avenue is slated for a major design overhaul reducing car lanes to one each way, focusing instead on lanes for public buses, biking and personal transport devices like e-scooters. Considering the adage, “what’s old is new again,” one wonders if the current day Avalon car parking lot could one day become a commuter thoroughfare once again. TBD.

Special thanks to:

Gene Anderson, Author, Oakland Wiki and Legendary Locals of Oakland

David Peters, WOCAN

Allan Fisher and Ron Hook, Historians, Western Railway Museum

Jean Banks, Resident, Avalon Senior Residence

Greyhound Bus Stop

What happened to our means of transporation?

by Annette Miller

The green San Pablo Station building on the right is the current site of The Avalon Senior Residence in Emeryville. The train is running right through Avalon’s parking lot and garden. Note the ladies’ long dresses. Are those men wearing top hats? The wooden building to the left became the Bank of America building around 1912. (Photo in 1906 in Jeff Moreau collection from negative 82634 at Western Railway Museum. Colored by Tim Lane in 2015.)

Greyhound: what happened? Who dropped the ball to allow Greyhound to up and move to outside of West Oakland BART station? The only means for low income folks to get from state to state. There is no station. No one to talk to.

The Hotel Ritz (left) and what was the American Trust Co. (right) at the current site of EBALDC’s Avalon Senior Residence on San Pablo Avenue in Emeryville, CA. A northbound No. 2 Shipyard Railway Shuttle Car 271 (foreground) used to ferry workers from the southern terminus in Emeryville to the Richmond Shipyards during WWII. (Arthur Lloyd photo January 10, 1945; Photo courtesy Western Railway Museum where Car 271 is preserved today.)

Above: The now-closed Greyhound Station. Below: The new Greyhound stop

Photos by: Keith Arivnwine

Who allowed this to happen? Does it mater to you? Get involved in SPARC to have a say on holding spaces along San Pablo Ave.