This mural is located downtown at 11th and Broadway. It was done in 2008 by Rocky Baird, a well known local muralist, who has previously been featured
here and
here. It is 20 x 80 feet long and decorates the building that was once the headquarters to the Key System, an intricate system of trains, trams and buses that ran between San Francisco and the East Bay. The system was closed by 1958 to be replaced by buses and BART. The building was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and has been empty ever since. The mural was sponsored by many organizations including the Oakland Heritage Association.
It remains to be seen when the building will be renovated and used again.
If you like murals or have a mural you'd like to post, this meme's for you. Just follow the Linky steps below. You get to decide what constitutes a mural. Be sure to link back to this blog and visit your fellow posters. Looking forward to the mural finds posted this week. I'm out of town for several days but will do my best to leave comments.
I feel like hopping into one of those trams in your mural.
ReplyDeleteIt's quite realistic looking. Love the bright colors!
ReplyDeleteI always find it sad to see an empty building, as if it has no soul... But the mural does add some life, and this one does tempt me to hop on board the tram!
ReplyDelete[Folks, I'm having a hard time blog posting and hopping with the anonymous proxy that allows me to bust through the China firewall... but I will try my utmost to visit everyone. It took me 40 minutes just to post my link here!]
Like it a lot, the way the steps and people lead up and down from the tram is clever. An interesting style of art too.
ReplyDeletehttp://mancunianwave.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/street-art-big-bird-on-port-street.html
A good civic example.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great mural, it certainly brightens up the wall!
ReplyDeleteThanks for hosting.
The colors are so bright - I love the uses of walls for history or information - wish we had more around my town! I have to find most of mine in other places - because I am always looking! This is a very nice one - the building looks like it was once very ornate. Lets hope it wasn't damaged so much that it begins to fall into disrepair!
ReplyDeletethis looks great. And...nobody destroyed it. :)
ReplyDeleteThe mural is great and I like the contrast to the building details above it.
ReplyDeleteLove this mural, it tells us a lot about city life! ;-)
ReplyDeleteGreat mural. My Mother always talks about using the key system, she would ride between UC Berkeley and nights out on the town in San Francisco. Super to see it remembered in such a great fashion.
ReplyDeleteI got kicked out of my screen as I was auto cropping my image/thumbnail.
ReplyDeleteewok
That is a long time for this building to sit empty - and with each passing year it will only get more and more expensive to fix it up. Good idea to have this wonderful mural on it to remind people of its previous use and importance.
ReplyDeleteWe rode a tram in SF about 10 years ago. (Along with the BART, trolley, bus, boat, and of course, car). I do always like train/tram murals and the street scene is terrific too. Reminds me a bit of "The Afternoon in the Park" figures.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to push publish I think!
ReplyDeleteThis mural is wonderful and so stylized. I hope that it attracts a savior to the building.
This mural looks really great and realistic, I love it!
ReplyDeleteto me the sad thing was a handfull of years ago they did a study and found out that the Key system back then from oakland to the embarcadero in san francisco was faster then bart is now, but the key system was considered slow when it was torn up.
ReplyDeleteThe mural is lovely, but it's sad the building may never be used again. From what we can see in your first photo, it looks like a very beautiful building.
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