Old Oakland is a historic district in downtown

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

. The area is located on the northwest side of Broadway, between the

City Center A city centre is the commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely equivalent terms exist in other languages, such as "" in Fren ...

complex and the

Jack London Square Jack London Square is an entertainment and business destination on the waterfront of Oakland, California, United States. Named after the author Jack London and owned by the Port of Oakland, it is the home of stores, restaurants, hotels, Amtr ...

district, and across Broadway from Chinatown. The Old Oakland district was the "original" downtown Oakland during the 1860s after Central Pacific Railroad constructed a terminus on 7th Street. By the 1870s, elegant brick Victorian hotels were being built in the blocks surrounding the railroad station to accommodate travelers. The ground floor of the hotels were designed as series of narrow shops so that pedestrians would pass by many of them just walking down the block. The architectural styles of the time featured tall, cast-iron columns and large plate-glass windows. The downtown began its decline after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, when the shopping district began moving to the blocks north of 14th. In the 1970s and 1980s developers carefully rehabilitated and restored a block along 9th Street between Washington Street and Broadway, known as "Victorian Row". Notable structures on Victorian Row include the 1878 Nicholl Block building. In its early days, the

Oakland Tribune The ''Oakland Tribune'' is a weekly newspaper published in Oakland, California, by the Bay Area News Group (BANG), a subsidiary of MediaNews Group. Founded in 1874, the ''Tribune'' rose to become an influential daily newspaper. With the declin ...

rented a small office on 9th Street. A sign for the Tribune office can still be seen hanging outside the building today (2007). A

farmer's market A farmers' market (or farmers market according to the AP stylebook, also farmer's market in the Cambridge Dictionary) is a physical retail marketplace intended to sell foods directly by farmers to consumers. Farmers' markets may be indoors or o ...

is also held every Friday on the same stretch of 9th Street. As of 2008, the neighborhood continues to gentrify as a 'downtown lifestyle' district, more bistros and boutiques have cropped-up, as more market-rate condominiums have been constructed nearby, and as

transit-oriented development In urban planning, transit-oriented development (TOD) is a type of urban development that maximizes the amount of residential, business and leisure space within walking distance of public transport. It promotes a symbiotic relationship between ...

retail and housing become more and more in demand
Swan's Market
for example is an indoor-outdoor market and popular gather place for lunch.

References

External links

Old Oakland Historic District Business Association

SOBU - Sustainable Furniture & Design
Neighborhoods in Oakland, California Historic districts in California {{AlamedaCountyCA-geo-stub

See also

References

External links