By Richard L. Wren
Oakland Technical High School, 1943
Award winning author
Piedmont Avenue has changed since 1935. Macarthur Boulevard was then Moss Avenue. Starting from that point, this is what I remember as a 9-year-old boy.
The bar on the corner of Piedmont and Moss Avenue was there, a Standard Oil (or Shell) service station was across the street. A few stores were on the right side and Plymouth Congregational Church, a large 2 story red brick imposing structure, was on the left side where Kaiser now sits. Its property extended from Piedmont Avenue to Howe Street and was comprised of two buildings. In front was the church’s social center. It held a basketball court size hall used for various entertainment activities such as dancing, town halls etc. Both my Cub Scout and my troop 51 boy scouts held their meetings there. The minister’s office overlooked Piedmont Avenue and there was an upstairs balcony overlooking the social hall. Downstairs were more meeting rooms and two full size bowling alleys.
Behind that building and reached by a red brick walkway was the church proper. Even larger than the front building, it was cavernous. At least to me. It probably seated at least 500 and maybe as many as a thousand. A large balcony held even more. Additionally, there were many rooms where Sunday School classes were held. It was very popular and my wife and I were married in it in 1947. The church was eventually moved to Oakland Avenue across from the Rose Garden.
Directly across the street on the corner was a Margaret Burnham chocolate candy store. Adjacent to the church was a large vacant lot running through to Howe Street. Just beyond it were a few stores and a structure with a huge four bladed windmill on it along with the name HIGHTOWER CHIROPRACTER. It’s now a restaurant.
Just across the street and in the block above Montell Ave was the Piedmont Electric Company, now Beaman Electric Inc. On the corner of Monte Vista was a model train hobby store.
Staying on the right side and just above Montell was a small malt shop which featured high school girls serving shakes and cones. I don’t know if it was the ice cream or the cute girls working there but it was very popular with twelve or thirteen-year-old boy scouts on the way home after their meeting at the church.
Just past that was Pearson’s Hardware store. I went to Technical High School with their eldest son. Directly across from them was a bank, American Trust (later Wells Fargo). There were holes in the wooden telephone pole in front of the bank that were rumored to be bullet holes from a bank robbery.
Between Pearson’s and the Piedmont Grocery was a Painless Parker dentist office. I’m told that he was the originator of the Painless Parker chain. My mother took me to him and my memory is that it was not painless. The Piedmont Grocery came next. Owned by Herb Sack, it occupied the same space it now does. The greens department was in the front of the store and a very popular Winston’s bakery was on the right side as you entered the store. They also featured a fleet of small vans for home delivery.
I worked there while in high school. First as a courtesy boy, later as a clerk in the vegetable department. During WW2, one of the butchers was Charlie. He was one of a group of midgets living on Piedmont Avenue and had played a major role in The Wizard of Oz. He was the little mayor in a top hat who greeted Dorothy after her house fell on the wicked witch.
On the corner of Glen Avenue just up from the Piedmont Grocery was a pharmacy that had a very popular luncheon counter. Across the avenue from it was a Long’s pharmacy which featured a large liquor department. Next to it was Phil’s men’s store. Across from Phil’s and in the next block up from the Piedmont Grocery was a restaurant which is still there, still serving.
Behind Phil’s men’s store the Key System train from San Francisco, having crossed San Pablo Avenue,Telegraph Avenue and then through a cut in the hill at 40th and Broadway, angled in to its scheduled stop at 41st. street. The stop was covered like a hangar with both ends open, long enough to cover 4 or 5 train cars. Just as now the Key System building came to a point and was referred to as a waiting room. It was not a restaurant but more of a snack bar selling candies, smokes and light food.
On the corner was a red brick obelisk, I think it’s still there.
Once when I was very young, a long flat car was trained in and was parked on a siding at 41st and Piedmont Avenue for several days. The preserved body of a whale shark took up almost the entire length of the car and attracted a large crowd. It seemed huge, but of course I was quite small.
While waiting for the train you could look across 41st street and see the Piedmont Avenue Library. A pretty, white building, it’s still there but no longer a library.
Across 41st on the corner was a barber and bootblack store. Up from it was a Piggly Wiggly grocery store. Up until recently that building housed an antique store. Just across from the grocery was Lerner’s shoe store where all my shoes came from as I grew up.
On the corner of Piedmont and Linda was one of the Lucky’s chain of grocery stores. It was angled just across from the Piedmont Theater. I worked there cleaning the meat market as a young teen-ager. “Norman” managed the meat market and later owned the Golden Bear Market in Berkeley.
The Piedmont Theater looked much the same as it does now but was considerately different on the inside. The balcony was glassed in and semi sound proofed so that nursing mothers were able to attend the movie without bothering others too much. Wednesday nights were dish night. Each patron would receive part of a dish set so that it was possible to end up with a complete set if you went each week.
More important to me were the Saturday afternoon matinees for a dime! They were double features filled with cowboys and Flash Gordon among others. Years later at age 13 or 14 and under the same Piedmont Theater marquee, I received my 4 AM quota of Sunday edition Oakland Tribunes to deliver by bicycle.
A short distance up and across the Avenue was St. Leo’s Catholic Church. The building that now houses Fenton’s was then a Safeway store. Fenton’s was originally located exactly where the Post Office on 41st. now sits. Across from the Safeway store was a Post Office. Interesting fact: Fenton’s moved from 41st to Piedmont Ave. and the Post Office moved from Piedmont Avenue to the site of the old Fenton’s on 41st.
Just past the Post Office was a meat market. “Tell the butcher you want a half pound of round steak first before you tell him want it ground” were the explicit instructions my mother gave to me.
Crossing the street once again you found Teds. Aaaah Teds. A place of dreams for a kid. Lots of penny candy, soft drinks and Gedunks, (a donut with its hole filled with a scoop of ice cream and covered with chocolate sauce.) A nickel for candy and the ten-cent matinee at the Piedmont made a perfect Saturday afternoon.
Ted and Howard owned and ran the store. Ted was also my cub scout troop leader.
As you crossed Echo, you could not have missed Piedmont Avenue Elementary School. It was a large, spectacular three-story Victorian style building entirely shingled in wood. The basement was half below ground level with 2 stories of class rooms above it. Consequently, the first level of classrooms was reached by about a dozen steps up to the front door. The roof was very stylistically domed. I went there from kindergarten through the sixth grade. In 1938 it was set afire and totally destroyed, presumably by arsonists. My father and I lived close enough so that we could walk over and watch it burn. (I can still remember the janitors pushing large oiled mops along the wood floors of the building, no wonder it burned so readily.)
Across from the school were several small victorian style homes. Jackie Jensen of University of California and New York Yankees fame grew up in one of them. He and I used to go to Saturday matinees together.
Just beyond the school was a large gate followed by a stone fence almost all the way to Brandon street. Behind that gate was the private driveway to the Hume* estate, not visible to anyone walking up Piedmont Ave. On the corner of Brandon was a stone yard full of graveyard headstone size hunks of granite. Across the street was Piedmont Fuel and Feed with doors large enough to let trucks in.
Gleneden street was a date tree orchard, part of the private estate.
As Brandon street curved away from the Avenue so did the Key System tracks. They went onto a berm alongside Brandon street and then on up into Piedmont. If you drove down Brandon street to where it started uphill you would see 2 large stone markers which marked the formal entrance to the private estate. Just above Piedmont Fuel and Feed was Tom’s Grocery. Tom carried almost anything except meat in his small store.
Next was Pleasant Valley Avenue. Bud’s Bar sat on the corner and still does except it isn’t Bud’s any more, having suffered many name changes. Bud used to buy turkeys from my grandparent’s farm in Watsonville. The flats above the bar were rented to a family who hosted a group that envisioned and helped plan Plymouth Church. A liquor store adjoined Bud’s bar. Several Victorian homes were in a row next. On up the Avenue was the imposing Chapel of the Chimes with Seifert’s Flower shop across on the corner at Ramona. At that time Ramona was a through street. Piedmont Avenue ended at the Cemetery gates.
Richard L. Wren