Last Wednesday was a beautiful, sunny, late fall morning. During 2024 our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group hadn’t gotten to Olive Avenue, tucked away on the southwest side of town, so Olive was our morning’s destination. Along the way, there was some Key System train history on Fairview Avenue to be shared too. Forty-two walkers and two K-9 best friends were at the Exedra to enjoy it all.
Before we got started, thanks were expressed to Jim Kellogg who led the previous week’s Thanksgiving Eve walk in my absence. It was also noted that the holidays were upon us and Christmas and New Years are on Wednesdays this year. We walk every Wednesday, rain or shine, so for those walkers wanting a morning stroll on those happy holidays we will be assembling at our same 10:30 AM time and same Exedra place. Additionally, we will walk to Zachary’s Pizza on Grand Avenue for our traditional holiday lunch on December 18th. Finally, for movie buffs, it was announced that the Recreation Department’s 2nd Thursdays Flix Fest next movie will be on December 12th at 1 PM at 801 Magnolia/the Piedmont Center for the Arts. The film will be the 1953 romantic comedy classic Roman Holiday that stars Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.
We headed down Magnolia Avenue to Jerome Avenue and went across it to Fairview Avenue. We went down Fairview and stopped in front of a Victorian home built in 1896 on the upper side of the street, and some Key System history was told.
The system began service in 1903 in Berkeley and in 1904 in what was to become the City of Piedmont. The No. 12 Line was originally called the “Grand Avenue & Hollis Street Line.” At its fullest it went along a set of Oakland and Piedmont streets and avenues, including Oakland, Fairview, Grand, Webster, 14th, Market, 24th, Adeline, 32nd, and Hollis to Yerba Buena.
This line began on Grand and Wildwood Avenues, at Piedmont’s boundary, as a shuttle to Perry Street near where Oakland Avenue and the MacArthur Freeway are today. The line connected there with the Lakeshore Avenue line cars. The end of the line was extended from Grand up Fairview in 1915. The route had a few name changes over the years, but in 1928 its name was finalized as the “No. 12” line. However, on June 27, 1948 the No. 12 Grand Avenue streetcar service was abandoned, and buses replaced the service.
We walked down Fairview past a long street median that was once a Key System right-of-way. We crossed Grand Avenue and climbed up Sunnyside Avenue. Olive Avenue is the first left, but somehow I missed it. Matt Gerhardt checked his phone and an about face back to Olive was made. We made our way up Olive enjoying many front yard gardens. At a sharp right is the Piedmont/Oakland city line, and Olive goes along the top edge of the hidden Morcom Rose Garden below. The garden is in a 7.5-acre, natural bowl in Oakland, but when the City of Oakland purchased the site in 1911 the best park entrance was through land in Piedmont. The Piedmont City Council joined the effort to create the park by acquiring Piedmont lots at the southern corner of Olive and Oakland Avenues.
We went up Olive and passed a garage that is decorated as a bar with a sign proclaiming it to be “Tom’s Tavern Steak House.” On a past walk of Olive, we met the owner who makes wine in the garage. Unfortunately, he was not there on this day to provide a wine tasting.
We came to Oakland Avenue and could have continued on Olive, but time was getting short to get back to the Exedra by noon, so we went down Oakland. We crossed the Oakland Avenue Bridge that Albert Farr designed in 1910 as a significant entrance to Piedmont. The bridge replaced a wood trestle that was built in 1890 for the cable cars that served what was to become Piedmont. Farr used the same Spanish design that he had used for the Piedmont City Hall. The bridge was built in 1911 with reinforced concrete, and has architectural motifs such as steep walls and overhangs which were once used to prevent entry into medieval fortresses. This concrete arch bridge over Linda Avenue has a 160-foot arch span and a total length of 343 feet. The relatively new lampposts and lights make the bridge a lovely entrance to the city, and guardrails make it safer for walkers. The guardrails project was part of a plan that was adopted by the City Council in 2014.
We went down and then up Oakland Avenue, and across Grand Avenue to Arbor Drive. We walked to and around Arbor Circle and found a hidden, 110-foot path between # 112 and # 116 that took us up to MacKinnon Place and Magnolia Avenue for a just a little after noon return to the Exedra.