Coordinates: 37°48′56″N 122°17′48″W / 37.815582°N 122.296758°W / 37.815582; -122.296758
The 16th Street Station is one of three original train stations that served Oakland, California at the start of the 20th century. The building was designed by architect Jarvis Hunt who was a preeminent train station architect at that time and the facility opened in 1912. For many decades, the 16th Street Station was a major railroad station of the Southern Pacific railroad in Oakland as well as local commuter services such as the East Bay Electric Lines via elevated platforms. It was a companion (or "city station") for the Oakland Terminal, which was located two miles away on the Oakland Pier. The Terminal, also known as the "Mole", was demolished in 1960, leaving the 16th Street Station as the major Oakland rail hub. It suffered significant damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and was closed. Its railroad function has since been replaced by the major Amtrak station in nearby Emeryville. Amtrak service ended on August 5, 1994.
The station is located in West Oakland at 16th and Wood Streets, adjacent to and visible from the Interstate 880 connector ramps of the MacArthur Maze. The station buildings remain, largely intact, including the switchman's tower and ironwork elevated platforms which, before the completion of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge, were utilized by commuter trains of SP's East Bay Electric Lines.
The station was purchased in 2005 by BUILD, an affiliate of BRIDGE Housing. It is being restored as part of a local redevelopment project and will not be used as a railroad station again. The tracks of the Southern Pacific (now Union Pacific) main line were moved westward in the 1990s and today run on the other side of I-880, leaving the station isolated.
The station was used in films such as Funny Lady and Hemingway & Gellhorn.
The original 16th Street depot was a smaller wood structure, built at a time when the site was on the shoreline of San Francisco Bay. In the intervening years, the shoreline was filled in and now lies nearly a mile west.
Passenger train access in Oakland is now via the Jack London Square station, the Coliseum station, and the nearby Emeryville station.
Famous quotes containing the words street and/or station:
“If I should go out of church whenever I hear a false statement I could never stay there five minutes. But why come out? The street is as false as the church, and when I get to my house, or to my manners, or to my speech, I have not got away from the lie.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane. It’s all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated in Early Bus Station Restroom.”
—Erma Bombeck (20th century)