The 9th Avenue Terminal is one of my favorite buildings along the Oakland waterfront, so I often end up taking pictures of it from different vantage points as I find them. The building has been underutilized for most of its existence, because it was built just before shipping containers revolutionized the industry half a century ago, and it’s an unsuitable structure in a part of the harbor that can’t accommodate large cargo ships—literally the wrong building in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Sadly, if the city ever manages to develop the stagnant and moldering stretch of waterfront from Jack London Square to Brooklyn Basin (a project I support with some reservations), the enormous building will likely be turned into little more than a facade. That’s a shame, and there is a movement (possibly quixotic and doomed, but that is my favorite kind of movement) to find alternative uses for the entire structure.
One of these days I’ll figure out how to hold a camera straight, so that the Transamerica Pyramid in the distance doesn’t keep resembling the Leaning Tower of San Francisco in my photos.
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