Interview

The following interview was between me and the only other person we walked into (John Wunder) outside an abandoned building that had once been a restaurant.

Me: What do you think of Jack London Square?

John: I live nearby and I used to love this place. It used to be really exciting with a lot of different people coming here just to have a good time and spend a nice day outside. But now less people have been coming and it's sadly becoming more apparent how badly its hurting the square.

Me: So what's left to do around here if most things have lost their attraction?

John: Well I actually just now found out that this place has gone out of business. It was my favorite place to come for lunch so I'm really sad to see it go. One of the things left that still brings people out would probably be the farmers market on Sundays. It's actually a lot of fun. If you want to come back some other time I'd recommend coming for that. Lot of people show up and there's some great stuff to buy.

The History and How it's Changed

The square was initially much more than just a tourist location. At first it began as an industrial center and an import port. This environment became what some call the playground for young oyster pirate Jack London. The location provided much of the inspiration that would later become great works of fiction. The square's success was due to it's location near both the water and the agricultural locations. As time went on railroad lines from both the Central Pacific and the Transcontinental Railroads were built.

During his time here, Jack London spent a lot of time in the Heinold's FIrst and Last Chance Saloon, which is now considered a National Literary Landmark. The saloon was made out of the innards of an old whaling ship and was the meeting ground fro many politicians, sailors, other writers, and artists.

Finally the last landmark is the U.S.S. Potomac. It's origin history is relatively short, serving initially as a Navy vessel in 1936 and was later transformed into the presidents personal yacht. Now it has become a tourist attraction and is used as a cruise ship for visitors.

This hub was at one time a very bustling and exciting place. Now, however; the place feels incredibly empty. Our current economic state has left the square abandoned, many of the stores have gone out of business and the one or two tourst attractions are not enough to keep people interested. The only thing keeping it alive is the water, which is poorly taken care of and serves more as a form of transportation instead of the fishing hub that it used to be. It's sad and disappointing to see how far this once proud area has fallen.

Contrary to Expectations

Before I even start talking about what we did there I just want to say it was cold! I should have probably dressed in something heavier than a sweatshirt considering its right next to the water but that aside i was dying. Regardless we sucked it up and pushed on. The first thing we did was find the history walk. The intent was to vaguely follow it, but for the most part we were going to explore and see if we could find anything interesting that would stand out aside from the normal tourist spots. However; there was nowhere to go aside from the history walk. It literally just went straight through the port. What was interesting was checking out the Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon, where Jack wrote some of his most well renowned novels. The saloon was incredibly small and we sadly couldn't go in because of the age limit, but there was some interesting writing on the outside.

Right beside the saloon was the cabin that Jack London resided in while living in the Yukon. The history of the cabin doesn't really pertain to the port but it is interesting how the cabin got there. It had to be disassembled after his death and reconstructed at the square at a later date. Also it was nice to see a place that he had lived in for a short amount of time. It allowed you to get a better idea of what his life had been like. Right next to the cabin was a statue of a dog, which was definitely an animal that was considered very common across some of Jack London's novels.

Across the way there were the docks, the only busy part of the entire location. What was nice was being able to look at and see what Jack London had seen. It was definitely beautiful but i wonder what it would have looked like during his time and through his eyes. What had he seen that grabbed him in such a way to create the pieces he did? Aside from the water what stood out was the Potomac, F.D.R.'s personal yacht that he had during his presidency. I'll go a bit more into the history of it later. It was clear that the main source of income for Jack London Square was still linked to the ocean instead of to tourism, which used to be an equally large part of their income. Which lead me to believe that the water would be taken better care of. Some docks looked disgusting.

One of the things that did catch my eye was how they marked the history walk. It was through wolf tracks and each mark was dedicated to someone and had some short sentence to immortalize a single moment or idea.

Sadly that was about it that stood out in Jack London Square. I had been there once with my dad as a kid, but the square that we had returned to was vastly different. Almost every single store had gone out of business and the surrounding are was incredibly poorly taken care of. 

The only places that survived were the ones that were much more high end and even they looked like they weren't having the best time business wise. After about an hour and a half we had seen everything that Jack London Square had left to offer.

Getting to Jack London Square

I've always been a big fan of Jack London's writing style ever since I read Call of the Wild as a younger kid. Because of this I've wanted to go to Jack London Square to see if I could get a better understanding of how he got his start and where he got his inspirations. I heard there was a history walk that highlighted some locations where he created some of his most famous stories. It began at a saloon and went through places like his small cabin that he lived in in the Yukon.

The trip to the Square was relatively painless. It started at around 3:00 when I picked up my girlfriend from Alamo. From there we got on highway I-680 heading North; followed by a simple merge onto 24. The drive only takes about a half an hour and the only part I got lost at was when you have to exit at Jackson St. After circling the area for a bit we finally stopped in what felt like a really run down part of Oakland.

We followed the directions from there on foot. What was odd was how empty the place felt. It was a Friday afternoon and apparently this was told to be a pretty happening place. But form what we could tell, we had walked into a modern day ghost town. I had expected to find some interesting things that i hadn't known about Jack London and possibly about the famous port, which was responsible at some point for the success of Oakland. Instead what we found was a large and empty disappointment.