Homes Beside the Water  

Alameda has always been known as a residential city. Historically this homelike character extended to the shoreline, unlike in Oakland, where the historic waterfront was almost exclusively industrial. Though most shoreline residences in Alameda were built on the south shore, two housing tracts bordered the Estuary tidal canal and San Leandro Bay. The first of these subdivisions, Waterside Terrace, mapped in 1912 and largely developed by the 1920s, curved around the northeast shoreline from High Street, on the tidal canal, to San Leandro Bay. The development included pathways leading to tiny shoreline parks, still in existence but hard to find.

The second development was the Fernside Marina subdivision, extending between the Miller-Sweeny and the High Street bridges. It was laid out in 1938 and was Alameda's last subdivision on the Estuary. The land once formed part of Fernside, the palatial Victorian estate of A. A. Cohen, a prominent attorney who built Alameda's first railroad.

Woodruff Minor
Historian

  "Walk Along the Water"
  © Oakland Museum of California, used with permission.

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