Piedmont Avenue, Oakland, California

The Piedmont Avenue neighborhood is a district in North Oakland, California. It is named for Piedmont Avenue, the main commercial street of the district. The neighborhood is bounded by Broadway on the west, Oakland Avenue and City of Piedmont (a separate municipality, an enclave within Oakland) on the East, the Mountain View Cemetery on the north, and the MacArthur Freeway (Interstate 580) on the south.

Historically, the Piedmont Avenue shopping area has provided retail shopping for the upscale city of Piedmont, California, and many trendy restaurants and boutique retailers line the street.

There are several landmarks in the area. The center of the Piedmont Avenue commercial strip is a Julia Morgan-designed 1916 red brick building, originally built as the Fred C. Turner Stores, which is at the corner of 40th St. and Piedmont Avenue. It now houses several gourmet food merchants. Next door is the location of the original Longs Drugs store, which is now home to a tapas bar.

At the north end of Piedmont Avenue and Pleasant Valley Avenue is the hillside Mountain View Cemetery, which was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and contains the Julia Morgan designed Chapel of the Chimes.

Piedmont Avenue was once the terminus of the Key System's C line, which provided interurban train service to San Francisco until the late 1950s. The station building at 41st Street is still there, but a parking lot now occupies the land where the tracks were. Several AC Transit bus lines now serve the neighborhood.

Kaiser Permanente's flagship hospital is located in the southern part of the neighborhood. Piedmont Avenue Elementary School, located north of the business district, has grades Kindergarten through 5th. Attendance is roughly 350; average class size about 20. Average test scores are somewhat below average for American schools, but have been improving in recent years. The Catholic Church of Saint Leo the Great also operates a school on Piedmont Avenue. A small private school, Park Day also has a middle school campus located on a cross street of Piedmont. [http://www.churchofstleothegreat.org/About.html]

A small park east of Piedmont Avenue contains an open-air section of Glen Echo Creek.

The Piedmont Avenue commercial area features numerous locally-owned small businesses, including shops, bars and restaurants, an independent movie theater, and a many specialty stores. There are several coffee shops, a tea shop, and a number of restaurants with diverse types of food. There is a full-service grocery and several smaller food stores.

External links

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* [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PiedmontAve/ Piedmont Avenue Neighborhood Community List]
* [http://www.panil.org/ Piedmont Avenue Neighborhood Improvement League]
* [http://mondomap.com/mondo/map_ocvb.cfm?bid=22 Interactive Map - Oakland Convention and Visitors Bureau]
* [http://www.sfgate.com/traveler/guide/eastbay/neighborhoods/piedmont.shtml East Bay Neighborhoods: Piedmont Avenue, Oakland] - Guide from the San Francisco Chronicle
* [http://www.mountainviewcemetery.org/ Mountain View Cemetery]
* [http://www.panil.org/creek/index.html Glen Echo Creek]
* [http://www.oaklandnet.com/government/council/coun_mem/brunner/index.html Oakland City Councilmember Jane Brunner, who represents the Piedmont Avenue neighborhood]