Piedmont California Photos --It's Spring!

Piedmont Photo Gallery

Welcome to Piedmont in Spring. Each year I'll add photos by season. These are shots of the town's civic center:

Excedra The Excedra near the tot playground in central Piedmont Park is the psychological center of town. The wide stairs behind it form an informal amphitheater for events, while the patio in front is a classic hangout for students just finished with classes at Piedmont High School next door.
Easter Egg Hunt-Piedmont Park Piedmont Park gets heavy use from families, middle school students testing their physics experiments, movie goers at the summer movie series, music lovers at the several free band concerts each year, brides and grooms, and here, from tots hunting for Easter eggs.
Firehouse and City Hall The firehouse (voted the most kid-friendly in the Bay Area recently) and City Hall next door are at the core of town. Their architecture and gardens reflect the town's style and sophistication.
PHS2 Piedmont High School is regularly rated the best public high school in the state. Smaller Millennium High School, next door, offers more flexible curricula carefully tailored to meet the needs of its student body with diverse interests.
PMS and Witter Field Witter Field, redeveloped several years ago, is surrounded by Wildwood Elementary School, Piedmont Middle School, and Piedmont High School. In addition to hosting the schools' soccer, football, track, softball, baseball, and other sports teams, the field is used by once-a-month joggers as well as world class runners. A shady path through the redwood grove links the field area with Piedmont Park.
Piedmont Rec. Dept Housed in a former mansion, the Piedmont Recreation Department organizes after school clay, woodworking, tai kwon doh and other classes; manages the on-site after school programs at the elementary schools; recruits for the middle school team sports; links up with the community's youth sports leagues; and coordinates age-appropriate summer day camps--in addition to evening pick up basketball and summer softball for adults.
Piedmont Pool Piedmont's heated pool, located between the "Rec" and the public tennis courts, carries many lap swimmers through the winter months. Come spring and summer, however, things really heat up with the affordable swimming lessons, swim team, and plain old kid play. The town's public pool is leased to the membership-managed Piedmont Swim Club.

Piedmont California Photos --Winter!

Piedmont Photo Gallery

Friday the 13^th of January in Piedmont:

My Begonia Because our winters are so temperate—I've lived here nearly 10 years and have yet to see a frost—begonias thrive for years, as has this specimen near my front door.
Piedmont Community Church With the church spire in the background, this Tulip Magnolia is in full bloom.
Pruned Roses and Primroses I remember seeing a sea of primroses on the Strand during an early spring in London years ago. Primroses offer dramatic color through our winters.
A Late Agapanthus One of the most common border plants in the area, Agapanthus offer striking blue (and white) spikes of color for about four months of the year. The strappy green leaves contrast nicely with lobed or variegated leaves.
On our Main Street This garden on Highland Avenue exhibits classic plants from Piedmont. Purples and greens predominate—emblematic of our Scottish roots.
West Coast Azalea Our azaleas never lose their leaves, so the springtime flush is less showy than the East Coast variants. On the other hand, azaleas here bloom during two or three seasons, with some preferring shade and others sun.
A Garden Path If you stood near the tree, you'd have a spectacular view of the San Francisco skyline.
Fuchsia Though threatened by a fuchsia mite run rampant in the last decade or so, fuchsias thrive in the ground here. I was bitten by the fuchsia bug while living in Anchorage in the early '80s. There we paid $20 for the nursery to shepherd them through the winter and deliver them over Memorial Day weekend. Here, we can enjoy the species or hybrids throughout the year.
Iris and Lenten Rose Or is it a Christmas Rose?? Both do well here, though the West Coast irises are more drought tolerant than those of the East Coast
Classic Streetscape Another typical steetside planting. So much variety among the greens! Our sycamore trees lose their leaves from December to about March, and then majestically line most streets in town.

Piedmont California Restaurants

Piedmont California Restaurants

These restaurants are all within a couple blocks of the Piedmont line. Of course there are fabulous and well-known restaurants--Chez Panisse, Oliveto, and so on--within a ten-minute drive of Piedmont's boundaries. But these are literally a short evening stroll away!

BayWolf Organized thirty years ago, about the time of Chez Panisse's ascendance, BayWolf is the "other veteran East Bay restaurant with a Mediterranean bent and a democratic, hedonistic soul" says Saveur editor Colman Andrews. Like the owners of several area restaurants, BayWolf's owners produced a thoughtfully organized cookbook a couple years ago. JoJo's, next door, has similar "it's all about the food" roots.
Little Shin Shin Little Shin Shin is a classic neighborhood Chinese joint--in an American sense. Oakland's Chinatown is more authentic than that of San Francisco, so you can find many specializing in various regional cuisines. But as you can see, Little Shin Shin has something extra. (Dopo, an intimate Italian restaurant owned by Chez Panisse alums, is located across the street.)
LoCoco's LoCoco's is run by the hip younger generation of its original owners. Like Little Shin Shin, LoCoco's specializes in the American interpretation of a Italian food, circa 1950. The straight-ahead Spaghetti and Meatballs is to die for.
Gregoire and Cesar Gregoire and Cesar are both offshoots of core elements of Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto, and both have opened to great fanfare on Piedmont Avenue in the past few months. Gregoire offers impeccable take out--great roasted tuna sandwiches with aoli or remoulade--while Cesar specializes in tapas and a very energetic vibe.
Piedmont Grocery It's six thirty and dinner's not ready. What's another take-out option? The newer take out area at the upscale Piedmont Grocery. Hot, cold, comfort food or ethnic specialty, Piedmont Grocery will have something for everyone in the family.
Arizmendi Arizmendi, our cooperatively owned bakery, illustrates the inevitable link between so many East Bay restaurants and Berkeley's "Gourmet Ghetto." Originally organized by the staff of the world-famous Cheese Board, Arizmendi brings its justly famous vegetarian pizza and fabulous baked goods to Lake Merritt's shores. Arizmendi too has produced a slick cookbook.
Mezze Lakeshore Avenue offers burritos, Chinese, ice cream, Italian, crepes, Peets, and more, but Mezze is a special Mediterranean hot spot.
Tree-Lined Streets Of Piedmont And after all that food, it's time to head back to the tree-lined streets of Piedmont.

Kids' Eye View of Piedmont and Montclair

Kids' Eye View of Piedmont and Montclair

Welcome to a Kids' Eye View of Piedmont and Montclair. Piedmont has a tiny commercial district; we travel to Lake Short Drive, Piedmont Avenue, College Avenue and Montclair in Oakland for quick trips and little treats. My 10- and 12-year old sons Corey and Jasper identified these as their favorite summertime haunts:

Awesome Burritos Baja Taqueria on nearby Piedmont Avenue serves great take-out or eat-in burritos, including a range of kids' specials (they come with sodas). What the kids don't know is that on Tuesday evenings the joint converts to Bluegrass Central for the East Bay's informal jam sessions. Sometimes the music spills out to the laundromat next door.
Bonfare Candy Counter the center of Piedmont, especially for those attending Havens Elementary School next door, is the Bonfare Market, and most especially its candy counter. At lunchtime, the deli area is jammed with high school students looking for sandwiches (the counter of the gas station across the street and the nearby stairs to the Piedmont Community Church seem to compete for the best-lunchspot designation for high schoolers).
La Bonbon A quick chocolate treat at La Bonbon is hard to pass up when strolling along Mountain Blvd. in the Montclair District of Oakland, just above the town of Piedmont. Several other chocolate shops have popped up in Montclair and along College Avenue in Berkeley and Oakland.
Coaches Playfield The beginning of soccer season is always a highlight. Coaches Playfield host baseball, soccer, the Boy Scout Council's holiday tree lot, and Piedmont's skateboard park (above the player's heads in the distance).
Dr. Comics and Mr. Games Back on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, Dr. Comics and Mr. Games offers comics of all genres, games, 24-sided dice, Magic cards, and, for the chosen few, the Roleplay Workshop upstairs (see http://www.roleplay-workshop.com/), a locally developed roleplay game.
Fenton's Creamery Still on Piedmont Avenue, near a great Italian restaurant and the bicycle shop is Fenton's Creamery, an East Bay tradition. Owned for generations by Piedmonters, Fenton's suffered a serious fire several years ago, and came back stronger than ever. This month's Myrtle's Creation is every young person's dream treat.
Piedmont Theater Though March of the Penguins has been a big hit with the kids this summer, the Theater's usual fare tends towards independent films and the artier stuff (note that Broken Flowers occupies two of the three screen in the photo). Blockbusters show up at the Grand Lake Theater, just over the border from Piedmont in another direction, or at the many theaters in Emeryville, downtown Oakland and Berkeley.
Music Lessons The Piedmont Piano Company and Harmony Road Music School at the top of Piedmont Avenue offer guitar, piano, saxophone and other music lessons for kids of all ages, along with general music classes for toddlers.
The Malt Shop-Montclair Stuffed with treats more than any other site in this file is The Malt Shop in Montclair, across from Jamba Juice. The shop carries many old–time candies along with an assortment of ice cream flavors and—malts.
The Toy Shop Also in Montclair is the Toy Shop. My sons are just about too old for the Toy Shop's wide variety of offerings, but it's a reliable place for last minute birthday party gifts, when Toys r Us in Emeryvills is just too far to go.