This weekend I was holding a home open for Aireen V. Choy in East Oakland on 108th Avenue. From the front porch of this home you could clearly see up into the hills behind Foothill Square shopping center the Oakland Zoo. Several times I saw the little train travel it's tracks around the zoo. It got me nostalgic about my childhood visits to the zoo.
I remember on hot summer afternoons when I was a kid growing up in San Leandro's "The Broadmoor" neighborhood being able to hear some of the animals from the Oakland Zoo.
On a very good day, you could hear the lions and tigers roar, but that was rare. Just about everyday you'd be able to hear the monkey "ewww ewww ewww ewww ahhh AHHH AHHH AHHH" It was kind of neat to hear jungle sounds from right down here on Superior Avenue.
I remember going to the zoo as a child. I remember the innovative monkey cage with the spiraling walkway that circled around the enclosure. I remember going to the petting zoo and being able to pet the tamed animals. My favorites were the elephants, Tigers and Lions. The Giraffe's by far had the best enclosure being big and open for them to roam around in their own Savannah like environment. The Zoo and Park are just down the street from me.
I remember for me the absolute favorite was the little amusements that they had near the entrance and the parking lot. They had the little streamliner train that travelled around that circular monkey enclosure and out along the hillside overlooking Interstate 580 and parts of East Oakland and "The Broadmoor" in San Leandro. The skyride chair lift to the top of the hill gave a view a flat-land child like me could only dream of. It was so much fun to ride all the way up to the of the 300 foot tall hill (which seemed like a mountain at the time) . The ride was exciting because it would gently glide over knolls and valleys making the terrain rise and fall beneath the riders.
I just found out that the cool art deco streamliner train was a remnant of the 1939 Treasure Island World's Fair.
The zoo and Knowland State Park were built on what was the Northern most portion of the Dunsmuir Historic Estate Property. Actually, that property pre-dates Dunsmuir and goes back to the Thompkins Horse Ranch and the Souther Farms. The Dunsmuir's were the ones who sold off that Northern portion of the property.
The Zoo is located just off of Interstate 580 at the Golf Links Road exit in Knowland State Park.
