Every week I ride BART from Oakland to Fremont, where the Tri-City Voice office is located, observing the change in landscape from town to town. For the first few stops, like most everyone else on the train, I’m on my smartphone immersed in the flurry of digital work. But around the San Leandro stop, things get interesting. I put my phone down to witness signs of IRL human activity.
I admire the 55-foot sculpture of a woman—seemingly mid-dance—at the San Leandro Tech Campus, next to the station. Artist Marco Cochrane made the “Truth is Beauty” work of stainless-steel grid in homage to “the untapped power and positive energy of women in the world.”
As the train rolls past auto body shops and dealerships, I notice a gigantic building with a mural of underwater sea life and vegetables. Curious, I discover that the building houses Lineage, “the world’s largest temperature-controlled warehousing real estate investment trust.” Essentially it’s a cold storage facility that handles food supply distribution.
More industrial buildings fill my view, soon replaced by the brown roofs of houses and duplexes. Rarely do I see people outside of their homes or in their yards, but I spot signs of life nonetheless: clothes drying on a line, a faded American flag flapping in the wind, plastic reindeer pulling a red sleigh.
After Bay Fair, I notice more graffiti on the wall facing the BART line. Closer to Hayward I see parks and schools with multiple sports fields. On the opposite side of the train, neighborhoods display manicured lawns, citrus trees, and a surprising number of backyard trampolines.
Further on, I catch a glimpse of the Hayward Community Garden. Delighted by its presence, I learn that the 5.3 acres are leased by PG&E to the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District, the largest independent park and recreation special district in the State of California.
Tents begin to appear beside the tracks toward South Hayward, separated by a colorfully ‘tagged’ wall from multi-story houses; on the other side of the BART rail, the immaculate rolling green slopes of the Mission Hills Golf Course materialize. The landscape shifts dramatically to the blue BART Central Warehouse and various tracks of non-operating BART cars, which looks like a scene from one of the many post-apocalyptic series I watched last summer.
A parking lot full of Amazon Prime vans awaits the holiday season. Just past that, at an encampment with an RV and couches, a man plays catch with two dogs. Houses quickly become apartment complexes as we speed along.
After Union City, yards get bigger and there are more trees. Just past the Purple Lotus Temple, the verdant waterfront of Quarry Lakes Regional Recreation Area never fails to delight. I take my phone back out to snap a picture.
Samantha Campos is the editor of Tri-City Voice, East Bay Express and East Bay Magazine.
