The Homes BART Tore Apart

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2024

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Back in the early 1960’s, when BART was just a sketch on a map, planners with the young transit agency had a task in front of them. BART had to acquire some 2,200 parcels of land in order to build the future transportation system in the Bay Area. In this week's episode, Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman explores what happened next, and how decades later, memories of the homes and communities that were destroyed remain strong. Additional Reading: When BART Was Built, People — and Houses — Had to Go Read the transcript for this episode Sign up for our newsletter Enter our Sierra Nevada Brewing Company monthly trivia contest $1.99 e-book deal available at: Amazon. Apple. Barnes & Noble. Google Play. Kobo. Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts This story was reported by Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman. This episode of Bay Curious was made by Katrina Schwartz, Olivia Allen-Price, Pauline Bartolone and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Tamuna Chkareuli, Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Joshua Ling, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED family.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From K-QED.
0:06.0	Joanne D.
0:07.0	Joanne Dichter points at the grassy median, dividing the six lanes of Martin Luther King
0:12.0	Junior Way in North Oakland,
0:14.0	an elevated Bart Track towers overhead.
0:17.0	I guess my grandmother's house was right here on the tracks.
0:22.0	Johann's grandparents... right here on the tracks.
0:23.9	Johan's grandparents, Vito, and Elizabeth Campolongo
0:27.4	were immigrants from Italy.
0:29.2	They loved their home on what was then 59th
0:32.3	and Grove Street in Oakland.
0:34.0	Grove is Martin Luther King Jr. way these days.
0:38.0	They kept the house full of family, friends,
0:41.0	and as is the Italian way good food.
0:44.0	So she had this great kitchen downstairs where she made her ravioli.
0:49.0	She made her sausages with her women friends.
0:52.0	They'd come over and all day they'd make
0:53.7	sausages down there. And Vido grew food in their backyard. A garden, this master gardener
0:59.3	with this beautiful extensive garden that he used to cook these delicious Italian meals. This was a happy time, but it didn't last.
1:07.2	By the time Chauhan was a teenager in the early 60s, one topic started to dominate their family dinners.
1:13.6	I remember, you know, be sitting at the table and they'd say, you know, they're going to take my
1:18.0	house, they say, we have to sell it and we have to leave everything here and you know, they just were devastated.
	...

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