Found this browsing a used bookstore. I was particularly struck by a photo of Broadway Avenue in Oakland about a hundred years ago - the street was full of trolleys, no cars in sight, and the sidewalks were packed with people.

On a significant apartment building near Lake Merritt:

"No longer the tallest apartment on the northeast lakeshore, the Bellevue-Staten is monument to an age that produced structures that, due to financial restraints, will not likely be built in this country again." p. 43 ( )