The Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group thought their luck had run out last week. Forecasts called for heavy rain just as they were set to start their walk, and yet, as they like to say, it never rains on Wednesday mornings in Piedmont. True to form, the skies stayed dry. Twenty-seven walkers and two loyal K-9 companions gathered at the Exedra under gray clouds and a brisk breeze.
The group welcomed a special visitor, Aliza Kazmi, Director of Community Partnerships for Alameda County Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas. Kazmi had heard about Walking on Wednesdays and came to experience it firsthand. After introductions, she shared updates on the supervisor’s work around housing, food insecurity, and immigration — and joined the walk herself.
Originally, the group had planned to check on the City’s first bioswale at Fairview and Grand, which they’d last visited during a storm. But with no rain in sight, plans shifted. A story in that morning’s Piedmont Post mentioned a new plaque marking the 2024 planting of an Island Oak at the Mountain/Bellevue Circle. The oak replaced the city’s original Holiday Tree, a giant sequoia that once lit Piedmont winters until World War II blackout precautions ended the tradition. Removed in 2023 after it began to topple, the tree had stood for nearly a century.
Curious to see the new plaque, the walkers headed up Mountain Avenue. Along the way, they admired a life-size statue of a greenish gentleman clad in leaves and noted an unusual telephone pole fashioned from a dead tree trunk. But when they reached the circle, the plaque was nowhere to be found. Later, City Parks and Project Manager Nancy Kent confirmed it was simply hidden under a traffic cone — safe, if not yet on display.
With time and dry skies to spare, the group continued along Sea View Avenue, where the story of early Piedmont philanthropist Wallace Alexander came up. His estate, “Brown Gables,” once stretched from what’s now 87 Sea View to Hampton Avenue. After Alexander’s death in 1939, his widow honored his wish to tear down the mansion so the land could be divided into family lots. That’s why homes in the middle of the block look newer than the grand old houses nearby.
The walkers followed Hampton Road to Crocker Park, home to Benny Bufano’s Bear and Nursing Cubs sculpture. The Italian-born Modernist’s two-and-a-half-ton granite bear, one of 25, has stood there since 1980, joining works by Bufano now held in major museums across the country.
The group finished their walk with a stop at the home of sculptor Jeremy Bo Droga and his wife, Marie-Elise. Their historic Albert Farr–designed home was completed just before the 1906 earthquake. In 2023, the Drogas gave the walkers a tour of their newly completed garage — a soaring, light-filled space with room for six cars, a spiral staircase to a rooftop garden, and drought-tolerant landscaping.
Returning to the city center via Wildwood, Sheridan, and Highland avenues, the walkers reflected on how a day that began with storm warnings turned into a dry, improvisational tour of art, architecture, and history — the kind of walk that makes Wednesdays in Piedmont feel special.
Walking on Wednesdays meets at 10:30 a.m. at the Exedra, corner of Highland and Magnolia. Everyone, including friendly dogs, is welcome. To register, visit tinyurl.com/3ethkehu or call (510) 420-3070.
