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Downtown Oakland Walking Tour
Item 11 of 12
The Alameda County Title Insurance Co. Building is located on the corner of Fourteenth Street and Franklin Street in Oakland. The building was designed by architects McCall & Davis in the Beaux Arts style as an office building and was completed in 1923-1924 by Dinwiddie Construction Company. On the back of the building is the magnificent but faded mural, Mitzvah: The Jewish Cultural Experience.

A shot looking up at the building.

A shot looking up at the building.

A shot of the building from across the street.

A shot of the building from across the street.
The national register of historic places registration form says:

"This building is a seven story Beaux Arts store and office building of steel frame reinforced concrete construction, with a first floor base, a transitional second story, and a five story shaft with articulated end bays. The lower part is clad in rusticated mottled beige terra cotta; the shaft is clad with variegated dark orange brown combed pressed brick. Ornamentation is Romanesque and early Renaissance. The shaft has tall slightly recessed arched bays of paired windows, with straight-headed end bays.  The semicircular bay arches enclose paired semicircular arched windows on the top floor, below a narrow corbeled galvanized iron cornice. 

The storefront at 386 Fourteenth Street has a deep blue glazed tile base and wood paneled inset art glass show windows.  Most of the ground floor is intact; some windows have been replaced.  Plans indicate that the structure was designed to hold five additional stories." 

On June 6, 1995 the building was designated Oakland Landmark #121.
Alameda County Title Insurance Co. Building. Local Wiki. Accessed June 04, 2017. https://localwiki.org/oakland/Alameda_County_Title_Insurance_Co._Building.