Mort XIV
Oakland’s 16th Street Station, a former Southern Pacific Palace, on hard times, Oakland’s 16th Street Station, a former Southern Pacific Palace, on hard times, back in 2005. Riki bribed the watchman one cold and rainy night, allowing about 10 photographers and other weirdos to just wander around in awe until about midnight. There’s a chapter on this place in my 2008 book Night Vision. 10 years on, the building’s fate is still in doubt.
This is a very early digital image, never shown before, salvaged with 2015 Photoshop techniques (using the original master PSD file, the RAW file is long gone). Red-gelled strobe on the seating and the rest is from street lights filtering in though the gallery of windows off to the left. Yeah, it was quite a room.
