Cypress Freeway, Oakland California

In a former life, I worked in Oakland California. I drove past the Cypress Freeway everyday, and figured I should take a video of it. Little did I know that this was to be the last time I could.

The freeway was destroyed several weeks later by the Loma Prieta earthquake, killing 50 people, most of them squished between the road surfaces.

Recorded and encoded by sdmedia.net
VHS

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• loma
• prieta
• oakland
• cyrpress
• structure
• drive-by

[fellafella101]

just finished my last essay at university, and it was all about the loma prieta earthquake. the cypress street viaduct collapse definitely gave me lots to write about - its interesting to see what i've been writing about for the last few days while it was still standing. not surprised it collapsed looking at those flimsy pillars that were holding it up! i agree with SFGuy77 about the music - what the fuck is going on there?

[TruSlack]

what can I say? That was what was in my cassette deck at the time. Tomita, if I recall. The intro music to the clip (plays under the first slide) is simply from a AV production package. Looking back, I suppose that was kind of strange stuff to be listening to....

[pimpHO87]

Thank you for this video tape. I've always wanted to see something like this. I just wish I could now find an old video of someone driving on the old Cypress as well as the old Embarcadero Freeway from San Francisco.

[TruSlack]

Back when this tape was made, I shot a complete run of the Cypress from South Oakland to the Toll Plaza for a student film. None of the footage made it into the final project, but I am still hoping to find the raw material...

[JBauer2635]

What exit was that you turned onto the Nimitz?

[TruSlack]

Waaay to long ago to remember. I do know that to the right of the onramp was the post office and the West Oakland BART station. The street I was on (heading east to west) is now MLK.

[sky1beam]

The old Cypress freeway is now a garden

[rcktmanil]

The music sounds to me like a synthesized version of Rachmaninoff's Vocalise. It's a beautiful piece, but creepy in this instance.

[RepoLife]

Wow I also still noticed that the Speed Limit and the "Turn Only" Signs were still Black and White (Black Background/White Lettering).

[JTS11511]

I-880 is the Nimitz Freeway. The (formerly) elevated/double deck section was known as the Cypress Structure. This was done to help idendify the elevated portion of the freeway. It was so named because Cypress St. ran parallel with the double deck section. The collapse section was from the Bay Bridge transiton ramp to about 5th St. 16th St. is way south of the Cypress Structure, and nowhere near the elevated section.

[socalltd]

damage to the 280 was not as bad like the 480 or extreme like on the cypress. so they repaired and retrofited the colums from th 101 up. it took 5 yrs. central fwy did not have any big problems, it was just ugly and finaly knocked in '96 and re-done. i have seen a map of the planned fwys for S.F. things would have been worst if the central, embarcadero, Hwy 1 and a conector fwy from ca1 to the central fwy were built. majoraty would have been doubled decked too.

[Dook6]

Look at I 280 from the 101-interchange in SF they still have a double decker freeway there. I am afraid that the double decker I-280 will fall down the same way Cypress did. If the Central Freeway, and Embarcadero were demolished for this reason why not I-280 from the 101 interchange from SF.

[Dook6]

RIP all who died in Loma Prieta 20 years later

[sicoch]

I lived in the Emeryville Warehouse, not far from the Cypress structure, when the quake hit....

[socalltd]

on oct 3rd, i was there on mandela prkwy. (from los angeles)i drove the entire distance top to bottom and all around the area. found a small memorial park named "15 seconds" its all in the past and now 20 yrs on one would never think why the parkway is like that. very quiet and uncomforting that morning

[thejazzenigma]

Today as I post this message, 10/17/2009, twenty years has gone by since the Earthquake. RIP the victims of this freeways collapse.

Danny

[drewbacsi]

I thought it was called the Nimitz.

[vinnieagogo]

I worked as a teenager at the wrecking yard at 26th & willow right next to the cypress.

I lived there for a while.

Oakland Scavenger used to park their garbage trucks underneath the cypress when their place was on 28th

I've seen that neighborhood change.