San Pablo Avenue being a transit corridor means that San Pablo and its feeder streets are of greater interest to developers than they had been. Funky things on San Pablo are being demolished and pricey apartments for tech workers who can’t find pricey apartments in San Francisco are popping up.

But – I love San Pablo in all its still-messy glory.  The mechanics and auto-body men and used car salesmen and roofers and working class bars and dive bars and burger joints and hot dog joints and discount cigarettes and Albany Bowl in its neon glory and you hear Spanish and Armenian and Farsi and Tagalog and Chinese and Arabic and Hebrew and the workers all know each other and kid each other and they work hard and fix things and get dirty and are outgoing and welcoming and of course there are junkies and tweakers but not so many and the smell of fried chicken and auto body paint and the best Japanese tool store EVER ANYWHERE with a shop cat and with my children I remember the tropical fish store and Mary and Joe’s BEST SPORTING GOODS STORE EVER anywhere with Jinx the shop cat now departed but Jinx was a good cat, and there is Hawaiian barbecue and the crack of the pool ball, neon buzzing’, the telephone’s ringing it’s your second cousin….

Reel it back in,Tom!  Tone it down!

I post here photos of the best San Pablo Avenue signs from the Albany/Berkeley border to the Albany/El Cerrito border.  If you are interested in seeing all 150 signs in that stretch of San Pablo,  you can.  It is not for everyone.  If you one of the few, the proud, the elite obsessed,

My original post had all 150 photos.  A wise and kind little voice said to me “Too many.” I am glad that I listened to that voice.  It never lets me down.

I plan to shoot the signs on San Pablo in Oakland, Emeryville, El Cerrito, Richmond, San Pablo, Pinole, Hercules, Rodeo, and Crockett. That is a lot of Quirky Berkeley rule-breaking by this wandering away from Berkeley but that’s just how much I love San Pablo Avenue.