Hayward Scenes

Years ago, I did a painting of a view of Mission Blvd. in Hayward that I liked. That gave me the idea of doing a series of paintings of downtown Hayward. To anyone familiar with the city, this would probably seem like a pretty strange idea. Hayward is a very ordinary working-class town with few interesting landmarks and lots of ugly streets and buildings. But I've lived in it for 38 years and I've become rather attached to it. I like that it is so unpretentious and so typical of lots of American towns.

Here is Mission Blvd. near the Hayward Plunge, painted in 2000. The Giant Burger recently changed ownership and it has been fixed up, but it still looks much the same.

This is the Hayward City Hall on a Cinco de Mayo around 14 years ago. Just to the right of this scene there was a stage set up and young girls and boys in colorful costumes doing traditional dances. Actually Hayward has three city halls. One was built probably in the 30's on Mission Blvd. and lies directly on the Hayward fault. It is still standing, but unused. Another was built in the 60's on Foothill Blvd., a 10-story building that has been sitting empty for years after it was discovered that it was also near the fault and not earthquake safe. The current City Hall, built in the late 90's, is also near the fault, but hopefully was built to be strong enough to survive a quake.

This is the first of my more recent paintings. The Bistro, on the corner of B Street and Main, is just about the only place in town for any kind of night life with live music. It is part of the Green Shutter Hotel building. This is in the older part of downtown that has more of an urban character than the rest of Hayward.

All Saints church, at the corner of Second and D Streets, is a beautiful 100-year-old building that stands out on a hill above the downtown area. I see it as a symbol of the large Catholic presence in the city, with the history of Portuguese settlement and its big Mexican-American population.

The corner of Foothill and A Streets marks the center of downtown Hayward, as is clearly indicated by the new sign structures that now arch over Foothill. For as long as I've lived in Hayward, the city has been trying to revitalize the downtown area, which kind of went downhill years ago when shopping malls across town began to be more attractive to shoppers. Revitalization has had limited success, although there are recent signs of improvement. There is still not a lot going on downtown that would make anyone want to hang out there. I enjoyed the challenge of lots of detail in these paintings, and plan to do more one of these days.