See also: Christmas Lights 2002, Bay Street Architectural Adventure,

Dateline: Bay Street Mall, Emeryville, California, Winter 2003

For days and days the mouth of the Temescal Creek was shrouded in chain-link fence, bordered with concrete and raw, tread-etched mud.  Later, when most of the building was done on the mall, the creek was still shrouded, in tall opaque fences.  Then suddenly one day the fences were all gone and I could see what they had done with the place:

Ahh, Art, thou noble soul.

The creek, which still runs in a concrete channel and hence is nothing at all like the creeks of my youth, is just on the other side of this faux mound.  The faux mound is suspiciously pert, to my way of thinking, but time should take care of that.  Please note the artificial strata in the cut-away of the mound's face.  Strata, I have no problem with.

Indians used to live here. Right here.

But then there is the giant, leaky, reed-woven basket.  As artwork, I really like this thing.  At the same time, I can't help being relieved whoever designed the Mound memorial didn't also design the one at Ground Zero ... who knows what we'd have sticking up out of the ground there.