Thriving in the waterway between the Oakland International Airport and Alameda for over 40 years, the infamous Watermelon rock remains as bright and juicy as ever. Mysteriously maintained and repainted before the colors can ever fade, this beloved slab of concrete is a fixture of the otherwise anonymous stretch of industrial wasteland.
It didn’t begin life as a melon, though. One fateful summer day in the early 80’s, someone called to complain that the quirky painted rock ruined the natural beauty of the shoreline. The park district’s solution wasn’t to remove it, but paint it black instead.
Setting off a chain reaction alongside outrage among artists, shortly after, it morphed into various citrus fruits, from a lemon to an orange wedge, before returning to it’s previous watermelon glory.
Watermelon Rock
Doolittle Dr.
Oakland, CA 94621
