Federal Realty Building
About this property
The Cathedral Building (originally named the Federal Realty Building), built in 1914, was the first Gothic Revival style skyscraper west of the Mississippi River, located in Oakland, California. It is also called the "Wedding Cake" for its appearance, which resembles New York's Flatiron Building. Its narrow, triangular form is a result of its location on Latham Square, where Telegraph Avenue branches off diagonally from Broadway. It was designed by architect Benjamin Geer McDougall. It was developed by Brog Properties, a Downtown Oakland development firm who renovated the building for mixed residential and commercial units. In June 2015, the United Nations Foundation commissioned Bay Area street artist Zio Ziegler to create a mural on the Cathedral Building's north-facing wall. The mural commemorates the signing of the United Nations Charter in San Francisco, California on June 26, 1945. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 2, 1979. In 2012, Oakland North reported that the ground-floor retail space of the Cathedral Building was occupied by Runway Style House (also referred to as Uptown Runway), a fashion and cultural retail concept founded by Oakland-based creative director, Alanna Rayford. The tenancy marked one of the first sustained commercial activations of the space in decades and included the adaptive reuse of the building’s basement level. At the time, Rayford was refurbishing the building’s basement level for cultural and arts-related use. The report also documented access to underground tunnel areas beneath the building. The third floor of the Cathedral Building was the setting for Cassius's apartment in the Oakland-based Boots Riley film Sorry to Bother You.
Location
Categories
Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Everything a full report reveals about Federal Realty Building
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Questions about this property
When was Federal Realty Building listed on the National Register?
Federal Realty Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 2, 1979.
What type of historic resource is Federal Realty Building?
Federal Realty Building is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Federal Realty Building?
The period of significance for Federal Realty Building is recorded as the early_republic era.
Can I research the history near Federal Realty Building?
Yes. Aubrey Research reports search National Register listings, battlefield records, land patents, and other primary historical sources within any radius of a US address. A report for an address near Federal Realty Building will include this listing and all other historical records in the area.
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