A working waterfront where trains run at street level past brick warehouses, and the dock where The Master filmed aboard the USS Potomac.
What Jack London Square looks like
Embarcadero West has a mainline rail line embedded flush in the asphalt, the only street in the country where an Amtrak train runs at grade beside the traffic. A Union Pacific freight or a Capitol Corridor train slows to 15 miles an hour to cross the same pavement as the sidewalk, with no fence between the rail and the curb.
Converted brick cannery and produce warehouse buildings stand two and three storeys along the blocks nearest the water, ground floors given over to shops and restaurants. Taller buildings of five and six storeys in brick and concrete panel stand a block or two in, mixing with the low warehouses. The at 3rd and Washington, a squat brick building from 1910, still stands and is used today as office space.
, at 48 Webster Street, is a one room Queen Anne and Western false front building built in 1880 from the timbers of an old whaling ship. Its wood floor has tilted since 1906 and was never leveled.
The is a glass walled terminal with an arched roof and a brick paved platform open to the street. Sailboats and a marina share the estuary at the foot of the square, with the Port of Oakland's container cranes visible across the water. The , a National Historic Landmark permanently moored here, sits low and white against the dock.
Shot in Jack London Square
Paul Thomas Anderson brought his cast aboard the USS Potomac for The Master, the historic presidential yacht permanently moored at the square. The ship stood in for a wealthy follower's private vessel in the film's early 1950s story.
The Master, 2012
The USS Potomac
Played a wealthy follower's private yacht, at sea, early 1950s
Paul Thomas Anderson shot shipboard scenes for The Master aboard the USS Potomac in June 2011, both docked and underway. In the film the vessel plays a wealthy follower's private yacht, set in the early 1950s.
The Strand's iron fronted brick buildings from the 1870s and 1880s stand close enough to the harbor that a railroad depot bounds the district on one side. The multi storey Victorian commercial blocks are the same waterfront warehouse period as Jack London Square's own brick fronts. The Strand's cast iron storefronts and taller cornices are more ornate than Jack London Square, so a tighter frame on a plainer block holds the match better. Try searching brick harbor warehouse blocks now.
Old Town in Fort Collins, Colorado
Mason Street in Old Town has a mainline spur that has run at street level since 1877, alongside a squat brick freight depot and Late Victorian brick storefronts. The tracks sit in the pavement at a scale close to Jack London Square's own low brick blocks. Fort Collins sits against the Rocky Mountains with no water in view, so a wide shot should stay tight on the depot and the tracks. Try searching brick depot street tracks now.
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