As a Council Member, Mayor Jean Quan had a vision of placing wayfinding mosaics in the Dimond District to complement the Fruitvale Alive! Streetscape project along Fruitvale Avenue. Using $25,000 of Pay-go funds, she hired mosaic artist Gina Dominguez of Snapshot Mosaics in Montclair to design and install the artwork.
Each sidewalk-embedded marker points to four different destinations within the neighborhood and the outlying areas of Oakland. The mosaics are functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. They each have a separate design all celebrating something special about the district: the Native American Collection at the Dimond Library; the Redwoods; the native flora of Dimond Canyon, Sausal Creek and the Leimert Bridge that spans Dimond Canyon.
The mosaics are located at Dimond Library (on Fruitvale Avenue just above MacArthur Blvd.), Bank of America & Wells Fargo Bank (On Fruitvale Avenue at MacArthur Blvd.), and Farmer Joe’s (on both sides of the crosswalk on Fruitvale Ave.)