West End, Alameda

When Alameda was founded in 1853, the town was made up of three settlements, and one of them, Woodstock, sat on the west near the ferry piers. Woodstock joined the rest of Alameda when the city's borders expanded to the whole island in 1872. Trains began running along what is now Lincoln Avenue in 1864, and in September 1869, onlookers in Alameda watched the end of the first overland train trip from New York.

The Croll Building, at Webster Street and Central Avenue, was once Croll's Gardens and Hotel, where some of the greatest boxers of their day trained between 1883 and 1914, including James J. Corbett, Bob Fitzsimmons, Jim Jeffries, and Jack Johnson. Its stained glass, etched windows, and carved wooden bar survive, and the building is a California Historical Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

After a second railroad began local service in 1878, bathing resorts opened near the train stops along Central Avenue, along with hotels, Croll's, and a brewery. Neptune Beach, the bayside amusement park nicknamed the "Coney Island of the West," captured the spirit of the era like nothing else before it closed in 1939. The West End also had two airports in the 1930s, including the base for Pan American's flying boats. World War II changed the area again, as the Naval Air Station and wartime housing filled the land around it.

The West End has more schools than any other part of the island. William G. Paden Elementary School and Encinal Junior/Senior High School are on Central Avenue, Maya Lin Elementary School is on Taylor Avenue, and The Academy of Alameda, a public charter school for kindergarten through grade 8, and Island High School are on Pacific Avenue. The Alameda Community Learning Center and Nea Community Learning Center, both public charter schools, share a campus on Third Street, and the College of Alameda, home to the Alameda Science and Technology Institute high school, is on Ralph Appezzato Memorial Parkway. All of Alameda's public schools are part of the Alameda Unified School District. School boundaries don't follow neighborhood names, so check the district's boundary map for any address you're considering. The Alameda page lists the public and private schools across the city.

Alameda is in the East Bay regional private sewer lateral program, and a sale needs a compliance certificate or a time extension certificate from EBMUD before escrow closes. Who takes it on is negotiable between the seller and the buyer. My Alameda home selling page explains the rest.

Homeowners move on for all kinds of reasons including (but not limited to): upsizing to a second or third home, divorce, relocating for work, or the passing of a family member.

Tanja Odzak is a Top East Bay Realtor with eXp Realty, helping buyers and sellers in Alameda and across the East Bay. The West End is the western part of Alameda Island, centered on Webster Street, its own main street. Its history runs from railroads and seaside resorts to airports and the Navy, and its streets mix historic homes with bungalows and postwar buildings. Encinal Junior/Senior High School and the College of Alameda are both here. When we refer to the West End, we are including the West Alameda area the MLS lists in that term.