At 700 Jean St., Oakland hides what Living New Deal calls one of the grandest city rose gardens in the country: the Morcom Amphitheater of Roses, originally the Municipal Rose Garden.
How it started
The garden started as a project of the Oakland Businessmen's Garden Club, according to the Friends of the Morcom Rose Garden and Living New Deal. Its driving force was Dr. Charles Vernon Covell, a dentist and club member. Living New Deal says the 7.5-acre site, a natural bowl in the foothills, was bought by the city as Linda Vista Park; the Friends' timeline says the city identified and acquired the land between 1911 and 1915. Landscape architect Arthur Cobbledick, also a club member, drew a formal plan inspired by the gardens of Italy.
Who built it
Living New Deal says the Works Progress Administration often gets the credit, but the labor actually came from the State Emergency Relief Administration (SERA), funded by the federal FERA. The garden opened in 1934 with only the Florentine oval finished. SERA crews were still working on the cascade in spring 1935. The garden was renamed in 1954 for former Oakland Mayor Morcom.
What to look for
- A curved classical colonnade at the Jean Street entrance.
- A reflecting pool ringed by rose beds, with a 14-step cascade down the hillside.
- An octagonal stone wedding terrace above the cascade and a Mediterranean-style loggia facing it.
- The terraced Florentine oval at the north end, with stone stairways on every side.
Good to know
The Friends group says the garden's essential design has changed very little in nearly 90 years, though the city's ability to care for it has not kept up. The address is 700 Jean St.
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