This cache is placed at the site of Fremont's third city hall. The
first city hall was in a building in the Mission San Jose district,
and the second is visible South of the cache site.
The third city hall was indended to be the unifying focal point
of the five small communities that Fremont was formed from. Grandly
called the Civic Center, an international competition for the
design was held in 1966. Robert
Mittelstadt won with a bold soaring building influenced by the
European Brutalist school, and the finished building was dedicated
in 1968.
Fast forward a few decades and the City of Fremont was stuck in
a concrete monster riddled with leaks and drafts, suspended
beautifully but precariously over a previously unknown branch of
the Hayward fault. Buckets littered the floor whenever it rained,
and employees refused to meet in the auditorium (upper left of
picture below) in fear of being entombed by the 'Big One'.
Eventually the police department fled to the new building you see
to the East. In 2002 the remaining city offices moved into more
pedestrian offices near GCHWKG.
Google Maps still shows the building from above, but in 2004 it
was destroyed and the parcel converted to parkland. Come pay your
respects.
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City Hall site, then |
City Hall site, now |
(photo courtesy of the Fremont Museum of Local History in Fremont's Mission
San Jose district)