Tour Day Zine: Call for Merritt Modernism Ephemera
Oakland Monster by Robert Winston. Courtesy Oakland Public Library, Oakland History Room
We are collecting material for a Merritt Modernism zine—and we want your images!
Deadline to submit: August 31
Send to: tour-day@docomomo-noca.org
Attach: .jpg or .tiff Image files
Include: your name, image name, and description (50 words max)
For many in the Bay, Lake Merritt is beautiful, civic, gleaming, and strange, as only the unwieldy possibilities of public space can conjure. Its mid-century years, 1945-1976, are the focus of Docomomo Northern California’s Tour Day in the spirit of the 2026 national theme of “Recreation and Play”.
Contribute your superlative personal ephemera. Create and share your digitized* slides, negatives, prints, scrapbook items, Polaroids, ticket stubs, flyers, propaganda, stickers, sketches, and digital photos of festival t-shirts, family reunion mugs, DIY art, etc.
What matters most is place and time—Lake Merritt and its cultural orbit—not strict definitions of “Modernism.”
Think: Children’s Fairyland… the 1950’s-built bird-only islands… towers like 1200 Lakeshore and Park Bellevue… the day-glo, biomorphic Mid-Century Monster… James Brown and “Free Huey” at the Oakland Auditorium… the 1968 dragon boats… the brutalist Oakland Museum… Parade Magazine-declared America’s most beautiful Macarthur Freeway (Is that how you remember it?)... the budding ufologist grounds of Astro Circle (RIP, and thanks to Member Stephen Walsh for reaching out already!)... and on that note, what was demolished, what has since been demolished?
Broaden our shared, inherited history through what you’ve preserved.
*Check out this advice from the National Archives: https://www.archives.gov/preservation/family-archives/digitizing.