Par-T-Pak Ghost Sign
Oakland’s downtown core has always been an interesting study in visual contrasts. It’s a quintessentially dynamic urban space where modern architecture co-exists with historic landmarks. From my desk at Capital One Oakland, I can see the glass skyscrapers of the City Center, our gorgeous Beaux-Arts City Hall, several medium-sized office buildings representing a range of 20th century building styles; and one bright yellow little sandwich shop.
Directly across the plaza from Capital One is the the De Domenico Building (aka “the Plaza Building”), a seven story, steel and brick office building dating to 1915. Occupying a corner lot and trapezoidal in shape, the buildings unelaborated back walls contain two “ghost signs” — aka old hand-painted advertising signs.
Signs like this were popular in the area before large format billboard painting and were often painted on bare brick. Hand painted signs can survive long past the brands they depict due to nostalgia, neglect, or indifference on the part of the building owners. Given the faded nature of these signs, I’m going to go with indifference as the reason.
Sanborn Map showing the strange ellipse of the De Domenico Building
The dominant ghost sign on this wall is for a soda brand called Par-T-Pak Beverages — a soda brand I’ve never seen on store shelves. So what is the story behind this seemingly defunct brand? I turned to the internet and bottle collector forums (yes, these exist) for answers.
Par-T-Pak, distributed by Nehi Beverage Company, (later called Nehi-Royal Crown) was a line of quart, or “family sized”, sodas sold between 1933 and 1954. These bottles were returnable and came in a variety of flavors such as Orange Soda, Ginger Ale, Tom Collins Mixer, Club Soda, Cherry Soda, Cola, Sparkling Water, and Root Beer. Nehi Beverages has one of the strangest bottle caps I’ve ever seen and was eventually folded into the 7-Up brand.
From my research, there are three other Par-T-Pak Beverages ghost signs in the Bay Area: one above Four Barrel on Valencia Street that was recently painted over, one renovated sign/mural in the Tenderloin, and one in Berkeley — as well as a miscellaneous metal store sign on Market Street. The only soda brands with more ghost signs in the Bay Area?
You guessed it — Coca-Cola and 7-Up.
Long story short — there’s a ghost sign for a now defunct soda brand dating from the 1930’s to 1950’s on the De Domenico Building in Frank H Ogawa Plaza. This relic from a previous era gives us an interesting glimpse into the history of the Frank H Ogawa Plaza, downtown Oakland, and the immediate vicinity of Capital One’s Oakland offices.
