Woody Minor

Marcuse & Remmel partnership and the story of a neighborhood.

Marcuse and Remmel were both of German provenance. Felix Marcuse came from Berlin in the 1870s and started his own business on Lincoln Ave. It was a general store with a wide customer base. In the late 1880s there was a real estate boom and as properties in the area became available for development, he saw it as a great business opportunity and partnered with Remmel, who at the time was a piano teacher. As building partners they became the most successful building firm in the Alameda's history; they built at least 350 houses in the city, and the Bay Station neighborhood holds the largest concentration.