Every Christmas during childhood, my mother would take me to downtown Los Angeles to see the animated holiday window displays along Broadway Street. Those trips left a lasting impression, and since then I’ve been hooked on walking and window shopping.

As a pedestrian, I love to engage my senses in joyful, everyday ways. I live in Oakland. And whether it’s strolling past the lush front-yard gardens in Rockridge or pausing to admire the colorful storefronts along College Avenue, I find delight in how streets slowly reveal themselves. A good window display can spark the imagination, encouraging people to move, explore, and connect to place.

This is why I was so thrilled to help install a vibrant city model in the Bella Vita children’s shop window in Oakland. Since it was debuted, the model has captured the attention of passersby, especially little ones, who stop, glance, and often linger in quiet contemplation. These few moments are a powerful reminder that streets should delight us, surprise us, and invite us to see our cities with fresh eyes.

The small, locally owned businesses along Oakland’s College Avenue around the Rockridge BART station create window displays that compete for the attention of every pedestrian. These eye-catching arrangements are more than just visual merchandising; they’re invitations to pause, to dream, to see a bit of home reflected on the street.

Take San Francisco–based Cole Hardware, a store that in 10 short years has become a neighborhood institution. Its three expansive street-facing windows are regularly transformed into seasonal scenes of elaborate kitchen and dining room setups that showcase their merchandise while evoking the warmth of home life.

A newer addition to the avenue, Preserved, is a shop dedicated to the art of food preparation and preservation. Its windows feature vintage kitchen tools and appliances, evoking nostalgia and craftsmanship in equal measure. Together, these storefronts remind us that sidewalks aren’t just for walking, they’re for wandering and wondering. 

And wandering and wondering is exactly what the pedestrian eye does as it scans the thousand handmade buildings arranged in my window display. Each tiny structure is carefully placed within a street grid that mirrors the direction and rhythm of the storefront windows themselves, converging toward the center in odd but invitingly shaped plazas.

The city model is also a kind of travelogue, a display where the many cities I’ve lived in come together in miniature. The juxtaposition of sleek skyscrapers and low-slung buildings evokes the frenetic energy of my childhood in Los Angeles. The row houses take me back to my days at MIT, wandering through Boston’s Back Bay. Living in Vicenza, Italy, left a lasting imprint, one reflected in the bold, classical forms inspired by Palladian architecture that shape public space. And the snow and winter light falling against buildings painted in soft pinks, yellows, and pistachio greens recall my Peace Corps years in Eastern Europe—color as a language of memory and identity.

Bringing all these pieces together in one model, one place, is exhilarating. It’s not just a cityscape but a personal geography, a layered map of lived experience told through form, color, and scale.

The cityscape has its own topography: the smallest row houses sit in the foreground, while taller buildings rise behind them like a distant skyline. Color moves through the display like a bouquet—splashes of red, blue, green, and yellow scattered thoughtfully across the grid, animating the streets with life and imagination.

Every model building was lovingly handmade in Oakland, crafted from found objects and salvaged materials: wood scraps, buttons, rhinestones, washi tape, and more, sourced from the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse on Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley’s Urban Ore, and the curious little treasures I pick up on my daily walks through Rockridge. Each rooftop has been painted gold so that the buildings shimmer even on overcast days, and gleam brilliantly when caught by sunlight.

This miniature city is more than just a model; it’s an invitation to slow down, to explore, to remember that cities, like dreams, are built one small detail at a time. Behind the display was a blank wall. John Kamp designed a poster with questions that encourage passersby to reflect on their own urban lives. 

So why not celebrate the city itself? Why not turn storefronts into small acts of urban storytelling, sparking curiosity, promoting awareness, and inspiring all of us, young and old, to imagine the communities we want to build together? Great window displays can turn everyday errands into moments of delight and reflection, transforming the street into a living, breathing part of community life.

Featured image: Bella Vita children’s shop, Oakland, California. All photos by John Kamp and the author.