audio slideshow by MARTIN RICARD
The Video Room to North Oakland is like peanut butter to jelly: You can’t have one without the other.
Not only has the independent video rental store remained open for 30 years, but it also boasts one of the most stunning collections of cult and classic films in the East Bay. Not to mention the full staff of knowledgeable movie buffs and a section solely dedicated to local films. Read the full story
story and video by MARTIN RICARD
One week last August, Carlos Martinez, a civil engineer who lives in the Temescal district, was expecting a special envelope in the mail.
It was his 37th birthday, and his sister from Dallas had told him she was sending him a gift card. She said she was going to send it through the postal service, as most people do. Only the gift card never arrived.
by ANNA BLOOM
Dec. 20–Snow on Mt. Diablo was one thing, but ice skating in Temescal… without ice?
The Temescal Telegraph Business Improvement District is making no small plans to attract holiday shoppers to their neck of North Oakland this weekend. Beyond the usual good cheer, Santa and Christmas carols, the district’s first annual Holiday Skate and Stroll will feature an ersatz ice rink at 49th and Telegraph. Saturday and Sunday, as many as 30 will be able to glide, spin and hockey stop on a temporary 48-by-39 foot hybrid-polymer rink for the price of a $3 pair of skates – and without any time outs for the Zamboni machine. Read the full story
by MELANIE MASON
Three months ago, Kendall Moalem made a map. Moalem, it should be said, is not a city planner or a sociologist and definitely not a cartographer; her job as a policy analyst for UC Berkeley’s engineering department gave her little background in the disciplines of urban development and zoning laws. But Moalem had been noticing a proliferation of group homes in her Golden Gate neighborhood: homes for the elderly, for one, but also halfway houses for parolees and sober living homes for recovering addicts. And now she learned about another proposal: a new elder care facility, to be built on the corner of 61st and Market.
Moalem was curious: just how many of these homes were situated in her 94608 zip code? Using her neighborhood Yahoo group and the Google Maps tool, she plotted the location and capacity of residences that she or her neighbors knew of. It was an admittedly informal survey, but the clusters of blue pinpoints along San Pablo and Market made it abundantly clear: there were a lot of these homes in the neighborhood—almost 20, to their knowledge, in an area of less than one square mile.
.
by MARTIN RICARD
When comedian Dave Chappelle walked away in 2005 from the third season of his wildly popular show on Comedy Central, it was a shock to many. He’d dumped a $50 million contract with the network and he left confused, fleeing to South Africa, saying he wasn’t comfortable anymore with the way his humor—intelligent, provocative and from a black perspective—was being viewed by nonblack folks. So in October, when Comedy Central launched “Chocolate News,” in which host David Alan Grier puts his comedic spin on The Daily Showesque media spoof, it was widely viewed as the consummate replacement for Dave Chappelle’s creation—and rightly so. Read the full story
by MELANIE MASON and HENRY JONES
Dec. 1–While retail sales the day after Thanksgiving exceeded expectations, most independent retailers here in North Oakland were removed from the spending frenzy of Black Friday.
It wasn’t because of the economic troubles, necessarily—they typically miss out on the action. “Everyone gets drawn away to the big stores,” said Carlo Busby, president of the Temescal Merchants Association and owner of Sagrada boutique, of Black Friday. “As an independent business, we can’t do the deep discounting that [they] do.” Read the full story
By CHRISTINA SALERNO
A sprawling homeless shelter in downtown Oakland has no signs or markings to distinguish it, an attempt to protect its inhabitants’ privacy. Inside, the hallways twist like a maze leading to rooms that are similarly nondescript, except for one. A colorful sign hangs outside that room’s door: Kerry’s Kids.
Once a month, volunteer doctors arrive at this small room to treat homeless children at the shelter. A box of stuffed animals and children’s books is just outside the door. Inside, the room is set up like a typical pediatrician’s office. Read the full story
by ISABEL ESTERMAN
Inside Oakland’s Albo African Gift shop, at the corner of Alcatraz and Telegraph, a deep herbal aroma wafts from a row of colorful bottles labeled ‘frankincense.’ Ethiopian Singer Hamelmal Abate’s mournful vibrato pours out of the stereo, crooning over an incongruously lively beat, while the store’s owner, Genet Asrat, sits behind the counter, her black sweater brightened by a bold patterned scarf with a yellow border. The phone rings nearly continuously, and Asrat switches back and forth between English and Amharic as she fields calls, raising her precisely-arched eyebrows and flashing a big, quick smile as she taps away at her keyboard.
The store is filled with baskets, scarves, jewelry and clothing in brilliant shades of orange, red, pink and purple. The walls are lined with African-themed carvings and paintings. Customers come in to browse racks of T-shirts and books with African themes. And while T-shirts are the store’s big sellers, the repeat customers, like the young man who stands shyly by the door until Asrat beckons him forward, are immigrants who come to the store to wire money back to their families in Ethiopia, a service Asrat offers at less than half the price Western Union charges.
Read the full story
By MARTIN RICARD
The 100 people who funneled last Thursday into the former downtown campaign office of newly elected at-large city councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan were welcomed by jazz music, food, and a number of familiar faces.
They chatted, exchanged hugs and shared laughter during a post-election celebration of her victory.
And then about half an hour into the event, here came Kaplan—striding toward a makeshift podium in the darkened room, blowing one long blast toward the ceiling with her signature shofar, the ram’s horn traditionally used in Jewish celebrations of the new year. Read the full story
By MARTIN RICARD
There’s an invisible line on West MacArthur Boulevard that divides it these days into two different worlds. On one side of Telegraph Avenue, in the up-and-coming Temescal district, the corridor is full of activity. Up near Broadway and Piedmont Avenue, a new Kaiser facility is being erected, which once built, will literally become a beacon of light for that part of North Oakland.
On the other side, a lone church shares another two blocks with a dilapidated motel strip, boarded-up homes, wilted trees that look like they haven’t been trimmed in a while, and trash strewn along the sidewalk. Read the full story
