For the last three years, Connor Crabb has been working as a recreation leader at Studio One, a city-run center in Oakland that offers afterschool and summer art classes to children. The 24-year-old Oakland native starts his day at the center around 1:30 pm, going from school to school, gathering students from different sites, then riding back to Studio One with a bus driver. He coaches elementary school students in flag football and basketball, and he helps make sure they…
The local conversation about development and displacement in Oakland made its way to the University of California, Berkeley in form of a play and panel at Anthony Hall on Tuesday evening. The play “We Go Boom” explores the effect of the tech industry in Oakland by dramatizing the future ribbon cutting at Uptown Station—a real-life project to develop the area above the 19th Street BART Station and the Sears Building at 20th Street and Broadway. The development site was bought…
The Oakland City Council chambers were filled to capacity on Tuesday evening for a special meeting of the Oakland Redevelopment Successor Agency, which is responsible for creating and enacting urban redevelopment plans in Oakland. Some of the most-discussed items on the agenda were the treatment of the city’s temporary part-time workers, a resolution in support of Assembly Bill 65, a proposed state bill that would fund body-worn cameras for local law enforcement agencies, and the development in the Oakland Coliseum…
The hip-hop community is mourning the loss of the Jacka, 37, whose given name was Dominic Newton. For many, the death of the rapper also means the loss of a mentor to at-risk youth and young artists in the Bay Area.
In 1923, world-renowned escape artist Harry Houdini came to Oakland. He hung 112 feet above the ground from one Oakland’s most iconic buildings—then nearly brand-new—to entertain thousands of spectators as he escaped from handcuffs and a straightjacket. Ninety-two years later, the Tribune Tower continues to be one of the main attractions in the city’s downtown skyline; it overlooks the Port of Oakland, Lake Merritt and Oakland City Hall. The tower was built between 1922 and 1923 by Joseph Russell Knowland,…
The Oakland Public Safety Committee heard reports from the post-Ferguson protests in Oakland during Tuesday’s meeting, as well as voted to send a ban on the bullhook to the city council.
Creating an altar can be a private ritual, but altars have also become a platform for people to express their views on social and political issues, especially those that involve death.
Oakland City Councilmember Libby Schaaf was leading in the early returns in the mayoral race late Tuesday.
When the polls closed tonight, Oakland candidates and their supporters gathered to celebrate the results and their hard work.
As campaigns to raise minimum wages across California—and the country—press on, Oakland’s initiative is proving to be a divisive issue among nonprofits and private business.
The grand opening of the first cat café in the country drew dozens of cat lovers and spectators to Downtown Oakland on Saturday—or rather, Caturday.
Emotions ran high as tenants, landlords and council members discussed whether or not to pass the Tenant Protection Ordinance during a Special Community and Economic Development Committee meeting on Tuesday afternoon. The Ordinance was ultimately passed in committee and will now pass to the City Council.
As Vicky Chen, the teen librarian at the Rockridge Library Branch, attempted to settle the chaotic rush of middle school students visiting the youth section after school, a student suddenly asked, “Ms. Vicky, how can a book be banned?” Chen, along with other Oakland librarians, highlighted banned books at their respective branches by creating displays for Banned Books Week, which ran from September 21 to 27, an annual event that celebrates the freedom to read. At the Rockridge branch, Chen’s…