The staff of Oakland North is embarking on a special project to document 24 hours in the life of Oakland. Starting on Sunday April 25 at 11 am and continuing until Monday April 26 at 11 am, we’ll fan out across Oakland and attempt to capture the essence of this place we call home.
by Elise Craig and Brittney Johnson/Oakland North Community Supported Agriculture or CSAs are programs that allow consumers to skip the grocery store and buy their produce directly from farmers. Every week, subscribers get a box full of the fresh fruit and veggies of the season delivered to a pick up spot near their homes. Some CSAs even deliver free range eggs, farm-fresh cheese and flowers.
Diana Montaño/OaklandNorth Last month, a youth curfew ordinance was voted down by the City Council’s Public Safety Committee. And while the ordinance failed to become law, it did succeed in rousing the voice of Oakland’s youth.
By Huda Ahmed/Oakland North When I knocked on the door of an apartment building in East Oakland, a woman’s voice nervously asked who I was. The voice belonged to a 45-year-old woman who wishes to be identified only as S. Mohamad because she fears prosecution in her native Iraq; she is a former radiologist who came here as a refugee three months ago along with her husband and their three children. She hid behind the door because she was without…
By Carlos Davalos/Oakland North Johanna Poethig’s art has a straight message: It’s crazy out there. The North Oakland artist’s latest work-in-progress is a series of large-scale canvases that take her ideas about public art into a more radical arena of political madness, cultural confusion and community consciousness. She calls it Wasak!!, in a nod to the Philippines, where the art has just gone on display. The word “wasak” is a commonly used term in Philippines’ slang. It’s one of those…
By Samson Reiny/Oakland North It was off with their heads-the parking meter heads-that is. At the end of 2007, the City of Oakland replaced its traditional coin-eating car meters with automated payment kiosks in the most congested parking areas, allowing people the convenience of paying for parking time by credit card and cash rather than change. In order not to confuse motorists, most of the old meters’ heads were removed. But for many bicyclists, especially on busy College Avenue, that…
California now requires that workers take two unpaid days off each month. Oakland North’s Lauren Rudser and Brittney Johnson talk to a furloughed worker from the Department of Motor Vehicles about the state’s attempt to save money.
By Elise Craig and Melanie Mason/Oakland North On the corner of 34th Street and Market Street in Oakland, a Coldwell Banker sign is attached to a chain link fence in front of a house with graffiti-covered boarded windows. Beside it, a black arrow on a yellow plastic sign points to a real estate auction up the street. A few doors down, Alain Pinel Realtors is selling the house with the red steps, where plastic toys in primary colors lie…
As foreclosures force more people out of their homes across the Bay Area, people like Patricia Lewis are having to adjust to smaller living spaces. Oakland North’s Brittney Johnson talks to Lewis as she holds a garage sale to get rid of many of her old possessions and help her fit into a new apartment.
By ANNA BLOOM At Thursday’s opening ceremony for “Oakland Celebrates the Dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” leaders reached for the wisdom of King to weave together the tragic and auspicious first month of 2009. The ceremony was held the afternoon following the second of two citywide protests over the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Oscar Grant III on Jan. 1 at the Fruitvale BART station. Newspapers led the day’s paper’s with the story that the former BART police officer,…
Oakland North Live Election Day Blog