Even if you set aside the tear gas and broken windows, it’s hard to keep things clean when thousands of people are gathered in one place. The city says that things have gotten so dirty it’s a danger to the neighborhood, but some of Oakland’s occupiers are working hard to clean up their act.
Eating out is usually an indulgence, but for those dining at select Bay Area restaurants last Thursday, it was also a good deed. At locations from San Francisco to Oakland, a quarter of each patron’s check was donated to fight AIDS.
With no public libraries of its own, Piedmont depends on Oakland for its books—not to mention its groceries, and access to the outside world. But the most recent contract granting Piedmonters access to Oakland’s libraries expired in 2008, and representatives of the two cities have been negotiating a new contract ever since. Though a long-term agreement is still far off, this week officials did manage to settle on one thing: a price for last year’s service
On an otherwise uneventful commute across the bay, passengers riding BART from Rockridge to San Francisco on Thursday afternoon were faced with an unusual sight: two pro basketball stars handing out free passes for the train.
Last Sunday afternoon, Ed Rivera passed along MacArthur Boulevard in his Sunday best, from his shiny black top hat all the way to his dangling coattails. But don’t let his dapper apparel fool you: he wasn’t headed to church or a wedding, but to Mosswood Park, where he would serve as umpire for a baseball game.
Straddling the border of Oakland and Emeryville, a portion of 40th Street thick with retail stores is welcoming a new neighbor this week. Target, the nation’s second largest discount retailer after Wal-Mart, will officially open the doors of its newest store this Sunday.
Feelmore510, Oakland’s newest adult store, opened—somewhat appropriately—on Valentine’s Day this week, but it has not been universally welcomed. When Nenna Joiner applied for permits to open the store two months ago, opponents complained that Feelmore510’s Uptown location would put it within 500 feet of several major gathering places for young people, including Youth Radio, a foster housing agency called First Place for Youth, and Oakland School for the Arts. But not everyone objects to the store.
Bringing together antique-hunters and hipsters, there’s a new monthly event in Oakland where you can find all the vintage gear you need–the Find.
While BART’s schedule has been the source of private grumbling since it opened in 1972, the Internet has provided a new tool, however blunt, to quantify the demand for expanded service. Since last year, advocates of a round-the-clock BART schedule have congregated on a Facebook page called “Make BART Trains run 24 Hours,” which is “liked” by more than 22,000 people.
As the market for eco-friendly vehicles grows, car dealers across the country are seeking new ways to capture the attention of green-minded drivers. Honda of Oakland has made a bid to attract those drivers as they shop for their next car on Oakland’s Auto Row by opening the nation’s first showroom dedicated exclusively to the hybrid and alternative-fuel cars of a major car company.
Ever since then-BART police officer Johannes Mehserle fatally shot Oscar Grant on the platform of its Fruitvale station nearly two years ago, BART—and particularly its police force—has struggled to rebuild its relationship with the communities it serves. New BART Police Chief Kenton Rainey says he’s the man for the job.
At a press conference held Monday afternoon in the lobby of Oakland’s police headquarters, Deputy Chief Eric Breshears said that the Oakland Police Department is significantly understaffed, a situation he expects to worsen in the new year. The conference followed the publication of a Matier & Ross column in the San Francisco Chronicle earlier that day reporting dire staffing figures.
For some, the holiday season starts with the first snowfall, or the lighting of a tree. But at Uptown Body and Fender on 26th Street, a new tradition may be taking shape: an elaborate puppet show performance of the fairy tale “Cinderella.” The show, which is performed by a team of puppeteers and technicians from Oakland’s Zanzibar Fairytale Puppet Theater, is now in its third year, and its second in Oakland.
With Carlos Santana playing alongside the Oakland East Bay Symphony at the Paramount Theater this weekend, concertgoers will have a chance to broaden their musical palettes.
When Jean Quan chose to run for mayor this fall rather than for reelection to Oakland’s City Council, she left a vacuum in the city’s fourth municipal district, which she has represented on the council since 2003. Seven candidates vied for her seat, more than for any office on an Oaklander’s ballot other than the unprecedented ten-way race for mayor that Quan narrowly won. With Quan moving to City Hall and Libby Schaaf replacing her in January, the face of…
With construction on the Caldecott Tunnel’s long-awaited fourth bore almost a year underway, on Monday night City Council President Jane Brunner and several other city officials met with a group of Oakland residents just three miles from the tunnel to weigh the merits of a series of smaller construction projects they hope will ease any increase in traffic resulting from the tunnel’s expansion.