Community
Every week, Oakland North will publish a photo submitted by one of our readers. This week’s image from Melissa Neal was taken at Laney College. If you’d like to contribute to “community photo of the week,” just send a favorite photograph taken in Oakland to staff@oaklandnorth.net with the subject: PHOTO. Please make all photographs large-sized and in jpeg format. Oakland North cannot pay for community photos, except in gratitude and local love.
Ross Chan and Ron Parvini’s juicing business, Beet Generation, was inspired by Chan’s new healthy lifestyle brought on by the adoption of his daughter, Brooklyn. The stand opens weekly at the Temescal Farmer’s Market.
When the photographer epli came up with the project “Here. Before. Art From A Contested Space,” she had one goal foremost in mind—to spark an honest conversation about gentrification between new residents of West Oakland and the “traditional” residents rooted in the neighborhood.
“Urban Shield is the largest full-scale exercise in the nation,” said Sgt. J.D. Nelson, Alameda County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) public information officer. The event was created by ACSO seven years ago and has grown each year. This year, Nelson estimates that more than 5,000 people participated from across the state, country and world.
A middle school hallway with its long, lonely corridors often serves as the typical wandering place for a troubled kid. At Claremont Middle School in North Oakland, students are fed up with the perception of hallways in their school. Through a ‘Design Thinking and Making’ class that was implemented this fall, students in grades 6-8 are actively attempting to change the space they study in five days a week. To make the school more welcoming, students have discussed strategies for…
Prior to leaving for China as a part of the NBA’s Global Games, the Golden State Warriors went global with their brand and marketing campaign by launching their official Chinese website and a Weibo social media account.
In the pumpkin trade, it all comes down to stem size. To capture the ideal Jack-o-lantern aesthetic, a thick stem is key. That’s what Jon Goldstein, co-owner of the Piedmont Avenue Pumpkin Patch at 4414 Piedmont Ave., thinks. So stay away from the ones up for sale at chain stores, he says. Their stems are too wimpy, or even non-existent. Instead, the ones he sells have the impressive girth fit for a front porch or sidewalk. According to the United…
As negotiations dragged on in last week’s BART debacle, a raft of politicians stepped in hoping to build up their political capital around a new issue: transportation issues in the Bay Area. Though Mayor Jean Quan was in China for some of the negotiation process, meeting with current and potential investors for the Brooklyn Basin project, her spokesperson, Sean Maher, described her as heavily involved, checking in on the negotiations “at least daily and sometimes multiple times daily.” Maher added…
Latham Square is an experimental project in a space once entirely open to vehicle traffic, but was transformed into a pedestrian plaza last August. The City of Oakland partnered with the Downtown Oakland Association and design studio Rebar to offer foot-travelers a place to sit and socialize.

