Community

Community events and activities for the weekend of October 12-14, 2012. Got an event we didn’t know about? Please add it in the comments!

In 2009, Tomás Alvarez III sat at his desk as a group of nine teenagers filed into his classroom at Oakland High School. This was the fifth year of his Beats, Rhymes and Life program, which uses hip-hop music as a form of therapy for at-risk teenagers. Alvarez began the class in the usual fashion, playing instrumental beats on a boom box. As the class gathered in a circle and began to freestyle, Alvarez recalls, he recognized something particularly special…

Armed with green forms listing license plate numbers, car models and driver descriptions, residents of the San Antonio neighborhood aim to do what billboards and tow trucks could not—reduce prostitution in their community.

Every week, Oakland North will publish a photo submitted by one of our readers. This week’s photo is by Sara Ferguson.

There may be no stronger tie of identity between city and team than Oakland has with the Athletics. Known to the rest of the country as the sometimes-suffering underdog, the city of Oakland and its baseball team both benefit from the fierce loyalty of locals. This sentiment was at Frank Ogawa Plaza Monday night, when Mayor Jean Quan and representatives from the Oakland A’s held an eleventh-hour rally for fans ready to welcome home their team home from Detroit.

A middle-aged swimmer paused at the end of the pool, between laps, and studied the man in the next lane fiddling with his goggles, who had just frog-kicked the length of the 100-foot-long pool, along the bottom, in one breath. She had been wondering about him for weeks. His swimming habits were unique. For example, she had never seen him swim on the water’s surface. More unusual—disconcerting, actually—was what he did when he reached the deep end. He would sink…

Oakland North is continuing with our feature. Every week, Oakland Animal Services will spotlight an “Animal of the Week” that’s up for adoption at their facility. This week it’s a dog named Boots.

At the Rockridge Out and About Festival on Sunday, hundreds of people crowded the boutique-lined blocks of College Avenue to partake in the eclectic mix of music, food, art, and games that were offered in the streets.

Standing before a well-worn banner reading “Justice for Alan Blueford,” on Friday attorneys for the family criticized the heavily redacted Oakland Police Department crime report released October 2 that details the 18-year-old’s death.