Community
Every week, Oakland North will publish a photo submitted by one of our readers. This week’s photo is by Steven dos Remedios.
Derrek Bell leans forward and places his elbows on the counter, turning the hat he is holding upside down to expose the price tag attached to the inside. He holds it gently, careful not to pinch it or bend it out of shape. The Panama hat has travelled all the way from Cuenca in Ecuador, where it was manufactured, to a factory in Alessandria, Italy, where it was shaped and tagged with a little navy label that spelled “Borsalino” in a cursive gold font. It is now on a rack at The Hat Guys, an upscale hat shop in downtown Oakland that has served famous heads for over two decades.
Bell has worked here as a salesman for seven years. “Take a look at this,” he says, pointing at the price tag. The Borsalino name puts the hat’s price at $1,200. It is one of the most expensive hats in the store.
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 rabbit named Sugar. Sugar been at the shelter since August 2011. Shelter life just isn’t for him and he can’t wait to find a home where he’ll get lots of indoor space. Sometimes he puts up front and pretends he’s not up for cuddling, but he secretly loves to. His new owners just need…
On Saturday morning parents, students, volunteers and school district staff held hands as they danced to the beat of a drum in the gymnasium of Fruitvale’s United Academy for Success as part the Oakland Unified School District’s first Back to School Festival. They formed a circle, led by members of the Medicine Warriors, a Native American dance troupe. “This dance signifies friendship and unity,” George Galvis of the Native American community center Intertribal Friendship House said to the crowd.
At Children’s Fairyland on Saturday, a three-tiered yellow and pink birthday cake stood towering several feet in height, papered with handwritten messages like, “Thank you for our son,” “Thanks for helping our daughter live a healthy life, ” and “1969 – Thank You. My Heart is Yours 4Ever. Saving My Life.”
The Healthy Neighborhood Stores Alliance (HNSA) is a West Oakland effort to incorporate produce into corner stores that typically stock only liquor, canned goods, frozen and packaged foods, and a few household appliances.
Ever since the Blockbuster on Oakland’s Piedmont Avenue went out of business in April, the building that housed the video rental store has remained empty. Recently, though, a prospective new tenant appeared: a sign on the door notified passersby that the liquor franchise Beverages and More (BevMo!) has applied for a permit to move into the former movie rental store.
The online radio station Pandora has teamed up with the Great Wall of Oakland, a monthly video art screening, to host an evening of local music and video shorts this Friday. The “Homegrown” event on September 7 will debut Pandora’s “Sounds of Oakland,” a sampling of local music, which will accompany video shorts projected on the wall in Oakland’s Uptown district. It also marks the first collaboration between the two Oakland-based organizations. “We approached Pandora because their specialty is music…
Under the Friday night lights in East Oakland, The McClymonds Warriors’ football team fell to the Bishop O’Dowd Dragons, with a final score of 33-26.