Community
In one of many formerly abandoned warehouses in post-industrial West Oakland, a community of artists has taken over. American Steel Studios sits on a six-acre spread with two conjoined buildings. The group, led by artist Karen Cusolito, has transformed the space from a relic of the 19th Century to a symbol of postmodernity, in which technologists, artists and entrepreneurs share skills and ideas.
In advance of Occupy protesters’ coordinated attempt to forcibly close seaports along the West coast, a breakaway group of Oakland activists decided to “Aquapy” Lake Merritt. They built a large raft, loaded it with supplies, and secretly launched it from boat docks in the dead of night.
The Nightcap is a series that features a favorite Oakland drinking establishment every Friday afternoon. This week it’s Baggy’s By the Lake, one of the oldest bars in Oakland–with a facade much like the one it had when Baggy’s first opened in the 1930s.
Oakland’s holiday kids’ charity needs toys — lots of toys. This year’s Toy Drive, a city program that provides low-income families gifts for their children during the holiday season, has received more than 2,000 petitions. Its organizers expect this number to quadruple over the next few days.
The Oakland School for the Arts (OSA) Chamber Choir will tour in New Orleans in April 2012.
As the new year approaches, Oakland officials are preparing residents for a new ordinance that will require certain property owners to replace their leaking sewer pipes. The regional Private Sewer Lateral (PSL) program—already in effect in Emeryville, Piedmont, El Cerrito, Kensington and Richmond— will start in Oakland on January 16.
The parents of Hiram Lawrence, the one-year old critically wounded in a West Oakland shooting last week, said Wednesday that their comatose son is “still fighting,” and pleaded for more time to see whether he might regain consciousness.
At least 100 people gathered outside the West Oakland BART on Tuesday afternoon to march to a vacant house in West Oakland to protest the foreclosure of a family’s home. The protest was organized by Occupy Oakland and Causa Justa, an organization that advocates for tenant and immigrant rights.
In a lengthy meeting Tuesday, the Oakland City Council approved a pilot program to give more of a preference for city contracts to local and small local businesses and another one to establish mobile food pod sites. The council also appointed Victor Uno to the Board of Port Commissioners.