Community

Bay Bridge workday closure goes smoothly

Updated at 6:20 p.m. For the first time in 73 years, the boss let the Bay Bridge take a day off during the workweek. Even without the bridge, Friday’s morning commute went relatively smoothly, and no major messes were apparent by early evening. Caltrans closed the bridge at 8 p.m. last night and initiated a five-night, four-day special construction project to replace a 300-foot section of the span near Yerba Buena Island. Despite the loss of a bridge that carries…

Creativity, crowds, improv: It’s Art Murmur day

Some come for the art. Some come for the chaos. But most come to the Oakland Art Murmur for a little bit of both. With nineteen galleries participating in the Murmur this Friday, there will be a wide variety of styles and mediums on display, from the traditional (paintings) to the unorthodox (skateboards) at what has become a monthly mob scene of art, culture, and debauchery. On the first Friday of every month, hundreds of gallery-goers converge at the intersection…

East Bay braces for bridge shutdown

With the Bay Bridge closed for Labor Day weekend, the 280,000 people who usually use the bridge to cross San Francisco Bay will have to find ways to travel under, around or above it instead.  Some are choosing to stay home, but the rest will crowd into BART trains, on to local ferries, or be forced to draw up alternative routes across other area bridges. John McClelland, owner of San Francisco Helicopter Tours, said that so far nobody’s asked him…

Waiting at the Greyhound bus depot

The bold sign over the Greyhound station in Oakland says “BUS” in big letters, each bigger than a man.  There are no windows, only doors to buses.  The doors lead to terminals where the buses pull in and stop.  During the day, the doors are the only source of sunlight. At 7 a.m. on a Wednesday, the station is already warm despite the emptiness. The security guard gets up from his stool. He  waves a metal detector over my body…

18 years in, a theater group continues to surprise

When the Shotgun Players staged Shakespeare’s “Richard III,” about England’s bloody War of the Roses, they did it without Elizabethan costumes, stage props, elaborate sets, or even seats for the playgoers. Makeshift propane lamps lit the stage – a windy parking lot at King Middle School in North Berkeley.  Audience members perched on plastic, five-gallon buckets or tried to get comfortable on the concrete for the nearly three-hour production. Actors wore a random assortment of street clothes, which the audience…