Community
Frank Ogawa Plaza at the lunch rush.
Thursday, 11 a.m. at Koreana Plaza Market was quiet. The fish-stocker went about his daily routine, organizing the freezers and cleaning the crab tanks. An elderly couple, a man and a woman, shuffled their way to the ice-filled buckets laden with the fresh catch of the day – wide-mouthed catfish, red-eyed snapper, slimy black eel. The couple had a mission: To find the perfect salmon. As the fish-stocker nestled jars of clam meat into the ice chips, the woman began…
Weekday mornings in Temescal Alley are quiet. The clinking of a spoon against the side of a coffee cup can be easily heard over the faint hum of traffic from nearby Telegraph Avenue. The occasional burst of male laughter or the sound of a buzzing electric razor escapes through the barbershop’s open door. A small handful of people, some on vacation, others perhaps taking a day off a la Ferris Bueller, walk languidly past the little shops, some with coffee…
Trains rumble through the West Oakland BART station every five minutes, some packed with people, squeezing together like little sardines, en route to San Francisco, others nearly empty, with just a few stragglers aboard heading toward Fremont. As each train’s doors slide open, three or four people board. Some pull suitcases and others wheel bikes. Almost everyone is enthralled by the screen in their hand, glancing up only occasionally, eyeing the distance between the screen and the yellow paint lining the…
When you walk into Oakland’s African American History Museum and Library, it feels as if you’ve transported back into 1965 – when the organization started off as the East Bay Negro Historical Society. Frederick Douglass, an African American leader of the abolitionist movement, greets each visitor that enters into the museum. His sculpture mimics Mount Rushmore, but is no taller than 3 feet, and only his head has been carved into the granite monument. The building is quiet, and you can…
A man sits alone in one of the last pews at the Cathedral of Christ the Light. The man, wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, stares at the altar where at the center, a grand full body image of Jesus, which looks like a projection, overlooks the inside of the cathedral. The place is empty, but not completely silent. There is a soft, sustained ringing sound, but a man and two women silence it when they rush in. They immediately take out…
The smell of old and worn paper wafts through the door as you step into the first floor of the public library main branch in downtown Oakland. Faint whispers come from two librarians sitting promptly at their desks. Stacks of bookshelves flank both sides of the building, covered in stories waiting to be read. Smaller desks are occupied by students who are consumed by their projects. You can find a sense of relaxation in the silence that overcomes the library. Wandering the long…
Greetings from Space Burger, a red and white striped shrine to fifties kitsch. Official people would call this the 2200 block of Telegraph. Space Burger’s set between two gas stations and sits next to the kind of street sweeping machine a person can sit inside. There’s a church across the street and, from the hours of 11 am to noon on October 22, 2015, none of its bells rang. A few things did happen. A potential customer biked up to the…
Her eyes shift from the stack of papers in her hands then to her watch. She’s wearing a navy blue blazer, a peach-colored pencil skirt and a pair of black peep-toe heels. Watch to papers, papers to watch. The bus stops at Telegraph Avenue and 40th Street and a handful of people walk on. They know the drill. Passengers either tap their Clipper cards on the meter next to the driver or show their daily single ride passes, and then…