Culture
As protesters trickled out of the Port of Oakland Wednesday night, after Occupy Oakland demonstrations shut down business at the port, scores filed into a retrofitted former AC Transit bus for free rides back to the encampments in downtown Oakland.
The Nightcap is a series that features a favorite Oakland drinking establishment every Friday afternoon. This week it’s The Layover, a bar and music lounge on Franklin Street at 15th Street in downtown Oakland.
Marches and protests continued Wednesday as part of the day of action organized by Occupy Oakland. Around 11:30 am, the Oakland Educational Association (OEA) teachers union, high school students and parents of children who attend the five Oakland elementary schools up for closure gathered in the outdoor plaza at Laney college in support of today’s strike.
Occupy Oakland activists launched the first of three rallies at 14th and Broadway Wednesday morning, with Angela Davis and others speaking. Occupy Oakland, along with out-of-towners and employees from local unions, will meet at the intersection again Wednesday evening to converge on the Port of Oakland and attempt to shut it down.
On Monday evening, the Oakland Scraper Bike Team rolled through East Oakland for their 5th Annual Scraper Bike Halloween Ride. A scraper bike is a custom designed bike that includes flashy wheels, a spray-painted frame and a unique design. Some scraper bikes even have sound systems installed.
On Saturday, at the Oakland Zoo’s Snow Building, families reunited with the doctors and nurses who cared for their premature babies at the Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
On Thursday night, a cast of about 40 characters gathered under the lights of the Rockridge BART parking lot for the annual pre-Halloween version of FourSquare East Bay, dubbed “Costume Square.”
On Friday, parents, kids, and community leaders came out to Youth Uprising, a youth center in East Oakland, to help build a community playground. In six hours, the play area at Youth Uprising transformed from a slab of concrete to a playground that includes swings, monkey bars and artwork made by the kids who volunteered. “If you would have showed up here at 7:00 this morning, you would have seen an empty lot with a bunch of concrete,” said Manuel…
From the living room of his sparsely furnished West Oakland apartment, Joseph Moreno, 30, runs a vintage costume rental business. That he can do so for just $25 per rental is perhaps the most remarkable thing about his work.