Culture
For one night only, Oakland’s historic Children’s Fairyland opened its magical doors to the young at heart aged 21 and over. The spell that has been cast over Children’s Fairyland for 60 years was broken: adults were allowed into the park without a child last Friday night. For three hours, close to 1,200 adults, most of them in their 20s and 30s, marauded the historic wonderland. Some visited for the first time, others for the first time in more than 20 years.
Alameda County supervisor Keith Carson honored the school during its sixth annual Ready to Learn Fun Fair on Saturday. Peralta was selected as a National Blue Ribbon School last month. Tom Torlakson, California’s superintendent of instruction, nominates schools for the award that demonstrate superior achievement, especially in disadvantaged communities. Peralta, with just over 300 students, is one of only two schools to receive this award in Alameda County.
Oakland North reporters Megan Molteni and Dylan Bergeson set out to track a raccoon in observance of International Raccoon Appreciation Day. They failed spectacularly.
Oakland’s Community and Economic Development Agency (CEDA) announced a pilot program Thursday to convert parking spots or unused bus stops into public spaces called “parklets” where people can relax and hang out.
Oakland’s New Parish club in Uptown will be hopping with music and dancing Friday night for part two of “London Calling: Stories from the Diaspora,” an event aimed at provoking community discussion about youth-led unrest both in London and Oakland.
Hundreds of Ethiopian immigrants and their families from around the Bay Area gathered at the Ethiopian Orthodox Cathedral on Mountain Boulevard Sunday for Meskel, or the finding of the True Cross, one of the most important holidays in the Ethiopian Orthodox calendar and a national holiday in Ethiopia. Wearing snow-white linen, worshippers congregated outside the church for much of the day while others prepared food which filled the air with the aromas of East African spices, turning the church parking lot into a scene out of their home country.
Going from a dingy yellow wall to a bright-colored, futuristic work of art, the 28th Street Partners apartment complex off of Telegraph Avenue in downtown Oakland has received quite a facelift. Earlier this month, Oakland artists Sidharth Chaturvedi, Samuel Garland and Lindsey Millikan took their art to the streets by painting a mural on the side of the two-story apartment building. Millikan found out about the job after property manager Tony Toppanno posted an ad on Craigslist. Soon after, Millikan…
Game Day is a new series that will feature Oakland teams and athletes every Wednesday afternoon. This week, it’s the Oaktown Roots, a new women’s softball team that faced off earlier this week in the championship game against their rivals, the Girlfriends.
On Sunday, 20 local businesses exhibited their products and services at Tilt—a contemporary wedding fair catering to, as the event’s website put it, “the creative, alternative-thinking bride or groom.”