Culture
The weather outside is frightful, but thrifty Oakland art lovers and gift-shoppers might consider braving the chill to head down Telegraph Avenue for the Temescal Winter Art Hop, which will run Friday night from 6pm to 9pm between 42nd and 50th streets.
Oakland City Center hosted its second annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony on Thursday, ringing in the holiday season with music, edible treats and of course, Santa Claus.
Oakland 19-year-old Solomon Tyson is a basketball player. A sled hockey player. A cyclist. A wrestler and mixed martial artist. A star of the Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program. He also has cerebral palsy.
This Wednesday, Oakland residents who follow the Jewish faith will join millions of people around the world in celebrating Hanukkah. The eight-day “festival of light” begins in the third month of the Hebrew calendar on the eve of Kislev 25, which falls either at the end of November or at the beginning of December on the Gregorian calendar. The religious holiday commemorates the triumph of light over darkness.
With its daytime temperatures peaking in the 60s, San Francisco seemed like an unlikely place for outdoor ice skating last Wednesday. Yet there they were, almost a hundred visitors from all over California—skating in a circle around a frozen swath of Union Square.
By 5 am Friday, David Martinez and Derrick Love, both Oakland residents, had spent nearly 48 hours stationed outside the Best Buy on the city’s Mandela Parkway. The first night, they slept in a borrowed tent. On Thursday they ate Thanksgiving dinner—turkey on paper plates—under the streetlights as the line circling the building formed behind them. “It’s totally worth it,” said Love, who had locked his target on one of the store’s ten $349 laptops that usually sell for $600….
Ebbett’s Good to Go is one of the newest food trucks cruising the East Bay to hawk gourmet fare. Its chefs focus on specialty sandwiches made from organic and local ingredients.
With the Thanksgiving spirit in mind, Oakland North set out to Rockridge and Downtown to find out what Oaklanders are most grateful for in their lives this year. Watch our video to hear what people said.
Basmati rice bags, colorful packets of spices, and bins of honey-sweetened candies pack the aisles at Marwa Market on Telegraph Avenue. A small freezer full of turkeys sits at the front of the store. “Thanksgiving is not a Muslim holiday, but all religions say thanks to God,” Owner Temur Khwaja said. “We always get a few orders for halal turkeys.”