Culture
Oakland North visits the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist library on Telegraph Avenue, whose catalog includes some 30,000 titles on political economy, revolutionary tactics and radical thought.
Pickling perfect peppers isn’t all that hard, and canning is an inexpensive way to produce charming, memorable homemade holiday gifts. See Richard Parks’ video on making the perfect pepper Escabeche.
Wednesday morning, 9 a.m. No appointments. No press releases. No plan. Just 17 reporters, each with one hour alone with one corner of the city.
At 9 a.m., the old industrial doors of the Great Western Power Company on 20th Street are shut; if it wasn’t for a laminated sign next to one of the doors with “Weekday hours 6:30 a.m. – 10 p.m.” printed on it, at first glance the place would look abandoned. But if you look up, rather than a typical grey smokestack you see one that resonates humor. Simple icons of people are painted in white all around the coal black…
At Broadway and West MacArthur, car engines whir and belch, stopping and starting according to a choreography determined by an orange-vested flagman. A street sweeper circles the intersection, picking up dust and debris from a massive construction site at the southeast corner. A yellow bulldozer, perched on Broadway’s asphalt median south of MacArthur, looks ready to pounce. Kaiser Permanente, Oakland’s largest hospital, is extending its vast reach south across this intersection. Kaiser already has several buildings on the north side…
The Fremont-bound train shudders to a stop above my head as I race up the escalator of my local BART at fifteen of nine this morning. The doors stay open for far less time than they normally do—I am rushing, yes, but still must manage to slip in the cavernous opening as the red lights blink furiously at me. Doors closing. Off we go. Turns out the Fremont train is running behind schedule. Our conductor admonishes us at each stop—stay…
Townes yipped and squealed as his owner led him near the fence at North Oakland’s Hardy Dog Park. He saw a few friends inside the dog run and strained against his red collar and leash to say hello. Townes’ owner, Bonnie, led him through the gate, bringing a black hound, a collie, and a black and tan Australian sheep-dog running to greet the newest member of the morning run. Townes bounded in. He’s 11 months old and big. He pawed…
The dead televisions were coming in from all over Oakland, their screens stained and shattered, the green of circuitry panels showing through their split plastic sides. Men hunched into a cold wind blowing off the bay as they pushed their shopping carts up Peralta Street, past the tiny triangle of Fitzgerald Park to Alliance Recycling. On a normal day, a T.V. could get you some money, but on Wednesday there was a little change-up—nobody on Peralta Street knew why—and Alliance…
Entering the dark little storefront in Oakland’s Chinatown, the first thing I smell is caramel—the scent of toasting sugar and oil. No one is behind the counter, but I can see that the back area is alive with activity. Women in hairnets work attentively over the enormous, creaking wheels of six cookie baking machines. A middle-aged lady with her hair in a bun notices me and comes to see what I want. No one told her anything about a reporter. …