Culture
There’s a parking lot in East Oakland. You know the one. It’s nestled between the Amtrak Train tracks to the east and Highway 880 to the west, and bordered by a murky moat-like creek called Damon Slough…and all three of the city’s major sports teams play in either the O.co Coliseum on one side, or the Oracle Arena, on the other. Yeah, that parking lot. It was packed Friday night. People poured into the place once known as the Oakland Alameda County…
About thirty heads turned quickly from left to right, focused on a bright orange ball, as the giant group of players faced off, each with a paddle in one hand and a beer in the other one. Ye Olde Hut was hosting its first “Berlin-style ping-pong party” in Oakland.
People in the Bay Area are turning to creative alternatives to buying new. Clothes swaps have been around for a long time, but they’re more popular than ever. Some swaps charge an entrance fee — Like SwapSF, a San Francisco exchange that draws over three hundred people. Swap-O-Rama-Rama, a swap and DIY workshop in a hundred cities around the world, is donation based.
Enjoy the photo gallery for our weekly series, The Pulse of Oakland. This week’s featured ZIP code is 94612, downtown and uptown Oakland. Oakland North reporters will be taking photographs documenting each of the ZIP codes in Oakland over the next few months. Every neighborhood is diverse and different, and we want to capture that. Of course, we can’t see everything in Oakland ourselves. So we also want to know how you view this city. You can submit your own…
Old Oakland’s downtown business district is getting a facelift. Brick and mortar stores are making a comeback. New establishments are showing up in neighborhoods where there were once empty storefronts. One company has found a way to invest in people and add a little pop to the community.
He might direct the largest medical marijuana dispensary in the country, but Steve DeAngelo isn’t scared of the government’s attempts to shut it down.
“The federal government has thrown everything they had at us and we met them and we pushed back,” DeAngelo said, referring to Harborside Health Center, where he serves as founder and executive director. “It’s a drug war machine that’s bound for extinction.”
Vegetarian and vegan meals can be just as tasty as meals that contain meat and dairy—that’s what the organizers of the second annual Oakland Veg week, a celebration of vegetarian eating, want to prove. The event runs from April 22 to 28, and visitors will get to experience cooking demonstrations and film screenings about vegetarian and vegan cooking and eating.
Enjoy the photo gallery for our weekly series, The Pulse of Oakland. This week’s featured ZIP code is 94611. The area includes Oakland Hills, Montclair and Piedmont.
On weekends, shoppers fill the sidewalks of Oakland’s Chinatown to browse open air markets, gift stores, restaurants and bakeries.