Development

Manifesto: Not your everyday bike shop

The bike store Manifesto has a Flickr photo account, “Our customers rock,” which is full of photos of people posing with their bicycles. People smiling standing next to their bikes, slowly riding by, triumphantly raising the bike over their heads — all photos of Manifesto’s customers with their new bikes. Each photo is captioned with lines like, “Austin sealed the deal on a red Schwinn that many were coveting on opening day,” “This beautiful Mercier, nicknamed Pierre, is now Casey’s…

Filmmaker to screen “Redemption,” story of Oakland recyclers

Jason Witt is an Olympian of recycling—he can recycle up to 800 pounds of bottles and cans a day. “He’s the captain of his ship,” said Amir Soltani, a writer and activist who has been following Witt for the past year as part of his upcoming documentary on West Oakland recyclers. Soltani said there is a lot of physical effort and finesse involved in manning a cart the size of Witt’s, which, at the end of each day, is stacked…

A retail oasis moves into an empty Oakland block

On a stretch of Oakland pockmarked with vacant storefronts, the 3000 block of Telegraph Avenue looks particularly bleak. 3003 Telegraph, formerly a medical center, has been up for lease for two months; 3031 Telegraph, formerly a Portuguese fraternal society, for a year. A few years ago, the old brick courthouse on the adjacent block, just past 29th Street, was a popular athletic center. Now its windows are boarded up. So when Mohsin Sharif opens his new grocery store on the…

Art Quest along the 40th Street Corridor

North Oaklanders came out Saturday, Feb 21, for the first ever 40th Street corridor Art Quest. There were raffle prizes, great art, and a fun night exploring the neighborhood for everyone who came out.  

Gambling for one of Oakland’s small schools

Tamara Arroyo, a young woman with her hair in a ponytail, pulled up the corners of the two cards she’d been dealt, an ace and a jack, and then looked at her dwindling pile of chips. With a gleam in her eyes and a slight smile, she obviously did not know the meaning of a poker face. On the table lay two jacks, a queen, and a king. The dealer dealt the final card-an ace. She cleaned up.

Linking public health to city planning

Many of Oakland’s community health problems can be traced to a history of bad city planning and land use, an expert from the Alameda County Public Health Department (ACPHD) said last Wednesday during a panel discussion at the American Institute of Architects East Bay offices in downtown Oakland. Sandra Witt, the County’s deputy director of planning policy and health equity, referred often to a report published last year called “Life and Death from Unnatural Causes: Health and Social Inequity in…