Neighborhoods
Deep Oakland project’s Stephanie Young reads her poetry at Studio One on April 3.
By Casey Miner and Tasneem Paghdiwala Raja/Oakland North For twelve years, Oakland’s Parkway Speakeasy Theater was a community mainstay: a place to grab a beer, park yourself on a couch, watch a cheap movie and catch up with friends. But like many other small businesses, the Parkway has had a hard time weathering the recession. Last Wednesday, owners Kyle and Catherine Fischer announced that a combination of money troubles and landlord issues meant the theater had to close. Within 24…
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.
During the Great Depression, lavish movie palaces New York to San Francisco suffered serious financial setbacks. The theaters that didn’t shut down altogether came up with new tricks to lure customers and fill seats. Thus, the Dec-O-Win was born, a spin-wheel raffle game played onstage before the movie feature.
story and video by MARTIN RICARD One week last August, Carlos Martinez, a civil engineer who lives in the Temescal district, was expecting a special envelope in the mail. It was his 37th birthday, and his sister from Dallas had told him she was sending him a gift card. She said she was going to send it through the postal service, as most people do. Only the gift card never arrived.
Golden Gate residents complain the proliferation of group care facilities hurts the neighborhood–and that nobody would try this in, say, Rockridge. Click here for the story.
In these commentaries, Oakland North writers weigh in on 1) keeping Black Friday in perspective; 2) keeping certain kinds of humor in the back room, where maybe it ought to stay; and 3) how the new secretary of state selection looks through the eyes of a journalist raised in West Africa.
by MELANIE MASON and HENRY JONES Dec. 1–While retail sales the day after Thanksgiving exceeded expectations, most independent retailers here in North Oakland were removed from the spending frenzy of Black Friday. It wasn’t because of the economic troubles, necessarily—they typically miss out on the action. “Everyone gets drawn away to the big stores,” said Carlo Busby, president of the Temescal Merchants Association and owner of Sagrada boutique, of Black Friday. “As an independent business, we can’t do the deep…
Named after a Rockridge pediatrician who was murdered a decade ago, this free service brings volunteer doctors to children who need them. Click here for the story.