Search Results: community photo
Eight years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, a group of people who call themselves “truthers”—those who insist that the American government’s version of that day’s events is a lie—will gather at Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater Wednesday and Thursday for a film festival. For the last five years, the Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance, an organization that seeks to further people’s understanding about the September 11, 2001 attacks, has sponsored the festival, which brings together filmmakers, speakers and other…
After 33 years, the owner of the Bread Garden bakery is considering closing down his shop. The bakery that in the 1970s helped ignite the Bay Area artisan bread trend is now in danger of becoming a victim of its own success.
Michelle Mapp and Rachel Carroll, of Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood, took their 8-year-old daughter Lauren to Labor Day lunch yesterday, taking their seats at a white-cloth-covered table in the middle of Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Civic Center Park. The menu, on their plates, at least, was enchiladas, red grapes, and freshly squeezed lemonade. It was a community potluck–with a purpose. The three gathered at the end of one of five long tables lined with bright red apples. As Lauren alternated between…
Nearly ten percent of US workers were jobless this Labor Day. That’s a five percent increase in unemployment since December 2007, according to the Department of Labor. In the midst of global economic turmoil, the Alameda County Labor Council of the AFL-CIO held its annual barbeque at Shoreline Park in Oakland. Union officials, members and community groups gathered to celebrate and drum up support for what some say are major political battles to come: health care reform, passing a federal…
When Mike Kim created the Oakland Facebook page, he didn’t think many people would pay attention to it. “I thought it would be, like, 30 or 40 of my friends,” said Kim. But that was before it went viral.
By ALEXIA UNDERWOOD (Shilanda Woolridge and Ayako Mie contributed to this review.) The proliferation of Ethiopian and Eritrean restaurants along Telegraph Avenue is one of North Oakland’s less celebrated features. Yet, once you’ve tried it, who can turn down a soft, spongy handful of slightly sour Ingera (flat, pancake-like bread) combined with a thick, spicy Berbere sauce (made with ground red chili peppers, cumin and other spices), often served on a communal ‘family style platter? Better yet, what adult would…
The Morning Shift. The flat, wide stretch of Telegraph Avenue that runs through the Koreatown-Northgate district is mostly empty when I arrive at Mama Buzz café a few minutes after 7:00 a.m. A man pushes a shopping cart and some bags of bottles and cans down the sidewalk. A lone woman loads up her car with groceries in the parking lot of Koreana Plaza Market. One helmeted biker has already beat me to the door of Mama Buzz; he tries…
Three vastly different young artists presented their latest work Wednesday night at the Kala Art Institute’s new studio space on San Pablo Avenue near the Berkeley-Oakland border. About 30 artists, instructors and community members gathered in a small, high-ceilinged room off of the main studio to drink wine and participate in a discussion that ranged from globalization, existentialism and Derrida to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and psychological issues about self-control. Favianna Rodriguez, 30, an Oakland native whose parents immigrated from Peru,…
Renewable energy was the topic of the Rockridge Community Planning Council Town Hall meeting on Thursday night; namely, how and why to go solar. After two short power point presentations, Eric Nyman of Berkeley-based Sun Light and Power and Evan Raymond of Renewable Artistry (both of whom install photovoltaic solar energy panels on roofs as well as solar thermal equipment) fielded questions from the 16 Rockridge residents in attendance. Some reasons to install solar equipment that Nyman listed included reducing…
The parks in Oakland are alive. At 7:30 a.m., more than a hundred people lift their hands in unison, moving with slow, controlled energy as they practice the ancient Chinese art of Tai Chi. A few feet away, six older women and one man practice their line-dancing steps, hopping and skipping to the tinny sounds emanating from a hand-held boom box. Two women play badminton without a net. Welcome to Madison Square Park on Jackson Street, in Oakland. Any day…
It’s all part of an evening’s work at the Oakland City Planning Commission meeting. by SHILANDA WOOLRIDGE
At the age of eight, Adrienne Wander is already a food connoisseur. “As far as quality goes, Ici is the best, Tara’s vanilla is great,” said the elementary school foodie licking her favorite Dreyer’s Fudge Track. She knows her ice cream, in part a result of living near creamery row on College Avenue. The commercial corridor is home to Dreyer’s, which created Rocky Road in 1929 after the stock market crash, Ici Ice Cream, the hip and gourmet parlor, which …
Ismael Plasencia is one of those lucky people who considers his job, “a dream come true.” Among his other responsibilities at West Oakland’s The Crucible, Plasencia manages the incredibly popular bike program. The bike program offers eight bike fix-a-thons a year, where anyone can bring their bike to get fixed, as well as youth classes in bike mechanics, Earn-a-Bike, and frame alteration, Hyphy Bikes. The Crucible, an industrial arts school and community outreach program in West Oakland, was looking for…
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…
by ANNA BLOOM DEC. 1—Guests at a City Hall World AIDS Day Community Awards Ceremony got an early glimpse tonight of a 50-foot long bronze monument planned for a new city park in downtown Oakland. “We are here as a testament of what is truly important and that is us, the livelihood and survival of our community,” Vashone Huff, deputy of intergovernmental affairs for the city of Oakland, said before a scale version of the statue, less than one-tenth the…
Let eight artists loose on a very tight deadline (eight minutes!) for a very good cause–and OK, there’s some mess to clean up afterward. Click here for the story.