support vandalized businesses, part 2

17th Street

So besides patronizing businesses that were vandalized in general, you can support them and celebrate Oakland at the same time. Oakland merchants are sponsoring Celebrate 17th on 17th Street tomorrow from 2pm to 5pm. That's in addition to tonight's Night Out event. There's a nice writeup on it over at The DTO.

broken window

I was over to the building department today to get updated permits, so I had lunch at Henry's Gallery Cafe on the corner of 17th and Franklin. Fortunately there was a lot of activity on 17th. Unfortunately a lot of it was centered around repairing the broken windows. Henry's is still sporting plywood over broken windows, as are a number of other businesses. But the sun was shining, people were mostly smiling, and life seemed OK. Then I saw a small protest headed the other way on 18th. Fortunately it was very small, and appeared peaceful. Hopefully it stayed that way.

P.S. From the worth reading department: city councilmember Pat Kernighan's thoughts on the killing of Oscar Grant and the aftermath.