Oakland Urban Paths: Old Oakland and West Oakland

A special thank-you to Robert Perricone and Fran Estrada for the use of their photos. For a variety of reasons, OUP was short-handed for Saturday's walk, and I've found it difficult to lead a walk and take pictures of it at the same time, so I'm very grateful to them for the use of some of their photos.

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These days it's easy to think of Old Oakland and West Oakland as separate areas of Oakland because of the freeways, but in the past they were connected into one continuous neighborhood. Saturday about 35 people and two dogs joined Oakland Urban Paths for a walk exploring these areas.

Tina Tamale
photo by Robert Perricone

We started the walk in front of La Borinqueña Mex-icatessen, where Tina "Tamale" Ramos told us about some of the changes in the area. Tina is a 3rd generation Oaklander and 3rd generation running a business in Oakland, so she and her family have seen a lot of the changes over the years. Her mom, "Mama Tamale", is retired from running the business, but still comes in on Saturdays and for special events, to give tamale advice and talk about the old days.

In front of Tina's tamale shop is a marker for the 10,000 Steps Project. It's an art project highlighting the historic parks of downtown Oakland. We passed by a number of other markers on the walk, including ones at Lafayette Square Park, the Pardee Home, and Jefferson Square Park. There are 37 markers total, and more than half of them have an associated audio segment, including interview clips with Tina and her mother.

We headed up to Lafayette Square Park, which was the original location of the Chabot Observatory. It was a gift of Anthony Chabot, who is probably best known as the founder of the water company that eventually became EBMUD. The observatory was in downtown Oakland from 1883 until 1915, when increasing light pollution from the growing city required a move to the hills.

A short walk from the park took us to the Pardee Home Museum. It was the home of Enoch Pardee, who was mayor of Oakland from 1876–1878, and later the home of his son, George Pardee, who was mayor of Oakland and later governor of California. Besides preserving the historic house, it also serves as a museum. George and Helen Pardee's daughters, Madeline and Helen, lived in the house their entire lives, changing very little over the years, so it is well-preserved. George Pardee was also involved in the creation of EBMUD and somewhat indirectly the creation of the East Bay Regional Park District.

Across the street is Preservation Park. There are 16 historic buildings there, but 11 were moved from elsewhere to save them from the wrecking ball when the freeways were built. The park is now run by a private company and houses offices for different non-profits as well as a small restaurant. Unfortunately there was an event so the park was closed, preventing us from getting a closer look at the homes and at the Latham-Ducel fountain in the middle of the park.

First Unitarian Church
photo by Fran Estrada

Around the corner from Preservation Park is the First Unitarian Church. The lovely brick structure was damaged in the 1906 earthquake and again in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The church was started when Presbyterian pastor Laurentine Hamilton was charged with heresy for his teachings. He left the Presbyterian church, and much of the congregation went with him.

Our next stop was further away, on the other side of I-980. Blocks and blocks of homes and businesses were destroyed for the construction of the freeway, but some of the homes were saved and moved to Preservation Park. A block or so south of our route was the original location of Oakland High School, but it was gone long before the freeways came through.

We eventually came to de Fremery Park. The park is a hub of West Oakland, with a recreation center, picnic tables, tennis courts, and a skateboard park. It hosts a variety of events, including the annual Black Cowboy Parade, which has been around almost 40 years. Even more years ago than that, the Black Panther Party held rallies and food giveaways at the park. But originally it was the grounds of the de Fremery family house known as "The Grove". James and Virginie de Fremery were a wealthy couple and had numerous descendants in Oakland. But what is less well-known is that Viginie was the child of a Dutch merchant and a former slave he purchased then later married.

We discussed gentrification and the broader sweep of West Oakland's history. Although there were exceptions like William Shorey, the largest number of African Americans came to Oakland during WWI and WWII. Some had found work as Pullman Porters, and Oakland was the end of the line for the transcontinental railroad. Many settled in West Oakland, not necessarily because they wanted to, but housing covenants as well as unspoken rules made it so West Oakland was the only place they could live.

From there, we walked past the former site of the Miller home. Keeping with our earlier utilities theme, Albert Miller and his son C.O.G. Miller were involved in the creation of Pacific Gas & Electric. There were questions about the food mill across the street. Although there are no signs, it's still an active business. It began back in 1915 as the Pacific Coast Shredded Wheat Company; now it produces organic rice flour, crisp rice, and corn flakes, most of which goes to Japan.

Cypress Freeway Memorial Park

To the west we came to the Cypress Freeway Memorial Park. More recent arrivals to Oakland may not know that where Mandela Parkway is now was originally the location of the Cypress Structure which collapsed in the 1989 earthquake. The park is a memorial to those who died, and features a sculpture recalling the twisted wreckage of the freeway, the dust rising from the debris, and the ladders that people in the neighborhood brought to help reach the victims. There is also a mural called "15 seconds" which is a trace of the seismograph of the main temblor of the earthquake. Unfortunately part of it has been damaged and painted over.

We headed down Mandela to 7th Street. We didn't have time to walk there, but I pointed out where Esther's Orbit Room and other music clubs in West Oakland made up what was once known as the "Harlem of the West". Noted jazz and blues musicians from all the U.S. came to Oakland to perform, and some even got their start here.

We walked past The Crucible and talked about its art programs, as well as the Oakland Running Festival that passes through the area. Then it was down to Linden Street Brewery. The brewery itself is in a building that was originally cable manufacturing plant. But we were there to see the former location of the nearby Moore Dry Dock Company, which built ships including ferryboats for the Key System, as well as structural steel for projects like The Paramount Theatre, the High Street Bridge, and caissons for the Bay Bridge.

Our return journey took us past Urban Legend Cellars, one of Oakland's wineries. Turns out one of the people on the walk works for a winery in Alameda [ sorry, don't remember name ]. Both of them are members of the East Bay Vinter's Alliance, which holds a number of fun wine events in Oakland and Alameda. Then it was through Jefferson Square Park and back to La Borinqueña. A number of us stayed for lunch and for a sneak peek of the new garden space behind the restaurant. It was featured the next day at the Viva Tamales! fundraising event.

Thanks to Tina for her hospitality, special thanks to Robert Perricone and Fran Estrada for the photos, and thanks to everyone and everywoof that came out for the walk.

October's walk will be on the second Saturday, October 12th, and will feature the new Bay Bridge Trail and pathway.

Lots more photos from the walk:

First Friday Fun

Friday night there was way too much fun and interesting stuff to do, but that didn't stop me from trying to do most of it anyway.


I started at Bikes 4 Life in West Oakland to join people in a ride over to Uptown. The ride was sponsored by Bikes 4 Life, East Bay Bicycle Coalition and Walk Oakland Bike Oakland. About 15 people rode from there to the new sculpture garden in Uptown.


At the sculpture garden there were hundreds of people out for the opening. Valet bike was parking provided by Richmond Spokes. Rebecca Saltzman was one of the community activists who had prevented the empty lot from just becoming yet another ugly surface parking lot. She spoke, as did Mayor Jean Quan, CM Libby Schaaf, and CM Lynette Gibson McElhaney, and the jazz band from the nearby Oakland School for the Arts played some music.


Then it was a quick trip down Telegraph to Sole Space, the combination shoe store and art gallery. There I ate a tasty Angel Cakes cupcake and checked out artwork by Favianna Rodriguez. She wasn't there, as she was at another event (out of town, I think), but it was great to be able to check out some of her work up close.


A quick ride (and longer search for bike parking) took me to Loring Cafe to drop in on a tweetup. @zennie62, @tdlove5 and @guelo were there, and we talked about Art Murmur and how it's changed, and then chatted with one of the owners of Loring Cafe.

With no time to spare, I then headed over to Telegraph and Grand and took a quick look at Art Murmur in person. It's definitely changed since I was first there in 2011. If nothing else, it's a whole lot bigger.


I rode up Broadway to 40th, to my final stop of the night, the opening of second part of an exhibition of artist Robert Akeley's work at the Rise Above Gallery in Temescal. There I spotted my third CM of the night (try to collect them all!), CM Dan Kalb. With no other destinations in mind (except home), I spent a while there talking to people including Robert, Annalee Allen, Sue Mark (of the 10,000 Steps project) and drinking some tasty beer served up by Sue's young son.

Not that I was able to give enough time to any of the events, but it was a lot of fun. The one event I didn't make was an event for Back to the Roots, but I found out about that too late to even think about including in my planning.

More pictures from Friday:

signs: Peralta Junction

Anew sign with a lovely retro style. Alas, it's probably just temporary, since it's for the Peralta Junction popup market and carnival in West Oakland. Note that they're closed tomorrow (Saturday), and open Sunday, weather permitting.

Peralta Junction: art pop-up + carnival = lots of fun

West Oakland has joined in with the pop-up market fun that has appeared elsewhere in Oakland. There are art and clothing vendors, home-made carnival games, a stage for live music, and a rotating series of food trucks. Stop by and check out Peralta Junction. They're open weekends through December 15th, with Thursday movie nights, a variety of special events, and lots of fun for all ages.

More pictures from Peralta Junction:

signs: Happy Time Liquors

From the other week when I was in West Oakland for the walking tour with Luke. Not a great sign by any stretch, but one of relatively few signs in West Oakland.

walking tour: West Oakland

World Impact

Saturday morning I joined Luke Prince for a walking tour of West Oakland. This isn't part of the city tours program or the Oakland Heritage Alliance tours program, but it should be. The city tours are focused downtown, and the OHA tours in different neighborhoods of Oakland, but none covers the significant history of Prescott and Lower Bottoms.

Luke and I met at the West Oakland center of World Impact, a ministry working all over the world and here in Oakland. Coincidentally the building is across the street from a liquor store that has a sign I'd been meaning to photograph. The area near the liquor store used to be a magnet for drug trouble in the neighborhood before World Impact came in.

where OPD officer was shot

The first spot we went to was where OPD officer John Frey was shot. Frey had stopped Black Panther Party (BPP) co-founder Huey Newton during one of the BPP defense patrols in the pre-dawn hours. After fellow officer Herbert Heanes arrived for backup, shots were fired, all three were wounded, and Frey died. Newton claimed that Frey shot him first, which made him lose consciousness. He awoke in Kaiser Hospital handcuffed to his bed, and was convicted in 1968 of voluntary manslaughter. He served two years before the California Appellate Court reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial. After two mistrials, the California Supreme Court dropped the case.

We walked along admiring the Victorians and other houses. Luke pointed out an "almost polite house" where he had lived when he first came to Oakland. An "almost polite house" was one that had multiple families living in it, and was subdivided each night by curtains to provide more privacy for sleeping. Some were designed with that in mind, resulting in houses with an odd assortment of half walls.

West Oakland was the home of a happening soul, R&B and jazz scene during the 40s, 50s, and 60s until construction of BART and the main post office brought it to an end. One place that survived longer was the Continental Club, which still opens for occasionally for private events. A lot of the music had Louisiana and New Orleans influences, because many of the workers recruited during WWII came from there. Read more in my post about Esther's Orbit Room.

16th Street Station

No discussion of Oakland history is complete without talking about the influence of the railroads, and that's especially true for West Oakland. The transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, and had its western terminus in Oakland. The first trains ran to Alameda, and the original terminus station was on 7th Street in Old Oakland, but eventually the 16th Street Station became the hub. We talked about the Pullman porters and the rise of the black middle class, and the importance of unions like the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in the civil rights movement -- recall that MLK was in Memphis to support the sanitation workers union when he was shot.

Victorian

While better in many ways, life in West Oakland wasn't a complete bed of roses. Jack London (who lived at 807 Pine) described a cannery as a "hell hole" where he worked 12-18 hour days as a 15-year-old. It was not uncommon to see children around West Oakland who were missing fingers or limbs, lost working in the factories north of 13th Street. Pullman porters, while better paid than some, were not fairly paid compared with whites. The 1949 construction of the Cypress Structure split West Oakland in half for decades. Industry has left contaminated soil.

But despite some modern problems like gentrification, drugs, and cleaning up past pollution, West Oakland is a lively, beautiful part of Oakland full of interesting people (who all seem to know Luke). It has great weather, easy access to Uptown, Downtown, and the Bay Bridge, and a burgeoning art and maker scene. If you're interested in taking the West Oakland history tour, contact Luke via email at lprince14 at gmail.com. He told me a ton more than I've written about here, and it makes for an interesting tour.

More reading:
Putting the "There" There: Historical Archaeologies of West Oakland
Black Panthers history
Pullman porter museum
Oakland Local : Right beneath our feet: Brownfields in West Oakland

More pictures:

West Oakland walking tour

OBUGS garden and art tour

Lafayette School Garden

Saturday I took a break from work and went on the OBUGS annual garden bike tour. OBUGS is Oakland Based Urban Gardens, and works to build healthier communities by educating kids about nutrition and food, and about gardening in the process. It was the fourth annual tour, but I hadn't been on one before. There was a great turnout. I don't know the exact numbers, but I saw a lot of bikes. Mayor Quan and her husband were there, too.

The tour started at the OBUGS community garden at Lafayette Elementary School, where OBUGS was founded in 1998. This was also the best place to look at one of the gardens, as there were students and volunteers on hand to guide people around and answer questions. After that, people were organized into groups of about 10, with two guides, one to lead and one to be the 'sweeper'.

at Bruce Beasley's studio

The bike tour itself was very pleasant. (Compared with riding in the hills, it was super easy, too. I switched off the electric assist, but still found myself wanting to go faster than the group.) It was about 4 miles total, but with frequent stops to see historic houses, various community gardens, and other sites of interest (like the Cypress Memorial Park) around West Oakland. One of the stops was at City Slicker Farms, which I've blogged about before. It looks like they're doing well, and it was nice to see the chicken coop (which I did a little work on) in use. One of the main art stops was Bruce Beasley's studio.

The tour ended at Lowell Park, and it was time to party! There was yummy food provided by Picante, cold drinks, and a raffle with some cool prizes. People hung out and chatted and then it was time to watch Turf Feinz dance. If you're not familiar with them, check out my Oakland-y goodness post from last year. They are simply amazing to watch.



See more pictures here:

OBUGS garden tour

signs: Esther's Orbit Room

Esther's Orbit Room

Once upon a time, 7th Street in West Oakland's Prescott neighborhood was a happening place for music. In the 40s, 50s and 60s, legendary blues, R&B and jazz greats came through, the likes of Billie Holiday, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, and BB King.

In 1942, Esther Mabry came to California from Texas for work during WWII. She worked at Slim's as a waitress and cook, saved her tips, and eventually opened her own restaurant across the street. She and her husband saved money and bought the music hall next door. Esther's Orbit Room was at the center of a 24 hour a day commercial hub of clubs, restaurants and stores, with blue-collar clients from the nearby shipyards and surrounding neighborhoods.

The building of the Cypress structure which divided West Oakland from downtown, the demolition of hundreds of homes to build the post office sorting facility, and the addition of the noisy overhead BART tracks, all conspired to shut down the music scene. Esther herself died a year ago at age 90, but the great sign of former times lives on for now.

Esther's Orbit Room

More reading:
SFGate
Oakland Streets
Oakland Daily Photo
Blues Historian

signs: Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church

Mt. Zion
Missionary
Baptist

West Oakland isn't well represented in the Our Oakland signs feature. It's not for lack of trying, but there just aren't that many stores or other places with interesting old signs there. I know of a few, but I'm not in the area during good light that often. So when I had some time a couple weeks ago, I hopped on my bike and rode off to West Oakland to get some photos and hopefully scout out some more. First up is Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church. The church seems to still be a going concern, but the sign isn't in such great shape.

Habitat for Smallish Poultry

chicken coop at
City Slicker Farms

Doesn't have the same ring to it as Habitat for Huge Manatees of The Simpsons fame. In any event, that's what I worked on a bit on Thursday at City Slicker Farms. I'd told one of the former Americorps members who helped build the coop about my visit a while back, and they mentioned that the coop gets too hot. Fast forward to this week, and I rode my bike over with my heavy duty drill and a largish Forstner bit to add some ventilation in the soffits. CSF still has some work to do on the yard, but they're hoping to have chickens for eggs by the end of the month. If you want to help, you can volunteer there on Thursdays and Saturdays -- check the CSF website for details.

Today I was out for my usual Friday activity of working at Habitat for Humanity in the Sobrante Park neighborhood south of the Coliseum. A couple of big groups were out, one from Traveler's Insurance, and the other from Archstone. Thanks to them and the other volunteers, some good progress was made on the habitats for some Oakland humanity. On my ride down this morning, I had an awesome moment that still has me chuckling when I think about it. Along San Leandro Street, a youngster in the back of a car and I made eye contact and smiled. When I caught up with their car at the light, the guy in the passenger seat grabbed a mic (who has mics sitting in their car?) and started doing an ad-lib karaoke number to whatever was on the radio. The youngster in the back seat and I both got a good laugh out of it. The car zoomed off when the light changed, but I caught up with them again at the next light, and he did it again to the next song. As the car zoomed off for a second time, I yelled "encore!" and the guy yelled "have a good day!". Definitely made my morning. That's one of the things you miss by driving.

building green for people

electric car

Last week I was at West Coast Green, a green building and design conference in San Francisco. Besides speakers on all sorts of green technologies, standards and legislation, there were two exhibit rooms of companies with green products, and a special section called the Innovation Pipeline with new and upcoming products. One of the more interesting displays was a portable, on-demand housing unit that's designed to shelter people in the wake of a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, and be zero-impact, too. It's an impressive unit that can be shipped anywhere in the world in a shipping container, and set up in two hours with unskilled people, and includes solar panels and water treatment. But even with a product like that, never mind expensive solar-power roof tiles or fancy countertops, it's easy to lose sight of people in the equation and just be looking at costs and carbon.

presentation

That's why I was delighted to find one session titled Creating Social and Sustainable Economic Development in West Oakland, sponsored by the Home Depot Foundation. People with a wide variety of backgrounds came together with Ecocity Builders to brainstorm ideas for land use in West Oakland. But the kicker was that we weren't designing in a vacuum. People from Village Bottoms and A Black New World joined the discussion, and told us what their priorities and visions for the area were. I knew a tiny bit about the area since I'd worked on some Habitat for Humanity houses nearby, and been to City Slicker Farms, but mostly we knew nothing but what a few briefs told us about the former Phoenix Iron Works site. So having residents there to work alongside was amazing and inspiring. We heard about Village Bottoms Farms, about the burgeoning artist community, and about the history of the area.

Admittedly there was a limited amount we could do in 2 hours, but it was a great session, and a reminder that people are the most important part of the equation for any urban planning.

City Slicker Farms

City Slicker Farms

West Oakland is blessed with a unique resource, City Slicker Farms. While much of Oakland has an array of supermarkets and farmers markets to get good produce from, West Oakland is largely left with small corner markets and liquor stores. That's where City Slicker Farms comes in. They grow fresh, affordable produce for West Oakland residents.

They also work to empower residents to understand the connection between ecology, environment, and food, and become more self-sufficient by growing their own food. They currently sell fruits, vegetables and honey to West Oakland residents. The last round of Americorps with Habitat for Humanity East Bay worked in their spare time and built a chicken coop, so eggs will eventually be available, too.

awesome looking tomatoes

City Slicker Farms