Third Place

“Oh yeah, this is a great place,” whispers the eccentric couple behind me in line as the BART rail rushed overhead of the Revolution Café on West Oakland’s 7^th Street. A quick glance at the magazine rack gives notice that all demographics of the community enjoy this place. Men’s Health, Lucky, Vogue, The New Yorker and O magazine grace the rack for the next flood of people to enjoy.

But this is no library. Whether it’s the community activists discussing their next fundraiser, the biochemistry major studying alone in the corner or the old couple enjoying their morning coffee this café is a host for interests to foster. Every day that I have walked in there has been a different assortment of people slumped into the cozy chairs and perched on the bar stools. Yet everyday I hear the staff refer to people by their first names when they walk through the door.

The unpretentious interior of the café is filled with cluttered plastic toys, old street signs and brightly colored walls seemingly to serve as a way to make people feel more at home amongst items they find ridiculous.

The community corkboard is literally for everyone. A hand made note with a stick figure drawn on it asking for boarders to live in the author’s garage accompany the local artist’s announcement about

her first art show. The cozy homey atmosphere of the café makes people feel at ease and the conversations flow from there.

West Oakland Has Got Soul!

Who says you have to go to the South for some 'real' soul food? Not when you've got Brown Sugar Kitchen. Located way down Mandela Parkway (if you're walking), in the heart of West Oakland, Brown Sugar Kitchen takes the 'soul' of the south and transports it into its food.

Early Saturday its packed, which in itself could prove the place is worth it. The hostess with a huge smile leads us to our front row seats. The cool, black, spotless counter space is in the center of the action with the open air kitchen situated along its front. Slicing, dicing, scooping and hollering is all part of the experience with your meal.

It has the taste and hospitality of a traditional soul food restaurant with a fine dining touch. Exact portions, positioned food instead of the fall-where-it-may culinary style of many 'comfort food' restaurants and a staff so used to interacting with customers the manager tho

ught I was a regular's girlfriend.

The food, oh the food! On my student budget, I bought a few of the stables; gumbo, mac n' cheese and a breakfast dish with eggs and potatoes. The mac n' cheese was the true test of how authentic the soul food was and Brown Sugar Kitchen passed. The perfectly positioned eggs and potatoes dish spiced with fresh basil and served with two of the thickest pieces of toast I have ever seen made me jealous that I had not ordered it myself. However, the chicken and shrimp gumbo was a little watery from what I'd expect an authentic gumbo to be. Be prepared for the towel-like napkins as well, they are a novelty item in themselves.

The meal came out to about $25 for two people and my party and I were in and out within 45 minutes. The walk there seems daunting but its well worth the journey.

HoodStock '09!

On a cold, windy Saturday in a parking lot behind a crack house at 25th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Hood Stock '09 raged full force. An event where the predominately white hipster subculture met the black community of West Oakland.

Organized mainly as a music event it is quickly apparent

 that the young "arty" hipsters that seem to hide in West Oakland were out in full force. Musicians, artists, writers and graffitti artists were there to be seen, sell their stuff and have a good time. 

A local Bay Area graffiti artist, "GATS," drew the flyer for the event. He seemed excited for the "free, voluntary, ad-free gathering"  and that it was being  supported so heavily by the local artist scene in Oakland. 

The event hosted mainly punk, garage, and pop/rock type bands from all over the country. A few of the names were Japanther and Ninja sonik both from Brooklyn, NY, and Shannon and the Clams from Oakland, CA.

Noah Gonzalez, DJ and back-up vocals for the band Enigmatics, was asked to play by one of the event organizers Roberto Miguel when he needed bands. 

"It kinda just fell into our laps, said Gonzalez, I hear like, 1,000 kids are gonna show up!"

Jessica Schmidt, a 23-year-old recent graduate of California College of the Arts and pizza delivery driver, was also there to su

pport the local music/art/graffiti scene. When asked how she felt about the mainly white crowd in a predominately black community, Schmidt said she could see that, "although, the people putting on the show are Latino."

West Oakland has a reputation for being a bit dangerous. Many of the kids present at Hood Stock would normally not be out without a bicycle or a buddy. Schmidt is used to the neighborhood although many of her friends, she says, would not come into it for fear of the recent shootings. Many of the locals in the neighborhood  wandered in to see what all the racket was about. Tony "Juice" Lambert joined in after walking by on his way to the store. 

The event that night, which boasted a couple hundred people, ran from 12 pm till around 4 am the next morning when the cops had to shut it down. Sunday, the event raged on, again, with another few hundred people at 12pm on Sunday as well. 

Just Biking Through!

I hop on my crappy old bike in the 90-degree heat and set off for a section of West Oakland I have never been to. What is odd is that it is on the same street I live just several blocks away, how isolated I’ve been in my cozy North Oakland neighborhood.

As I cruise down Martin Luther King Jr. Way past 40^th, the scenery changes rapidly. One minute the billboards are for Verizon and the newly remodeled houses are finished with brightly colored paint. The next, I see church after church, liquor store after liquor store and overgrown parking lots.

No one wants to talk, everyone seems afraid I am a cop. I don’t blame them. A young white girl with a bike, bunch of tattoos and a pen. How often and when do the residents of this neighborhood see that?

The sense of distrust I got from the residents I interviewed contrasted with the closeness I witnessed between the families on that hot Thursday evening. Stoop after stoop was crowded with family members and friends all in minimal clothing laughing, talking and drinking cool beverages to ward off the heat.

The stoop parties were one scenery I didn’t want to see change as the blocks progressed and actually didn’t. I became a jealous observer riding through an unfamiliar block.

 

The muggings, shootings, prostitution and drug activity I am warned against repeatedly by residents of the neighborhood is burned deeper into my mind with one sign hanging ten feet above my head. A sign put up by the City of Oakland stating that prostitution and drug dealing would be prosecuted against to the fullest extent of the law. I have never seen a sign like that before.

 

Not much going on this street at least that day. I’m hoping to explore more of Mandela Parkway and the Ghost town neighborhood to get more of a feel for the commercial aspect of West Oakland. 

First Impression BLOG 1

 

 

             Throughout the East Bay, in the neighborhoods of Oakland, the mood, geography and economic distribution changes rapidly.

            There is a feeling in the air in West Oakland that is confirmed with my interviews, and that is of fear and distrust. As I interviewed Brendan Martin in front of the Cypress Grocery and Liquor store on Mandela Parkway his first question was if I was a cop. After a brief interview, I learned he had lived in West Oakland for only a month and was already concerned with the number of shootings and robberies.

            Tony “Juice” Lambert, at the Bayside Washland on 2550 Martin Luther King Jr. Way was also hesitant to talk to me. He, like Martin, was also concerned about the number of shootings and robberies and had been looking for a way out for all of his 43 years. At one point I asked if he had a family to which he replied, “no.” However, I noticed him folding women’s clothing. This could have meant nothing; they could be a friends' or relatives' but it tied in with the reaction of suspicion I was getting out of people in West Oakland.

            Several people I interviewed said that there are no grocery stores in the area yet plenty of liquor stores, (53 to be exact). The Mandela Food Cooperative is a store I had heard about and was dying to check out. The Mandela Food Cooperative is a tiny, organic grocer located at 1430 Seventh St. in West Oakland’s lower bottoms neighborhood. It is a part of the recently renovated Mandela Parkway.

             I spoke with a few of the clerks on what were their concerns for the neighborhood. “I just wish that the kids in this neighborhood would take advantage of the opportunities they have,” said James Bell. Bell, a long time resident of West Oakland, enjoys writing hip hop music in his spare time and loves the neighborhood because of how close it is to other parts of the Bay Area.

            Gentrification is running rampant in the neighborhoods of West Oakland from poverty, cheap real estate and its proximity to San Francisco. I had heard of the “middle class, arty hipsters” who occupy the Victorian houses and other cheap houses in West Oakland. Every time I saw someone fitting that description they were either on a bike or slipping into a house too far for me to get their attention without scaring them.

            The clerks at Mandela Foods and I also talked about the subject of gentrification.  Jamal Mitchell said, “I enjoy new people but it took them coming here for us to get a new Mandela Parkway!” I can see what he is talking about in another part of West Oakland  Martin Luther King Jr. Way, where the new buildings stick out so much I’d be embarrassed to live in them.

            I have been constantly told to watch myself while I’m in West Oakland by friend; however nothing reaffirmed this more than my interview with Brenda Martin. As I turned to leave down Mandela Parkway to continue my interviews he shouted, “Have a good day, and be careful!”