OAKLAND

oh, he's also talking about 2007/2008 type stuff too -- damn, that was like a lifetime ago for me. For me, things were very different then (for some reason I now have a Pulp song stuck in my head) ... I wonder if I know these people, personally? I definitely know/knew people like them ... I remember a few instances of fundraisers immediately post GS where the intent wasn't clear and it looked kinda shady and at least one person was accused of stealing the money?

It's not D.I.Y. it's DIY ... editorial oopsie

Yeah I figured you'd at least know some of the folks under discussion, however indirectly. I do appreciate how he makes his finances clear throughout, and that there's no sense this piece will solve the longer-standing issues.

Idk if I actually know the people in the story -- tableisthetable is more likely to -- places, scenes, yeah ... though again, pedantry, when they walk down a street and he lists three venues that used to be there, two of them were in the same building. it is weird to see a local facebook group I'm in get written up in Harpers tho

Pretty sure the band mentioned is either P.I.N.E. or VVD WNDWS who I saw with Chelsea/Cherushii (RIP) a couple times.

i'm only part of the way through and while I won't say this guy's story isn't true (I had someone who worked for me who was living in the loft of some terrible warehouse in Fruitvale for quite a while) some things seem off; in 2016 I don't believe that 'NOBE' area near Night's Inn (basically near McArthur Bart) had homes selling for over 2 million.

My studio warehouse is right behind that Home Depot though and that area really got to be miserable for a while, huge encampments, the worst being ones that spilled over into the onramp to 880; I'd drive out of there and have to drive super slow on that onramp for fear of running over someone, because sometimes people were just standing in the middle of the street doing god knows what. that encampment and the one closer to my studio under an overpass are gone; and the scrap yard across the street from our studio has been emptied out and condos are going in there. We'll see how this goes.

in 2016 I don't believe that 'NOBE' area near Night's Inn (basically near McArthur Bart) had homes selling for over 2 million.

not on the Oakland side near there -- maybe further north in Berkeley -- that area I always associated with Temescal creep -- like 'NOBE' was the 50's and up. There are/were a number of triplexes/fourplexes that had once been single family homes that I can see selling for over 2 million with the goal of condo conversion.

yeah maybe that's what he means. anyway though this was a good article.

I mean, I read this more as memoir than journalism, so I feel less "picky" about details being contextualized in a misleading way (e.g. the $3000 rent in Oakland being for a full-size 1 bedroom apartment, where considering he chose to live in a "tiny home" it would have made more sense to compare to average rent for a studio, which is lower, but still ridiculous). Of the two other warehouse show venues listed at the beginning (besides Ghost Ship), Dildo Factory has like one residential room (maybe two), and Heco's -- no one lived there, unless Heco lives there now, though he didn't live there when he was married (which he was for years -- I recall there was an article about real estate and artists that featured him and his now ex-wife who I think was either a real estate agent or a house stager or something -- she was in the band Toychestra). Heco's was a firetrap though ... I've had so many conversations w/friends in my age group about "if there had ever been a fire at Heco's we would be dead" -- though there was window access onto the neighbor's roof -- sometimes there'd be shows where people would bbq on the roof, climbing in/out through the window.

Cross posted from the SF and what to do in it thread:

Oh hello there Bay Area, I'm headed your way on x-mas day, staying until I think Jan 1? Got a hotel deal in SoMa but that will just be sleeping place; we'll spend a good chunk of time East Bay scoping out neighborhoods for Becoming Californian in approx 2021.

I have some Oakland/Berkely questions, should I ask them here or in the Oakland thread (which is currently addressing far more significant topics than Becoming Californian)?

FAPs on either/both sides of the bay between xmas and new year?

― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Sunday, December 1, 2019 6:25 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I guess one thing to work out is how to spell Berkeley.

― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Sunday, December 1, 2019 6:26 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

3 year anni of GhostShip fire yesterday... sorry Quincie we're still haunted. :-(

Quite understandably. A sad memorial.

Ask away!

I live in Berkeley fwiw.

OK first East Bay question (with context)

Horse options are looking pretty good in Castro Valley and Pleasanton (and possibly even close to Berkklee and Oakland).

Question(s):

1) What's the southernmost Oakland neighborhood that doesn't feel like a suburb? Walkable to groceries, restaurants, transit, other city stuff?

2) Realistically, how long would it take by car to get from downtown Oakland to Castro Valley and Pleasanton (weekend traffic vs rush hour)?

1) maybe Fruitvale?
2) to CV, probably 25 minutes max with no traffic. Not sure about Pleasanton, I never have to go out there.

I'll note that Fruitvale is kind of a funky area and not always the safest place though it's better than it used to be. You may want to just look at the Lake Merritt area.

Gotcha. That horse commute sounds great; I currently do 45 minutes, which can be more like an hour with traffic.

Are Piedmont and Rockridge painfully bougie or?

Full disclosure: I'm pretty painfully bougie myself

depends on what painful is to you. I mean if you have a kid and a job presumably. For some people that's painfully bougie because you aren't living in a shed and stealing your electricity.

Piedmont is hideously expensive and kind of painfully bougie though. My wife tutors some kids who live there.

and by 'hidesouly expensive' i mean all the houses cost well over 2 million dollars. Rents seem to be maybe slightly less than SF though. There probably aren't a lot of renters in Piedmont.

Ok I am bougie but not 2M bougie. No kids so schools and stuff are not a particular concern. Walkability and interesting housing stock are the priorities.

Rockridge and the Piedmont Ave area (not Piedmont proper -- only reason to live in Piedmont is if you have kids because it's a different school district) might feel suburban to you. Kinda ... Georgetown-y (trying to remember what Georgetown was like) or ... what's that one Maryland suburb, Bethesda?

Basically, Oakland has a lot more similarities to Baltimore as opposed to DC. Fruitvale isn't all that walkable ... pretty much everyone I know who lives near there drives or bikes. East Lake (some of which is near transit, some isn't) is probably the most "urban" and close to transit where you can have a traditional house. There are a lot of condos coming on the market near where I live that are actually in the more urban part of Oakland, just north of downtown, which is like, very convenient to 3 different freeways.

jack london area (which is not far from the late) also has good housing stock and is somewhat interesting.

also sorry quincie for some reason I assumed the horse was for your daughter. because people with daughters have horses. Actually the people I know who own a hideously expensive house in Piedmont have two daughters and horses!

https://i.gifer.com/40uF.gif

Jack london area housing is mostly condos. But yes, if you want to live near a real body of water that isn’t the ersatz lake, there are options... like said hood

This is all very helpful, thanking u

What’s the word on Alameda?

alameda is completely delightful. I love going over there. don't do it enough.

easy transportation to SF with a ferry, really lovely beach, nice shopping strip downtown with interesting shops, some decent restaurants and bars, some incredibly nice houses for less than you'd pay in other places.

Wow, what’s the catch?

Piedmont is max bougie, followed by Rockridge, then Eastern Alameda. West Side Alameda is more townie than bougie.

How does Berkeley rank in there

parts of berkeley are as bougie as rockridge (basically everything north and east), other parts are decidedly not (everything south and west, which is where I live)

the catch with alameda is that it's an island and pretty big and has big expanses of nothing or almost nothing on it where a military thing was, and also massive stretches of homeless RVs lining the roads leading to those areas. And I think there are only two roads in and out of it into Oakland and it deposits you right into Fruitvale which was forever a bad part of Oakland (less so these days).

I've lived in Berkeley since 1991 and have a love/hate relationship with it, more hate lately than love. city council is completely useless, mayor is terrible, but biggest issue for me is that there are no interesting areas to go to anymore due to the exorbiant rents and how difficult it is to run a business in the city. As a result all the thriving areas are in Oakland (rockridge, temescal, downtown oakland, grand, etc). I live adjacent to the San Pablo Ave corridor and it's just empty thing after empty thing, with new condos going up with retail spaces in the bottom that are almost certain to be empty forever.

Afetr more than 1000 posts, I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the now century-old Gertrude Stein quote about Oakland: "There is no there there." Not that it was ever accurate, but you have to admit it was awfully clever of her.

Xp there’s a big condo complex on the corner of Powell and Hollis and the out of the 8 or so retail spaces only two are occupied (Ike’s sandwiches and an optician). The rest have been empty the entire 5-6 yrs the complex has been there.

East Oakland rules, highly recommended

Thought this was the Creedence thread for a second lol... but that's the corner of Peralta & Hollis on the cover of W&tPB.

You can see how someone like me could get mixed up between Powell-Peralta?

There’s also a big condo complex there now as well

I drive by that Powell and Hollis complex twice a week on my way to my studio. Every time I do I think "I should go to Ike's one day" and then I never do.

Sandwiches are good but absurdly overpriced. Mr. Pickles in El Cerrito is a much better value

The sandwich scene has been rough since Genova and Sacred Wheel shut down

Genova was a big loss. I still drive to Walnut Creek and Concord to go to the now-victorious rival Genova stores

And I think there are only two roads in and out of it into Oakland and it deposits you right into Fruitvale which was forever a bad part of Oakland (less so these days).

There are at least three, actually, plus the tunnel that goes through Chinatown. One goes through Jingletown, another through Fruitvale, and then there's the one that's nearish the airport. Basically, the Alameda negatives are: 1. traffic and 2. climate change -- I guess if you don't really want to put down permanent roots then that doesn't matter, but like, looking at maps of projected rising ocean levels and Alameda is gone.

other parts are decidedly not (everything south and west, which is where I live)

― akm, Wednesday, December 4, 2019 11:41 AM (four hours ago)

lol -- pretty much 95% of Berkeley is bougier than all of Oakland except for like Piedmont Ave area, Rockridge, and Montclair/hills -- the "rough" parts of Berkeley are like the not-so-bad areas of Oakland.

Afetr more than 1000 posts, I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the now century-old Gertrude Stein quote about Oakland: "There is no there there." Not that it was ever accurate, but you have to admit it was awfully clever of her.

LOLZ -- this is like the "electric boogaloo" of posts about Oakland. And actually, her quote was accurate, in that it was referring to her childhood home which had been demolished. There are actually public art signs that refer to said quote on the Oakland/Berkeley border that say "Here" and "There" ... it's a few blocks down from the gas station on MLK where Black Muslim bakery heir Mr. Bey IV got gunned down about 20 yrs ago.

OK I'm gonna have some dumb questions, like: whereabouts is East Oakland? Or are there a group of neighborhoods that constitute East Oakland?

many xposts re the San Pablo corridor: my understanding is that the city mandates new development to include ground level retail. The retail spaces are for sale as opposed to lease so the overhead is incredibly high. In any event, there's maybe 1 in 10 such spaces that get developed. I've been living on that corridor for the better part of a decade now, and when we moved there (near the Oakland Public Library Golden branch), I was told the neighborhood was about 10 years away from being this kind of walkable, shoppable area with restaurants etc (for good or ill). Anyway that still seems a ways off - Noodle Theory closed up shop since they couldn't get foot traffic, and the most recent addition to the neighborhood is a tattoo parlor that was shuttered by the health department within a week of opening.

Speaking of the library, they're planning on dropping a 5 story building on the corner where the scaffold place is. I went to a community meeting where the developers were talking themselves up and how it was going to be a great benefit to the community with new ground level retail. We asked what they had in mind and they said "a real estate office or something like that". cue a collective eye roll....