WEST OAKLAND STORIES

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ON THE STREET IN WEST OAKLAND: (New color photos added)

THE CORNER: Campbell and 8th is a neighborhood hangout in front of one of the low-income housing developments built in the l960s. Most everyone says it's a bad corner and the Yemeni man who runs the corner liquor store calls 911 a lot because of fights. But there are also a lot of the older regulars still around, as well as some kids with their moms. The Yemeni woman who lives above the store says she lets her children play outside because she knows the regulars will watch over them.

BOB ROSENBERG is a San Francisco-born Jewish guy - a rebel and long-time meth user. He calls himself “a workaholic” and from what I’ve seen that’s right. He’s a good mechanic and can get a lot of junked cars to run, but mostly he scraps metal, including cars and trucks. Because of this he’s usually covered with dirt and grease. Some think of him as a kind of Godfather to the lost souls and addicts of Oakland's Lower Bottoms because he's smart, honest, and a soft-touch for a clean-up job or a loan. But since I’ve taken these photos his life has caught up with him. He’s 50 now and the junkyard where he lived and worked has been cleared out. The market for metal has tanked. Bob is now living in a mobile home in a homeless camp, figuring out how to survive.

ALLIANCE METALS RECYCLING is (was) an old recycling center on the west edge of West Oakland that supported a cottage industry for the poor. It was a way for families with a car or truck and anyone with a shopping cart to get some cash and supplement poverty-level incomes. It also supported some lost souls who needed money to buy alcohol or methadone and drugs. The city closed Alliance down in August, 2016 because of neighbors complaining about trash left by shopping cart recyclers and things being stolen from front yards. But it also turned out that a large, market-rate, condo development wanted to build across the street. Today, two-bedroom apartments in that development go for $3,300 a month.

RIP: REST IN PEACE. There are a lot of murders in West Oakland, most of them young black men killing other young black men -- for "nothing" as most of their relatives say. A woman. An insult. A mistake. The first seven photos  were taken at a “Repast" (the party after a funeral) for Donald Washington,  a 21-year-old man who had three kids, two baby mamas and a lot of people who loved him. His grandmother says "he was actually a Mama's boy” because he liked to cook, visit an ailing grandmother, and play with his kids. He was shot, perhaps by mistake, while sitting in the back seat of a van. Most of these murders don't make the news, and the black community doesn't protest as much as I think they should, but all the lives lost are deeply mourned.

LOWER BOB SKATE-PARK. (“Lower Bottoms” + “Bob Rosenberg.”)

I happened upon this Do-it-Yourself skate-park when it was being built on a abandoned, piece of land next to a junkyard, a recycling plant and a freeway. Tony,  a skater and skate-park builder, along with a dozen volunteers, raised $40,000 for materials and built the park in just five months. It’s been up and running for six years now even though the city has wanted to tear it down from the start. Skaters have have patched up cracks and built new rails and ramps; friends have painted murals and created mosaics. Getting rid of the trash that’s dumped on the cul-de-sac in front has always been a problem along with people sleeping in it overnight. Still - it’s survived and looks great. Oakland does have a wonderful skatepark twice the size of Lower Bob, but it’s not for advanced skaters, and it was build for $750,000.

I understand why DIY projects are a problem for cities. They are built by rebels with hard work, love and pride, but without regulations, permissions, and standards. Still, some cities do find ways to accommodate them. Not so in Oakland. West Oakland councilwoman Lynette McElhanny has been against the park as soon as someone told her about it — five months after it was up and running. “They were white boys,” she said, “coming into an old black neighborhood, and they showed no respect for the old-timers who have been living here for generations.” She has a point: Tony had to build the park surreptitiously or he couldn’t have built it at all. All I can say is that the land Lower Bob is on was never part of the Lower Bottoms neighborhood: it’s owned by CalTrans and was never developed. The skaters actually made the area more safe. Loud parties and beer-drinking kids might have been a worry — but after six years it’s clear the skaters are trying to be good citizens. Breaking news: I just heard that the City has declared “Lower Bob” unsafe so it’s probably on it’s way to being torn down.