THE QUESTION

In Dave Newhouse’s Sunday, March 29th, 2009 Good Neighbors article answers THE QUESTION “Oakland's wonderful despite warts”

Excerpts from that article:

THE QUESTION, of course: How can you live in a place like Oakland?

I quickly grew to like Oakland because of this cultural diversity, which has increased over the years. More than any other Bay Area city, Oakland resembles a pocket-size United Nations in its citizenry. Fascinating, indeed.

A fact that's often lost because of Oakland's crime figures, but its residents do get along as a rule. And you can have a good time in Oakland because it's hospitable, not haughty.

People eat well here, too. Oakland has the best soul food and — sorry, San Jose — the best Mexican food. Oakland has the Bay Area's premier ice cream parlor in Fentons, the best pizza at Pizzaiolo, the best bakery at Bake Sale Betty's, and the funkiest watering hole (now that the Kingfish is closed) in Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon.

Yoshi's of Oakland is the best local jazz club, intimate with great acoustics. However, Oakland is a phantasmagoria of international music in its wide-ranging sound. While the Oakland East Bay Symphony isn't as wealthy as the San Francisco Symphony, it isn't as staid either. OEBS director/conductor Michael Morgan is willing to experiment with new composers, and successfully.

And Oakland has restored — count them — two classic vintage theaters in the Paramount and Fox. Name another town where you've seen this happen.

When it comes to sports, Oakland tops San Francisco in world championships with eight (A's four, Raiders three, Warriors one) to five (all 49ers). No major-league city has anyone like Al Davis, who has been a coach, general manager, owner and commissioner, plus he moved his franchise out of town and then, uniquely, moved it back. Only in Oakland.

Oakland has much to offer, including fantastic hiking trails in its hills. And College Avenue, as I've stated before, is the greatest street in America — even before it hits the Berkeley city line — because of its incredible diversity.

Add the quaint European village-like atmosphere of the Montclair district, and that's yet another reason THE QUESTION doesn't bother me quite like it does some outsiders.

16th Street Train Station-KQED SPARKS - Katherine Westerhout

Preview (Real Media) KQED SPARK Upcoming Broadcasts: Wed, Apr 1, 2009 -- 7:30pm; Thu, Apr 2, 2009 -- 1:30am; Fri, Apr 3, 2009 -- 11:30pm

"... What I am so drawn to is the way the light enters these buildings and the way it carries color, from the outside, depending on the time of day."-- Katherine Westerhout
Instead of glamorous hotspots, famous faces and iconic structures, Oakland-based photographer Katherine Westerhout prefers just the opposite. Rather than the latest and greatest venues du jour and the throngs that flock to them, Westerhout has built a career on creating large-scale images which capture the empty places long since forgotten by the general public -- including abandoned hospitals, churches, and theaters.

"I've been photographing in abandoned buildings for about 12 years now, and what I am so drawn to is the way the light enters these buildings and the way it carries color, from the outside, depending on the time of day," Westerhout explains to Spark during a photo shoot at the train depot at 16th and Wood streets in West Oakland.

Using only available light, Westerhout prefers to work from October to April, when the sun is closest to the horizon. She is attracted to subjects like the deteriorating station, which is a 1912 Beaux Arts gem and historical landmark, for the sense of mystery that accompanies the absence of human sound and movement. At the same time, Westerhout uses her photography to preserve a part of history that would otherwise be erased as new buildings and developments arrive to replace the old.

"The train station itself has a special feeling because of its history, because of its inherent beauty. But I also grew up in Oakland. And so the opportunity to photograph here, it feels like I'm giving a little back to my city and helping to preserve it," she says.

Westerhout earned a B.A. in art from San Francisco State University and has been exhibiting her photographs since the late 1990s. Her work has appeared in shows in the United States and internationally, at such venues as New York's Sepia International Gallery, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artists Gallery, the Oakland Museum of California, the San Jose Museum of Contemporary Art, the Berkeley Art Center, the Michael Hoppen Gallery (London, England) and the Biblioteca Nacional (Havana, Cuba).

More about the 16th Street Station:

West Oakland's 16th Street Train Station is an important historic and cultural landmark. Built in 1912 at the terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad, for decades the station served as a beacon of hope for European immigrants and American migrants seeking a better life in California. Designed by Chicago architect Jarvis Hunt in the Beaux Arts style, the station boasted an intermodal transportation system ahead of its time -- cross-country travelers could arrive on Southern Pacific trains and transfer to streetcars that would take them to destinations throughout the Bay Area.

The train station was abandoned after damage from 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake rendered it unsafe. Since then it?s fallen victim to vandals, the elements, and general neglect. Originally purchased in 2000 by Holliday Development, plans for restoration and redevelopment of the station (now known as Central Station ) are currently being spearheaded by Oakland developer Phil Tagami. Once plans and funding sources have been finalized, Central Station will operate as a nonprofit community center, alongside parks, shops and new homes in the 29-acre area.

What's in a name????

Prescott-Oakland Point Neighborhood History (Part 1)

In my earlier readings, I found the following:

Oakland Point began as a commuter suburb in the 1860s. The Central (later the Southern) Pacific Railroad arrived in 1869, transforming what had been a small commuter suburb into the western terminus of the first transcontinental railroad and virtually a railroad "company town."

Many nationalities have been represented in the town over the years--first Yankee and North Europeans, then Italians and Slavs, Asians, and African Americans. The numbers of African Americans grew dramatically during World War II, when young men from the South arrived in large numbers, attracted by good-paying railroad and shipyard jobs.

The rich heritage is documented in these two videos.

"Crossroads: A Story of West Oakland" uses historic views, both still photographs and early motion picture footage, to dramatize the railroad's dominance in the area during the 19th and early 20th century. Interviews with long-time residents show the strength and resilience of all of the groups that have occupied "The Point," still one of Oakland's largest and most intact Victorian neighborhoods.

"Privy To the Past" concentrates on information on the daily lives of ordinary families living in West Oakland from the 1800s through the early 1900s provided by archeological investigations conducted by CALTRANS.

For Location see "Oakland Point 1900" map below.

Here are some Prescott and Oakland Point references- Oakland Museum of CA

Case Study 29. Oakland Point Historic District, San Francisco County, CA (determined eligible for listing in the National Register in 1990)

Here is another reference: The Book of Jack London, by Charmian London 1921, chapter 3, page 29

“With the produce, a greengoods store was opened at seventh and Campbell streets. This junction was known as The Point by Oaklanders of that day.”

"I recall an occasion, in girlhood, when I paddled in the tiny gray-green surf at The Point, and then went indoors for a salt tubbing in water pumped from the bay and heated.”

Prescott Name-The Prescott name appeared around the early 19th century when schools and neighborhoods seem to share the same name.

I had heard there are some relations to the Prescott name and William Hickling Prescott, a historian, which I have not been able to confirm.

The Prescott-Oakland Point neighborhood is well documented as provided below:

Archaeology Outreach: It Takes A Community

Oakland Point reference pg. 177 (5 of 34)

Playing Hard in West Oakland ; Suzanne Howard-Carter, pg. 177 (5 of 34)

Prescott School 1906

The West Oakland Home Maria Gutman

Oakland Enquirer Newspaper

The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes ; The Anthropological Studies Center

Putting the "There" There: Historical Archaeologies of West Oakland

The Federal Reporter: With Key-number Annotations ...‎ - Page 174
This bar was a continuous shoal, extending from Oakland Point to Alameda Point, rendering navigation from the bay of San Francisco into the creek only ...

Report ... of the United States Pacific Railway Commission [and Testimony ...‎ - Page 27
A. Well, I should think we spent a great deal of money at Oakland Point. We spent millions of dollars there. Q. A million ? — A. Millions of dollars there.

San Francisco municipal reports‎ - Page 738
From Oakland Point to Yerba Buena is scant three miles. It might be advisable and practicable to carry ont a structure in the Bay for a mile or a mile and a ...

The Overland Monthly‎ - Page 151 1899
In 1875, Tiernan hauled out, at Oakland Point, for the Southern Pacific Bail- road Company, the side-wheel steamer Chrysopolis, (originally built by Captain ...

Quality: A Critical Introduction‎
by John Beckford - Business & Economics - 1998 - 351 pages
JOHN S. OAKLAND Point 1 Long term commitment; Point 2 Change the culture to 'right first time'; Point 3 Train the people to understand the ...

Past and Present of Alameda County, California‎ - Page 75
by Joseph Eugene Baker - Alameda County (Calif.) - 1914 - 594 pages
The first engine and first three cars used on the line were built at Oakland Point by Mr. Young. The San Francisco and Alameda railroad was being ...

The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorations in Slumland‎ - Page 25
Street soon connected downtown Oakland to the new ferry terminal, and Seventh Street became the commercial centre of West Oakland . In l869 Oakland Point...

The Railroad System of California: Oakland and vicinity; University, etc (1871)

Report ... of the United States Pacific Railway Commission [and Testimony ...‎ - Page 2392
The Oakland Railroad had, I think, about two or three miles of track running from Oakland Point to San Antonio , as it was…

The Overland Monthly
The stern-wheeler Constine was built in 1874; and the barge Governor Hayes was built at Oakland Point, in 1876, for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, and is 225 feet long, 43 feet beam, 6 feet 6 inches deep. In 1880, Captain Tiernan built the barge Garfield at Oakland Point for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company

For more neighborhood history, watch for Prescott-Oakland Point Neighborhood History Part 2.

If there is some neighborhood history you would like to share, please email

Like Loving Backward: Stories, the New Book of Fiction

The National Launch Of Like Loving Backward:
Stories, the New Book of Fiction
By Cheo Tyehimba, Award-Winning Writer & Author

Saturday, March 7, 2009; 2:30pm - 4pm Museum of the African Diaspora 685 Mission Street, San Francisco

For more information contact: info@moadsf.org or 415.358.7200

Seating is Limited Please RSVP

Following a Wine & Hors D'oeuvres Reception

Tyehimba will read from his book, a collection of supernatural stories about how black men learn to love, followed by a panel discussion about notions of new black manhood moderated by Davey D.

Book Signing to follow

*Cheo Tyehimba, (Prescott-Oakland Point neighbor) an award-winning journalist and author, is a former staff writer for Time Inc. and reporter for Entertainment Weekly magazine. He holds a master's degree in Creative Writing from the City College of New York and has written for many publications, including People, The Washington Post, O-The Oprah Magazine, Vibe, and Essence.

Soul food, California style

Tanya Holland, chef and owner of Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland, visits with Stefanie Parrott and her 4-month-old son, Clyde, and Rivkah Medow (just out the picture) and her 6-month-old son, Isa.

What today's soul food is missing, says Holland, is a charismatic spokesperson, "someone who can advance and explain and contemporize" the cuisine in the way that Charles Phan of the Slanted Door has done for Vietnamese food or Chicago's Rick Bayless for the Mexican kitchen.

"Part of my MO is to try to evolve it a bit," says Holland, whose year-old West Oakland diner draws a racially mixed crowd for sublime cornmeal waffles with upmarket accompaniments like Blue Bottle coffee and Blue Chair Fruit Co. jam. Her butter, milk, yogurt and eggs are organic; her chicken is free-range. The restaurant's garlicky collards and kale aren't simmered for hours with fatty smoked pork; they're briskly wilted in a saute pan with a blend of canola and olive oils.

Holland was raised in Rochester, N.Y., by food-loving parents who were both from the South. After college, she spent a year at Peter Kump's esteemed New York cooking school and then studied at La Varenne in France.

Her book, "New Soul Cooking" (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2003), encourages readers to serve food in European-style courses and embraces ingredients like star anise and goat cheese. Recipes like sweet potato blini with bourbon-cured salmon, and chopped dandelion greens with warm sherry vinegar dressing, show her inclination to use familiar Southern and soul-food ingredients as prompts for creativity.

When she began to plan the restaurant, recalls Holland, "it felt like the most authentic thing for me to do was to take my heritage and bring my training to it." So although her menu includes soul-food standards like fried chicken, po' boys and buttermilk biscuits, it also makes room for a daily quiche - she calls it a vegetable tart - and a composed salad such as a salade nicoise. On her Web site, Holland aptly labels her style - a merging of soul food with French and Bay Area sensibilities - as "mosaic cuisine."

"I don't really fit into a box, and I don't want to be placed in a box," says the chef. "That's why my terms keep switching. I'm still trying to find words that don't pigeonhole me." When some customers taste her quick-cooked greens, they tell her the dish isn't what they expected.

"And I think, 'It's not supposed to be,' " says Holland. For complete article, click here