Oakland Emerging

by Randy Garbin

This story begins on a plane.

"Is that a good book?" asks a woman about to take the seat next to mine. Excuse me? I think to myself. I'm reading a book on urban planning, not the new John Grisham.

This chance meeting with Darlene Rios-Drapkin on a Southwest flight between Los Angeles and Oakland called my attention to one of the most maligned cities in the country -- the city in which we were about to land. Oakland -- now there's a town that one only hears about when the news is bad or when the Raiders become contenders for the Superbowl or the Athletics for the World Series. Oakland -- the word conjures up images of racial tensions and industrial decline and ill-conceived highway construction. Yet Darlene tells me that despite the image, the city still has much to offer. Indeed, given the surging Bay Area economy, what's left out there to develop and gentrify but Oakland? Turns out, not much. Oakland may have no choice but to prosper again in spite of itself.

I have a penchant for the underdog, and this dog didn't go much further down than Oakland. Across the bay from one of the more glamorous cities in the world, Oakland has for far too long cowered in its shadows. My experience traveling around the country and especially the Northeast has shown me that, for the most part, even the most derelict urban centers still retain some wonderful architecture, parks, streetscapes, and most importantly, interesting people. My conversation with Darlene confirms this suspicion. But while she bestows plenty of praise on the city in general, she's especially effusive about Fruitvale, where she serves as the manager of its Main Street program as administered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. My interest continues to build as she tells me that the city will likely elect Jerry Brown its next mayor. The dye is cast. I'm going.

Back to Fruitvale

My return to Oakland naturally begins in Fruitvale by revisiting with Darlene, who's confidence and devotion to her noble mission is an inspiration to anyone who listens to her. Main Street managers walk the land with a sense of purpose once reserved for religious missionaries. They always see their neighborhoods and accompanying commercial districts always with a glass-half-full attitude.

Once Fruitvale prospered with its prosperous commercial boulevard and tight-knit neighborhoods, built from the success of the region's bustling canning industry (hence the name). Well-intentioned but ultimately misguided development decisions, especially those dealing with transportation, ultimately unraveled places such as these. Out went the middle class; in came the poor, which in this case mainly consisted of recent waves of Mexican immigrants. With few resources even to feed their own families, little attention was paid to the surrounding environment. Like so many other inner city neighborhoods, Fruitvale ceased being a community and eventually became a warehouse for the poor.

The Trust's Main Street program aims to reverse that trend, in part via a process that builds an appreciation for existing assets. No, International Boulevard, Fruitvale's main drag, is not the Champs Elysees, but it does feature a fine collection of distinctive taxpayer strips that have held up rather well despite years of neglect.

Darlene's job as head of this program calls her to instill a sense of pride in the district. She hawkishly polices the storefronts for the cheapening effects of excessive placard posting and litter on their sidewalks, and she promotes a uniformity of marketing efforts.

"I try to convince them that they shouldn't hang up so many signs in their windows," she explains. "To them, these signs are necessary because it's one of their only forms of advertising, but it degrades the look of the streetscape."

Some of these tactics are well-enforced in one of the more obvious places: Shopping malls, from which the Main Street approach draws many of its guidelines. First, get everyone on the street to feel they're part of the same team. The Main Street program tries to regulate store hours in much the same way a mall lease requires shops stay open during set hours. This uniformity presents a more predictable, and therefore more reliable, shopping experience. Often Main Street shopkeepers, operating independently, resist external imposition of anything, much less the persistent cajoling of an earnest woman like Darlene.

The successful Main Street program relies upon voluntary cooperation, unless the district votes to impose a Business Improvement District. A BID levies an additional "tax" upon local merchants to pay for extra services that improve the streetscape's appearance. This past January, Fruitvale merchants approved such a program, which will now begin to outlay a proposed budget of $220,000 to pay and provide for street maintenance, public safety, and promotional services above and beyond what the city already provides. BID's have helped to spruce up and revitalize a number of different downtown shopping districts, notably Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square, Hollywood Boulevard, and Wilmington, Delaware. Unfortunately, a BID conversely acknowledges City Hall's inability to administer some basic municipal services. On the other hand, it does provide an alternative funding mechanism where local businesses assume a greater amount of responsibility for their own districts -- thus increasing their vested interest in its restoration.

The revitalization of Fruitvale involves more than its own BID. Other plans on the table include a highly ambitious (and expensive) transit village planned around the BART stop. And this past year, Fruitvale played host to the sixth annual Day of the Dead Festival, a traditional Mexican holiday. The event attracted more than 60,000 people to International Boulevard.

Will success spoil Fruitvale? Preserving its cultural diversity in the face of gentrification will certainly require solutions not yet found elsewhere. A pattern already established in such places as Soho, Times Square, Boston's South End, and other neighborhoods may ultimately mean the eviction of those that pioneered the revival. The moneyed uber-hip will always seek a closer proximity to the ground zero of cool, driving the cycle into another town or neighborhood. If Fruitvale can somehow provide enough housing to accommodate all who choose to live there, then maybe there's hope.

A fan of streets

While Oakland certainly has its share of distressed neighborhoods, a few definitely stand out as desirable destinations. All the hotel guides direct visitors towards Jack London Square, named for the author of Call of the Wild. Mr. London hailed from this city before he went off to his famous adventures in Alaska and the Yukon. While the Square certainly has its charms, the fact that the visitors bureau and chamber of commerce always lists this at or near the top of its recommended places to visit should give a true Roadside-explorer pause.

Having lived in Boston for a decade, I confess that I'd rarely bring visiting friends anywhere near Quincy Market/Faneuil Hall. Though both locations have their historical merits and entertainment virtues, these tourist traps don't give a true sense of their respective cities. Jack London Square is in a comparative infancy compared to Quincy Market, New York's South Street Seaport, or Baltimore's Inner Harbor, so it still retains a significant measure of local flavor. Nevertheless, put Jack London low on your list of priorities for your visit -- and don't fret if you miss it entirely.

I eased myself into the East Bay lifestyle with a walk along Grand and Lake Shore Avenues. This strip has a satisfying mix of shops and restaurants and not a single vacant storefront. Observe carefully, however, because when you return in five to ten years, you may find that hardware store and that local market, and perhaps the Imperial Restaurant, a classic luncheonette, has been transformed into the next flavor-of-the-month bistros, chain invasion, or fashion boutiques. The Starbucks army has already established a beachhead here, and its kindred dispirits are likely to follow. These commercial strips still serve every day needs, made more vital by the fact that Oakland doesn't have its own mall. A drive far enough south into Hayward will get you to the plaza-plexes (though the city does have a K-Mart), but imagine finding most of what you need at reasonable prices within easy walking distance.

At night, providing you can take your eyes off of the Grand Lake marquee, go listen to some sweaty blues or tasty jazz at the Fifth Amendment Tavern on Lake Shore. The façade of this club has suffered some unfortunate remodeling, but its interior still lends a classy air to the festivities. The Fifth showcases blues or jazz every night except Tuesday, when it closes. Between sets, one of the patrons confides that "It doesn't matter which night you come here. You'll always see something good, and you won't pay a cover."

I found it somewhat interesting that despite the prominence of the Fifth's location, in the heart of one of the city's most vibrant neighborhoods, most people I spoke with had either never visited or even heard of it. Unfortunately, I suspect a racial factor. Inside the Fifth, unlike the sidewalks outside, white faces like mine were decidedly in the minority. At times like these I'm reminded of a story told to me by visiting Danes, diner-hunting in the States. Finding themselves in a poor African-American neighborhood of Hartford, Connecticut peering in the windows of the beautiful Hal's Diner, they couldn't bring themselves to venture inside until one of the waitresses emerged and coaxed, "Come on in. We serve your kind, too!" Sometimes our prejudices or fears deprive us of some enriching and memorable experiences.

Usually, when you mention Lake Shore and Grand Avenues in the context of drinking, most people will tell you to go to The Alley. And for good reason. I spied The Alley during a brief visit last summer. From its promising exterior indicating a well-worn but beloved "old-guy bar," I sensed the potential. Unlike many older Northeastern heavy-industrial towns, Oakland didn't have the same abundance of gritty neighborhood pubs, and with the dot-conomy taking hold, I fear the Invasion of the Tavern Snatchers, where Jim's Bar suddenly becomes Café Vega.

The Alley may last longer than most, however, at least while Rod Dibble continues to take his place at the tavern's piano. When Rod plays, customers sing. Sitting around the piano, a microphone is passed and budding chanteurs and chanteuses test their pipes in this folksy, worn-edged setting. Rod's tickled the ivories here for the past 40 years, says the bartender and the newspaper clippings, and hipsters seek out the place as a delightful alternative to the manufactured kitsch of the karaoke circuit.

"On some nights, you'll hear people singing who'll make you cringe," my bartender tells me. But during my visit, most of the voices did fair justice to the Cole Porters and Irving Berlins and other standards. Some sounded nearly ready for prime time.

Everyone I spoke with during my tour practically breathed sighs of relief when they heard I had discovered the place. Obviously, the locals, especially those who see the hidden charm of Oakland, value The Alley's existence.

This tavern has its other quirks as well. You may not really notice it at first, but The Alley takes its moniker rather literally. The bar section is actually enclosed in a kind of building-within-a-building, where for the past 70 years customers have stapled their business cards to the walls. (Yes, Roadside is now represented. The first ten readers to tell us where will get a T-shirt.) "Outside" this structure, make yourself cozy in the booths and dine in back-alley ambiance while sipping your Anchor Steam Ale and slicing into the Alley's trademark variations on the meat-and-potato dinner. Keeping it simple, I enjoyed a big juicy burger.

It's showtime!

I listen to Alan Michaan talk about his theater and hope he speaks sincerely. As operator of one of the most magnificent movie palaces left in America, Alan professes great pride in his accomplishment having restored the Grand Lake Theater and running it since 1980. He credits himself for much of what one finds there today, while claiming he's not making any money. Given the economics of theater operation these days, this doesn't surprise me. Personally, I hope Alan makes a killing from this operation, if for no other reason than to spark the wholesale revival of this concept.

The Grand Lake anchors Oakland's premier neighborhood commercial district formed at the fork of Grand and Lake Shore Avenue at the eastern tip of Lake Merritt.. Its marquee, fully restored last year, blazes glamour true to the Hollywood tradition -- which is exactly Alan Michaan's point. "This theater is one of the last places in America where you can still get the true Hollywood experience." Well, a true vintage Hollywood experience. He bolsters his claim by pointing to the concession stand: No nachos. No ice cream. No espresso. Nothing not found at the theater's concession in 1924 when it was built. Sit down at the big screen and you will not seethe advertising so common in major theaters nationwide these days. "If I show commercials, what differentiates seeing a movie here from watching television?" But what if mixing these income streams into the operation means the difference between success or failure?

"Showing commercials or selling nachos does nothing to shore up my revenues. People come here because they can avoid all that." Voted "Best Theater" by readers of the San Francisco Chronicle for the past several years stands in at least partial testament to that.

While the Grand Lake boasts four screens, Alan sensitively added this capacity to the original design, completing the project in 1985. The enormous balcony, still larger than most econo-box theaters, serves as theater two, while Alan constructed three and four, complete with balconies, from former storefront retail space. Rarely do operators build such additions with much more than the bare essentials of a simple box with new seats. Alan claims that he built instead the first real movie palaces anywhere in the country in fifty years. Attention to detail is in great evidence here. The walls in theater three, for instance, have real plaster lattice work along the upper portions and enchanting specks of light in the ceiling to simulate starlight.

Alan himself hails from Connecticut, arriving in Berkeley in the late 1960s. He says wryly, "No one should ever live where it snows." (That's funny, because I feel the same way about places where the ground shakes violently.) He got into the theater business almost upon his arrival. "I built my first theater in 1970 in a warehouse using parts of other old theaters." Alan lays claim to having helped make Berkeley the birthplace of counter-culture cinema in America. Currently, besides the Grand Lake, he also operates the Orinda Theater in Orinda, the Park in Lafayette, and the Oaks Theater in Berkeley.

The Grand Lake provides an all-too-rare cinematic experience, made rarer by the Mighty Wurlitzer performances every Friday and Saturday evenings before the show. Then, as the lights dim, the luxurious curtain raises into the rafters to reveal a silver screen, upon which the magic begins. After years of the banality of the modern cineplex, I for one would pay eight dollars just to sit in the magnificent Grand Lake looking at a blank screen!

Coffee People

In Seattle, one suspects that all the buildings come equipped with hot and cold running coffee. The java phenomenon seems to have begun there, but in a sense, it really began in the Bay Area, in Berkeley. Alfred Peet opened his first coffee store with roaster in 1966 selling a particularly potent, dark-roasted brew, and it was from Peet's that the founder of Starbucks first hatched his diabolical plan to dominate the coffee market.

Though we all know what has happened with Starbucks, Peet's perks on as a small, yet popular regional chain. They certainly don't brew coffee for the mild-mannered drinker, and their stores have the same handsome but formulaic quality of any Starbucks. Both chains are easy to find here -- but in my opinion should only be used in case of a caffeine emergency.

Oakland features fine alternatives, such as the Java House on Lake Shore. They also serve potent coffee in an African/Caribbean-flavored setting. Though the Java House invites lounging, after several days, I ended up gravitating towards Gaylord's on Piedmont as my café of choice. It featured equally good coffee (tea drinkers have plenty of choices as well), plus a gold mine of delicious desserts served up in a vibrant atmosphere of diverse music and people. Gaylord's is an excellent place to hang out, strike up a conversation, or plug in your laptop

Debbie Giahos, a California native (!) took refuge in the shop on the day the Oakland Raiders failed in their bid for the Superbowl. "Who are they playing, anyway?" she asked innocently.

In a city otherwise obsessed with the Raiders, I found her ignorance rather blissful. The Raiders, a long-time NFL powerhouse of a team, had left for Los Angeles in 1982 only to return in 1996. That Sunday, the extensive tailgating activity in the area surrounding the stadium reminded me of a staging ground for a major invasion. Thankfully, the venue sits on the far southern end of the city near the airport and not much else, effectively isolating neanderthalic rituals to a remote part of town.

Debbie sang the praises of Piedmont and of Gaylord's. She also considered herself fortunate for the relatively low rent she pays to live in Oakland. In a better part of town, a comfortable one-bedroom apartment fetches nearly $1,000 a month, and in the Bay Area, that's considered quite reasonable. Finding a good house for sale under $300,000 has become quite the challenge, however. Unfortunately, Oakland faces the same problem challenging so many old industrial towns: An ailing school system. Another patron I met, a woman working for a hi-tech company, told me that although she's currently childless, "I'd never put my kids in school here."

Gaylord's other distinction involves its next-door neighbor, an aforementioned Starbucks. While it seems that Gaylord's has managed to stave off the java juggernaught -- for now, at least -- it continues to amaze me that anyone would bother to set foot in a big chain place when such a superior local alternative exists within spitting distance.

Cool Americana

After the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, Oakland's population swelled with people seeking to rebuild their homes and lives. Throughout the earlier part of the century up until the Great Depression, Oakland flourished. In that period, the city, abiding by the philosophies of the Cities Beautiful movement, built new civic buildings, realigned boulevards, and improved or expanded its park system. But if one thing makes the West often much more interesting than the more staid or conservative East in terms of early commercial development, it is the free-wheeling attitudes exhibited by developers and artisans.

As a result, the everyday architecture of Western cities and towns often displays an uplifting flamboyance that gives contemporary eyes a joyous respite from the brutalist and minimalist style that swept the urban landscape in the 1960s and 70s. Tour Oakland with plenty of film to capture the stunning art deco storefronts of Lake Shore Avenue, the blooming exuberance of the Flower Retail Building, and faded majesty of the Fox Oakland Theater awaiting its own rebirth. Explore Telegraph, San Pablo, and Broadway, and you'll uncover great lost treasures of neon, art deco, streamlining and general whimsy.

Traveling along MacArthur Boulevard, keen roadsiders will notice the seeming overabundance of motel options along this strip. Unfortunately, the locals tell me that none are really worth staying in for longer than an hour (nudge-nudge, wink-wink). Apparently these lodges sprung up as a result of the realignment and creation of this thoroughfare to feed and receive traffic from the newly built Bay Bridge. Today, that traffic drains into I-580, effectively bypassing and degrading the business climate along MacArthur for much of its stretch.

Betty Marvin, staff historian for the City of Oakland and charged with conducting historical surveys of the city's properties, tells me that her office has yet to document any of these motels just yet. One, the Mission, did undergo historical assessment before meeting the bulldozer in 1996. According to the survey, the motel was "the largest, most elaborate, and most substantially constructed of the many early motels and auto courts that lined the main highway through Oakland before the construction of the MacArthur Freeway in the mid-1950s." The remainder, if all properly restored and reused, could form the makings of a West Coast Wildwood -- but I suppose that's an unlikely prospect given the economics of the lodging industry.

Finally, fellow Northeasterners will want to know: No, Oakland has no diners. However, its historical traditions certainly would accommodate such places had the industry extended its reach more effectively across the Rockies. The closest real diner sits in Truckee, California, three hours away. The city does, however, have one of the last and more interesting examples of the classic Googie-style coffee shop. Too bad it's closed, and threatened.

Biff's Coffee Shop, a circular restaurant designed by noted Googie-style architects Armet & Davis, opened in Oakland at the tail end of the "Populuxe" era. As defined by Thomas Hine in his book Populuxe, Googie fit into the post-war optimism that lasted until 1964, the final year of the New York World's Fair. Not long afterwards, America plunged into an orgy of Early American and Environmentalist design influences, leaving these odd space-age architectural anomalies to stand out in the landscape like crashed UFOs.

Biff's did a fine business into the 1980s when it eventually became J.J.'s Diner, but then closed after four more years of operation. In stepped Chevron Oil, which owned the property and planned to demolish the dowdy structure to erect a gas station/fast-food/quickie-mart mutation. Into the breach rushed about 50 concerned citizens mindful that Biff's had once served as an anchor for the local neighborhood. These activists reminded the city that the place represented one of the last coffee shops from this era and one of the few in the Bay Area. Calling themselves the Friends of J.J.'s, (www.friendsofjjs.org), the group sought to help market this property to prospective restaurateurs looking to take advantage of the Oakland revitalization.

Want to Buy Biff's? Biff's Restaurant needs work, to be sure. [Name TK], an architect and one of the founders of Friends of J.J.'s,. estimates that anyone planning to reopen the restaurant should expect to sink in at least a half million dollars before opening the doors. Significant deferred maintenance needs to be addressed, and a full restoration of the coffee shop's exterior, which currently has aluminum panels pop-riveted to its sides, will be needed. In the 1970s, owners remodeled the shop's entryway to conceal some of the flared decorative elements that greeted customers upon entering. One Friends founder, Leal Charonnat, happily reports, however, that the Friends currently own all the interior furnishings, and will return them to the shop if needed by the new owners. A quirk in the deed granted the structure to Chevron while the lessor retained ownership of all equipment, tables and seating. Given that modern restaurant codes and/or age would require replacement of the equipment, reintroducing the original furnishings would lend a final stamp of authenticity.  A restored property would be primed to take advantage of the retro-tuned restaurant market all over the Bay Area. Interested parties should contact Gregg LaBarthe c/o Grugg & Ellis, Retail Sales Group at (925) 939-3500. Though Simi has not actually imposed any deadlines on this property, the Friends suspect that his patience will run out by the end of 2001.

Chevron eventually gave up its plans, partially because of neighborhood opposition, but mainly because of the various environmental reviews it faced on top of the zoning variances it needed for drive-through window within 300 feet of a school. Ultimately, in January 2001, Steve Simi, a local car dealer who owns the adjacent property, purchased the Biff's property. He says he hopes to lease out the 137-seat restaurant.

Jerry-rigging the city

Jerry Brown's election as mayor of this city in 1999 may or may not mean much in the long run. The barbarians of prosperity are at the gates. Pressures have finally reached the point where its past reputation as a teetering, troubled stepsister to the home of Tony Bennet's heart means nothing in the face of a $2000 per month rent bill for a two-bedroom apartment. Even West Oakland, once known as the worst of the worst in this city, slowly but surely returns to life after the rerouting of the Nimitz freeway, which collapsed in 1989 during the earthquake; it is now a path encompassing the neighborhood rather than bifurcating it. Even the elevated BART viaduct looming over 7^th Street no longer casts much of a pall upon this once festering war-zone. Artists, dot-commers, and other urban pioneers are snapping up the gracious Victorian bungalows for less than a hundred grand and restoring them. What could hizzonner do that would possibly influence this trend?

The challenge for Jerry remains for him to fix the schools, improve city services, and to wisely influence where and how all this development money gets spent. The Mayor's office has a stated intention of bringing 11,000 people downtown to live! In other words, Jerry seems to understand one of the basic tenets of sound urban design relating to the revival of downtown: Treat it like a neighborhood. That number represents an ambitious goal, even in the growing Bay Area, but at least it shows that Jerry has a sound vision for the city's revitalization. And he lives there himself.

I asked almost everyone I met for their opinion of Jerry Brown, and in general, the consensus after nearly two years in office was "so far, so good." Generally, Oakland citizens believe that at the very least, Jerry will help to generate some positive spin on their city. But almost everyone I spoke with believes that he's using this job as a first stepping stone for comeback trail to national politics. Everyone also seems to acknowledge the Mayor's aloofness and -- an uncharacteristic quality for a politician -- his aversion to making speeches. In other words, true to the legend, Jerry Brown is a genuinely innovative politician, but an odd bird.

Leave your heart

San Francisco will continue to draw job seekers, tourists, and the trendy well into the foreseeable future -- or at least until the "big one" hits. Yet, Oakland's time draws near. It has a smaller, more manageable airport, far less traffic congestion, plenty of entertainment options, better, fog-free weather, and a relatively unspoiled indigenous culture based on its years as a hard-working, can-do kind of town. It also has a dazzling array of walkable neighborhoods with a bounty of attractions. Outside of Oakland, the East Bay communities invite exploration, particularly Alameda and Hayward, which feature a seemingly endless number of vintage bowling alleys, roadhouses, theaters and vernacular architecture.

I lament the loss of friends and colleagues who migrate to the Bay Area to seek their fortunes, but I can appreciate. We who remain in the Northeast to slug it out against the elements, the lingering environmental effects of our industrial past, and a persistent mindset prevalent especially in the smaller cities that "old is bad, new is good," often wonder why we bother to care so much.

Oakland gets high marks as a city a New Englander can relate to. As one newly transplanted Buffalo native, Melissa O'Connell, explained to me during lunch at Bette's Oceanview Diner, "Oakland reminds me of Buffalo, but with much better weather."

I bumped into quite a few former Northeast residents now basking in the sunshine, including Karl Linn, an elderly radical environmentalist and highly vocal advocate of establishing community gardens as a method of making cities more livable. In New Village, a semiannual journal on building community in the United States, Karl wrote an impassioned essay entitled "Reclaiming the Sacred Common." In it he writes, "As the economic safety net unravels and the dream of winning, or even waging, a war against poverty disintegrates, community gardening becomes a survival strategy for more and more people… Community gardening is a way for people who lack yards to grow flowers, fruits and vegetables, but more than that it is also a way for people to work together, socialize, and talk with their neighbors."

During lunch with Linn at the Fat Apple in Berkeley, I can't help asking how he reconciles his radical environmentalism with living in one of the most ecologically tenuous regions on the planet. He smiles broadly, shrugs, and responds with classic Lower East Side inflection, "What can I say? I love the weather!"