Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! To say that Steve Snider - my friend known for the revival of the downtown Oakland party scene and who served on the Mayor's Sports and Entertainment Task Force, and is now part of the Uptown District team that's behind this party to take place tommorrow - gets involved with anything small would be a joke. While "Oakland Uptown Unveiled" isn't the largest event ever held in downtown Oakland, it's certainly the biggest one for the Uptown. This area, which just five years ago was still considered a place not to be for any but the most experienced Oaklanders, has taken off. Where the Broadway / Grand development is today was once the home of a sleepy rental car establishment. Luka's across the street was the long time location of "The Hof Brau" where old-timers spent a day talking with friends and eating large meals. Another Oakland of another time. Now, the area

Major Oakland developments default on loans - Inside Bay Area : “OAKLAND — At least three major residential-retail projects deemed to be important catalysts for the downtown's revival have toppled into separate mortgage defaults that together total $140 million. The loan defaults have jolted the financial prospects for the downtown Oakland projects that, combined, would bring nearly 300 residential units to the city's urban center. The projects were all originally devised as for-sale condominium developments. "Clearly Oakland is not immune to the soft economy, the problems with the credit markets and the slow housing sector," said Ken Meyersieck, managing partner with the Oakland office of commercial realty brokerage Colliers International.”

More at Inside Bay Area : “Geoffrey's Inner Circle, the popular black-owned and -operated nightclub in downtown Oakland, is closing. Owner Geoffrey Pete said little Tuesday other than he is transferring the lease to a church and a nonprofit. Pete has complained in the past, however, that police were unfairly targeting his night spot as well as other black-owned clubs downtown, many of which have closed in the past few years. Some of the clubs closed voluntarily or were pressured to do so by the city after crowds leaving the establishments were involved in fights, shootings and sideshows that resulted in injuries and death. Police said the incidents ate up overtaxed police resources as officers from beats around the city were called in to restore order and make arrests. Geoffrey's drew a mature, well-heeled crowd and had relatively few problems compared with other now-defunct nightclubs, such as Mingles and Sweet Jimmie's, but Oakland police Sgt. Kyle Thomas said that change

After several months of work, the mural at 1100 Broadway in downtown Oakland is finished. The work of Oakland artist Rocky Rische-Baird, it is a step back in time as much as it is a celebration of downtown Oakland and a landmark for 1100 Broadway itself. I talked to Rocky Rische-Baird about his new classic work.

Loading “Oakland's City Walk all wrapped up for holiday season - Inside Bay Area”

The Oakland Fox Theater has rested dormant for over 30 years until California Commericial Investments and Phil Tagami worked with the City of Oakland to restore this architectural gem.   All of the work will come to an end when the Fox Theater opens on February 5th 2009.  You can be part of the party with a contribution of anywhere from $35 to $25,000, which you can do starting with a click here:   Contribute to the Oakland Fox .  

This is from the Oakland Police Department.  According to my sources, the checkpoints will almost certainly be on or near Broadway, and not far from Luka's bar and restaurant and Sweets Lounge on Broadway -- the areas with the highest traffic on Friday night. Personally, I think the best solution for the grant money funding this program is to have a free late-night shuttle service that goes from specific points around Lake Merritt and to stop areas near each bar.  That would be a great alternative to driving.  But this excuse to arrest someone is not solving the problem at all.  As Willie Brown said in this video , "Drink.  Drink.  Drink.  Then drive drunk so I can represent you."  In fact, San Francisco doesn't have a checkpoint system; most people take cabs which are in abundance.  But also people do drive, some of them elected officials and wealthy people, and nothing ever happens to them in San Francisco.  Look at the case of Harry Denton! In Oakland, where

In the past, Downtown Oakland was the true center of the city. But as business left Oakland, downtown became a ghost town. By the 1980s it was hard to build a structure without some form of government money involved. Not anymore. 1100 Broadway by SKS Investments is an entirely privately financed skyscraper office complex that will transform the middle of downtown Oakland into a landmark place to be.

I wish I would have known that everyone was gathering at Geoffery's Inner Circle downtown for this event. I'm sure it was quite a site, and definetly one for the history books. I was at home. The heat that the day brought Oakland had myself and all of my neighbors with their windows open, television sets turned up and tuned into Barack Obamas acceptance speech. And that, for me, sent shivers up my spine. We are all a witness to history. The Oakland Tribune's full story below: Oakland abuzz over Barack Obama nomination Sees Obama as bringer of change and symbol of overcoming racism Angela Woodall Oakland Tribune Article Launched: 08/28/2008 10:30:23 PM PDT "I accept your nomination as president of the United States." Those few words from Barack Obama, who made history Thursday as the first African-American presidential nominee of a major political party, sent shivers up spines and drove the audience gathered at Geoffrey's Inner Circle in downtown Oakland to its

This is the video that was the focus of a front page Oakland Tribune article, where it was refered to as the "secret tape". It has Yusuf Bey IV of Your Black Muslim Bakery talking to two other unidentified associates in an Oakland Police holding room, and whispering as if they did not want to be heard, but they were. What's revealing in this tape is the sheer insensitivity of the three to the fact that Bailey (or anyone) had been murdered. It's also hard to pin down who did what from the tape. But it's clear the Oakland Police were trying to form a case against Your Black Muslim Bakery. To date, Bey has not been charged and the only person who has been is Devondre Brousard .

I got this interesting release which I'll show below as it's chocked full of information. It's on an event to take place this Saturday at 11 in the morning at the old Key System building at 11th Street and Broadway in downtown Oakland. Here's the info: The Oakland Heritage Alliance along with SKS Investments are unveiling a new mural by artist Rocky Rische-Baird at the site of the historic Key System building in downtown Oakland to commemorate the innovative mass transit system that once served communities throughout the Bay Area. The 20-by-80-foot mural will be installed at the base of the former Key System building at 1100 Broadway. As part of the redevelopment of the 1100 Broadway site, SKS Investments will restore and preserve the facade of the neo-classical structure which will be integrated into a new 20-story tower that will provide 310,000-square-feet of Class A office space and 10,000-square-feet of ground-floor retail. Upon the start of construction at the s

I saw this news at SFGate.com : (07-28) 06:26 PDT OAKLAND -- Oakland police today are investigating two restaurant robberies that occurred within minutes of each other on Sunday night. The first robbery happened at about 9:35 p.m. at the Bay Fung Tong Seafood Tea House at 1916 Franklin St. in downtown Oakland. Three armed men robbed people of their cash or wallets and took money from the business, police said. No one was injured in the takeover robbery. At about 9:42 p.m., a man robbed the Grégoire takeout restaurant at 4001 Piedmont Ave. One person was hurt during that robbery but did not need medical treatment, police said. No arrests have been made in the robberies, and it was not immediately known whether the two cases were related. I think the main issue is stopping crime before it starts. Both of these incidents happened around the close of business. Why no cameras in either place? What about other deterent devices? Or is this a time to encourage gun ownership?

What does street cleaning make you think of? Noise? Dirt? Big trucks? All of the above? Want to hear that at night while you sleep? Well, it's for those reasons that the Downtown Lake Merritt Neighborhood Group launched a petition drive to have the City of Oakland go from nighttime to daytime street cleaning and got 181 people to sign it. The trouble is that the City of Oakland's stil not implemented the change. Here's the Downtown Lake Merritt Neighborhood Group's notice on the matter: Good Afternoon, 18 months ago, the Downtown Lake Merritt Neighborhood Group presented a petition with 181 signatures to the Oakland Public Works Agency and our City Councilmember, Nancy Nadel, requesting that street sweeping hours in our neighborhood be changed from 12AM-3AM to daytime hours. The petition read: "The current street sweeping hours are inconvenient because they occur when the highest percentage of us are home -- the middle of the night. The street sweeping sched

The Hot Pink Feathers Dance Troupe Is introduced by Peter Van Kleef just before their performance at Cafe Van Kleef in the Updown District of Downtown Oakland. You can learn more about the popular dancers at their website at HotPinkFeathers.com or by just visiting Cafe Van Kleef on the first Saturday of the month at 9 PM. Video is also on MetaCafe , and Google , as well as MySpace , Crackle , and other sites.

Looking for Uptown, Cafe VanKleef, Air Lounge, Luka's and other Oakland nightspots and eateries? You can find them all here! Now, Oakland Focus has a new widget on the right where you can see the location of restaurants and nightspots in downtown Oakland and around Lake Merritt. Give it a spin and tell your friends! And stay tuned for more Oakland-specific tools here!

Phil Tagami's new online show has a spiffy new blog home at www.tagamivision.com In the first episodes, Tagami interviews several prominent Oaklanders about the crime problem in our city. It's most informative. The web show will have even more content in the near future, and continue to be primarily video-based with occasional blog posts in between. The idea is to bring focus and attention to Oakland's most pressing problems. It comes really from Phil's personal experiences in trying to improve the downtown area he works in. Now, of course, he's got a vested interest in the effort, but his work benefits all of us in bringing the community together. Here's a sample of some video shows on TagamiVision: Phil talks to Police Chief Wayne Tucker.... Part One.. Part Two...

This is a shocking report delivered as a video by me and about a document and its findings called "Violent, Property, Crime & Arrest Rates" in Oakland. The video has the details and I'll lay them out in a text fashion in another blog post.