Interesting New York Times article on Oakland CA

In light of our recent discussion of Oakland CA on another thread, I thought I'd share this piece with y'all which recently appeared on the NY Times Op-Ed page.

Seems Ishmael Reed's writing a book on good ol' Oakland...

Welcome to Planet Oakland
By ISHMAEL REED

AKLAND, Calif. — This city has often been called the ugly stepsister of San Francisco. And that's partly true. The town has more in common with Mustache Sal, the character created by Bret Harte (a former Oakland resident), than with Jenny Lind, who once sang here.

But when Gertrude Stein and her family lived in Oakland, it was known as the second Venice. There were mansions around Lake Merritt, the country's largest urban saltwater lake. Inside its park is Children's Fairyland, the inspiration for the Disney theme parks. One of the remaining mansions is the grand Victorian Camron-Stanford House, where President Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife, Lemonade Lucy, attended a reception in their honor. The mansion reminds us that Oakland was once a resort for the rich. When Gertrude Stein returned here on a lecture tour in 1935, the estates had been subdivided to accommodate the thousands of people who poured in after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Her childhood home had been demolished. For her "there was no there there," she was to write in "Everybody's Autobiography."

Despite the efforts of some earnest preservationists, the Camron-Stanford House has been allowed to decay while new condominiums — high-rise trailer parks — shoot up overnight. Mayor Jerry Brown wants to revitalize downtown by bringing in 10,000 residents of the kind who can afford high rents. He says he wants Oakland to be like Manhattan, but he isn't the first dude to try to tame this city. This planet city. Not "soft" but "husky, brawling" as Carl Sandburg wanted of cities.

I gained a fuller knowledge of Oakland's diversity — in one district, the Fruitvale, at least 80 languages are spoken — by spending my summer exploring the city from the waterfront, where Jack London and his friends got into drunken brawls, to the Chabot Observatory, in the Oakland Hills, where one of Einstein's telescopes is housed. I'd been postponing a visit to the observatory, but then my editor invited me to write a book about any city of my choice for a travel series. I chose Oakland, because I thought I knew a lot about this town. I was wrong. In what has turned out to be a remarkable summer, I discovered another Oakland, one buried beneath the lurid headlines, one dripping with rich heritage and a mosaic of cultures. I became acquainted with the fascinating details of landmarks that I'd passed by many times without a second glance.

Though crime waves are nothing new in this town where the first mayor, a Columbia Law School graduate, was a swindler and whose most prominent writers at the turn of the century, Jack London and Joaquin Miller (author of "Life Amongst the Modocs"), were a mugger and a horse thief, it would be a mistake to define this city by its crime rate. There is nobility just below the surface of this town that has acquired a grimy reputation.

The Peralta House is one of the reminders of Oakland's aristocratic past, when the favorite sport of the early Californios (children of the New Spanish who settled California) was bullfighting. It was built in 1870 by Antonio Peralta, whose father arrived from Mexico. The Spanish king granted him a spread that included Oakland and Berkeley. Another son leased some of his land to Horace Carpentier (born Carpenter), Oakland's first mayor, who violated the lease by selling the Peralta property to squatters. (One of his first acts was to ban bullfighting.)

The African, African-American and Caribbean communities contributed Carijama, a festival of arts and crafts and a parade in which the "saints" of the Yoruba religion march through the streets, accompanied by the sounds of steel drums (a neighborhood critic could only see "scantily clad women"). I attended a ceremony at Frank Ogawa Plaza, named for the late Japanese-American councilman, where Ramón Martínez was honored with a proclamation from Mayor Brown. Mr. Martinez arrived here in the 1920's. His orchestra, Los Caballeros, toured the region and entertained troops during World War II. He became president of the Pan American Club in the late 1930's and organized huge barbecues, fiestas and dances. The club became the United Americas Association and sponsored the first citywide Cinco de Mayo celebration in 1946.

Oakland is a town where one can step into different centuries within a few blocks. Preservation Park evokes the 19th century: 16 historic houses of the Victorian, Stick, Italianate and Queen Anne styles were renovated and moved there. They are home to artists, writers and organizations both profit and nonprofit. Sitting in the fantail of Franklin D. Roosevelt's yacht, the Potomac, where the president entertained King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and mixed martinis for his guests, I found myself in the 1940's. The Port of Oakland bought the vessel for $15,000 and with the aid of President Ronald Reagan and others, it underwent a $5 million renovation. Along the way on my tour, I sampled fine Oakland cuisine: Duck legs with pinot noir at the Bay Wolf, where the establishment dines; barbecue ribs at Everett and Jones; authentic Mexican food like they serve in Mexico City, according to Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente, who took me and my daughter, Tennessee Reed, to lunch in the Fruitvale.

Oakland's poets gather at the Coffee Mill, on Grand Avenue, near another old-time California movie palace, the Grand Lake Theater (1926), which was restored down to the 5,000 light bulbs that grace its marquee. Oakland's hip counterculture book store, Walden Books, is on the same block. But the most popular Oakland verse is the blues. The Oakland blues sound of Texas and Louisiana origin has an international audience. When Oakland musicians perform, thousands of people show up, a sizable number wearing Stetson hats and cowboy boots.

Billy Collins has a poem somewhere that argues for vacationing in one's own neighborhood. The millions of Americans who spend millions of dollars on sightseeing tours abroad should try taking one in their own city and they might be surprised at what they uncover, because every city has hidden stories and even epics. Our beleaguered cities, whether soft or husky or androgynous, could use the revenue.

If I hadn't toured Oakland this summer I could have lived here for the rest of my life and not noticed that the author Amy Tan once resided in my neighborhood. So did the Black Panthers Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Bobby Hutton and David Hilliard. They walked across Martin Luther King Jr. Way as they headed to Merritt College and influenced the course of Oakland history, helping to elect a black mayor, congressman and supervisors.

Of the three cities, San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland, Oakland is the blue-collar city, reminding one of the old industrial towns of the Northeast. It is the city with the big heart, accommodating 200,000 earthquake survivors and starting a free breakfast program. Oakland is Buffalo with weather. And no matter how much the developers, who seem to be running the town, continue to abuse landmarks and erase Oakland's history, even threatening Preservation Park, the beauty of the place will endure. A beauty that was captured by the African-American writer William Nauns Ricks in his 1902 poem, "Night in California."

When the sun is sinking slow
Behind the mountains blue and white
And the mist upon the town is falling low;
When the mocker's sleepy note
Seems to stifle in his throat
Then to us in California, it is night

Ishmael Reed is author of the forthcoming "Blues City: A Walk in Oakland."