signs: Oakland Police

Oakland Police HQ

Istarted writing a post the other week when the big news was that the federal judge had approved the deal between Oakland and the civil rights attorneys that stops just short of federal receivership for the police department. Instead, there will be a "compliance director", with the power to fire the chief and demote deputy and assistant chiefs. And ironically but not surprisingly, Oakland proceeded to hit 122 homicides for the year. (Now we're at 127, and the year isn't over yet.)

They've got a lovely sign, but as the article in Oakland Local says, it's been "A bad year for the Oakland Police Department". Here's hoping for all our sakes that 2013 is better for OPD, and brings reduced crime and particularly reduced violence for Oakland.

Oakland neighborhoods in the news

The questions of what a neighborhood is and where people consider it to be has long interested me. Clearly it interests other people, too, because my Oakland neighborhoods map post is by far the most popular post on Our Oakland, garnering 30 times the page views of most posts. (And of course, this post linking to it will further skew the imbalance.)

It's also interesting to note what the press, both locals and outsiders, refer to a neighborhood as. For a while I tracked stories to note how they refer to Oakland neighborhoods in an attempt to help answer the nebulous question, Where is East Oakland? In general, the stories refer to Oakland, downtown Oakland, some wealthier neighborhoods, but if about crime, mostly 'west Oakland' and 'east Oakland'.

So I was interested to read a story on SFGate, Longfellow a neighborhood key to Oakland's future which nicely sums up some of the issues facing Oakland. If the city can't reduce crime everywhere in Oakland, people will leave.

Justin Berton's article is mostly about the Longfellow neighborhood, which some folks call JAMMI - Just Above the MacArthur Maze Interchange (sadly, the JAMMI blog hasn't been updated in over 3 years). But it also mentions that not all residents think of their neighborhood as Longfellow; some think of it as Santa Fe (which is just north of Longfellow) because of the school there. It also refers to the nearby Golden Gate neighborhood (though it says it's to the northeast instead of to the northwest). I do wonder a bit about the reference by one resident to "the flat bottoms of West Oakland". Village Bottoms perhaps?

In any event, it's an interesting article, and nice to see reference to other Oakland neighborhoods, even if it is about crime.

news by neighborhood - where is East Oakland?

Inspired in part by a post at A Better Oakland some time back asking Where is East Oakland?, I started keeping track of where in Oakland news stories were reported. Many times the article simply says "Oakland"; sometimes it gives an address, block or intersection. More interesting is when it names a specific neighborhood or district of Oakland. Is there a bias towards reporting crime in Oakland? In East Oakland? Where exactly is East Oakland? Or as noted on Oakland Space Academy

...when you hear about crime in Oakland, it happens in Oakland. Whereas when you here about crime in San Francisco, it is typically attributed to a specific neighborhood, usually Bayview-Hunter's Point or maybe the Tenderloin.

Going from least specific to most, the colors are as follows:
green - Oakland
blue - East Oakland
red - West Oakland
purple - Downtown
yellow pin - named neighborhood or other

View news by neighborhood in a larger map
Note that I've only linked stories that give some sort of location, be it address, block, intersection or neighborhood name. Also note that anything older than 30 days or so in the Tribune gets archived, so most of the links no longer work, so I've included a brief synopsis of the title.

While my observations aren't scientific or even remotely complete (I've missed lots of stories, and I don't follow SFGate that closely), looking at the map does suggest there's a tendency to report news in Oakland as being in Oakland, East Oakland, West Oakland or Downtown, rather than in a specific neighborhood. Particularly if it's a crime; non-crime articles are more likely to get the neighborhood named. And it's not just San Francisco media, either -- most of the stories I've mapped come from the Oakland Tribune. There are plenty of exceptions either way (e.g., areas around Lake Merritt get a mixture), but I've definitely noticed a trend.

So while referring to every single neighborhood on the Oakland neighborhoods map would be overkill and counterproductive (because most people don't know where a lot of those neighborhoods are and some names are no longer in use), it would be great if the Tribune and other media started referring to neighborhoods or at least districts when reporting*, instead of lumping stories in Oakland and crimes in East Oakland.

(* Maybe closer to what's on my Oakland map? Though that's somewhat out of date, now -- I'm aware of more specific neighborhoods in what I labeled as East Oakland on that map, largely through volunteering with Habitat for Humanity and riding my bike to and from the worksites.)

signs: Piedmont Piano

Piedmont Piano

This is a first for the Our Oakland signs feature in that it's the second showing of this locale, but with a different sign. It used to be an art supply store with a nice Drafting / Furniture sign. But it's been reborn in cool colors as the new home of Piedmont Piano.

Piedmont Piano was on the corner of Piedmont Ave. and Pleasant Valley since 1980. While it was a fixture on the end of Piedmont, that location acquired a tragic history. Back in 2008 a 10 year old boy was shot while taking a piano lesson, during an attempted robbery at the car wash and gas station across the street. In an odd twist, the shooter was also involved in a carjacking of state senator and now Oakland mayoral candidate Don Perata.

great Art Deco entrance

signs: Laurel Lounge

Laurel Lounge

The Laurel Lounge sign has the requisite martini glass, though an interesting 50s or 60s style one. It also has the vaguely atomic or space-themed orb at the top. Unfortunately, a man was senselessly shot and killed near here last night. I'm not sure if this is the bar in question, or the 7 Seas across the street.