Matt Werner's Blog, page 8

Bay Area Elk

On Saturday, August 11, 2012, I went on the Yaggies hike to the northernmost tip of Point Reyes, California to check out the 450 elk that live in this northwestern corner of the Bay Area.

And I was in luck. Far from being elusive like mountain lions or the rumored Suburban Sasquatch of Southern California, I saw approximately 100 elk in three different groups spread throughout the Tomales Elk Preserve.

The Tule Elk, which became almost extinct in California due to over-hunting during the Gold Rush, looked more like reindeer than the mule deel seen throughout California. The Tule Elk bulls boasted enormous antlers. Just one antler weighs quite a bit!
Also interesting about the hike was learning a bit about Marin County's early dairy farming history. The hike starts from Pierce Point Ranch, which produced butter starting back in the late 1850s. There are still cows at nearby ranches. The land is now used exclusively for the elk preserve, but it still has over a dozen original white buildings, including a giant barn and houses.
Review of the Tomales Point Trail hike:

Pluses:

It has a 5-start rating on Yelp, which is even higher than the Golden Gate Park Bison!There are few places you can still see elk in California, so if you want to see them, this is the place to go.In the parking lot and two miles in on the trail, there were Park Rangers and volunteer wildlife guides. They had spotting scopes zoomed in on where the elk were. They were very informative and answered many questions about how the elk have made a comeback due to preservation efforts in recent years.This is also one of the most visible places to see the San Andreas Fault, and view how it created Tomales Bay.
Minuses:

Travel time: Although it's only 60 miles from Berkeley, it took us 2 hours to drive to Pierce Point Ranch, and 1.5 hours on the return trip. There are 1-lane roads to get to Point Reyes Station, and traffic can back up on weekends.Weather: Although it was sunny nearly everywhere else in the Bay Area that day, there was a thick blanket of fog covering most the coast, so we didn't see the ocean until we went down to water-level.Overall, if you have several hours free on a weekend, this is a great day trip.
Click here for photos of the trip on Google+

1,000+ cyclists turn out for East Bay Bike Party

Over 1,000 cyclists turned out for one of the most popular East Bay Bike Parties to date. At 8pm on Friday, August 10, 2012, the lower lot at Rockridge BART was overflowing with cyclists of all ages from throughout the East Bay. People were on all types of bikes: road and mountain bikes, tall bikes, track bikes, custom "Burning Man-style" bikes, and even a tricycle outfitted with a canvas frame that made it look like a food truck vending donuts throughout the ride.
The ride left Rockridge BART station, going along College Ave. to the UC Berkeley campus. It went through Northside, going by the university co-ops on its way down to César Chávez Park at the Berkeley Marina. At the marina, a metal band played with a bike-powered soundsystem blasting rock for the mosh pit crowd. The crowd left the Berkeley Marina at 10:10pm to ride along the Bay Trail, through Emeryville to West Oakland.
The second party stop was at West Grand and Mandela in West Oakland. After that, riders continued onto Lake Merritt, ending at Lakeside Park on the east side of the lake. Throughout the ride, there was an ebb and flow of cyclists as some riders left and others joined in, but throughout the night, there remained a steady stream of cyclists that stretched up to 10 blocks long.

Overall, the ride was very upbeat, and several cyclists had sound systems in tow. Depending which group you were riding with, you might hear rock, hip hop, Latin, or more mellow music. It was a family-fun event with children, the elderly, and everyone in between participating. The organizers asked all participants to obey traffic laws, and for the most part, cyclists rode responsibly, stopping at large intersections, and staying to the right side of the road.

Two things the organizers did well was to ask everyone to have bike lights, which kept people from running into each other in the dense cycling groups. These extra lights lit the dark roads, especially along the Bay Trail. The other was calling it the Sharpie Ride and encouraging people to wear white shirts and to bring Sharpies so people could write messages to each other and draw on each others' shirts. Popular inscriptions were "I ♡ East Bay Bike Party" and "I ♡ Oakland #swag".

The East Bay Bike Party takes place the second Friday of each month. Learn more about upcoming bike parties.

Click here for photos from the first half of the night : from Rockridge BART to the Berkeley Marina.

This blog post is cross-posted on Oakland Local.

Coal Mining in the Bay Area

Did you know that the Bay Area once had the largest coal mine in California? And that the East Bay boasted one of the largest silica mines to produce glass bottles for Oakland companies like Heinz Ketchup from the 1920s-1940s?

Visiting the Black Diamond Mines in Antioch, I got to climb into one of the largest coal mines in California. Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve run by the East Bay Regional Park District has a visitor center that stays the same temperature year-round. That's because it's in a former silica mine. The walls of sandstone are tinged with black from fires people used to light in the caves for parties back in the 1970s when the mine was abandoned.
These mines played an important part of the Bay Area's industrial development, as they produced the majority of the coal and glass that powered industry in Oakland in the first half of the 20th century.

What was interesting is that I couldn't find the early towns, where the miners lived, nor the railroad lines, which used to run through the hills. They've vanished, or been buried.
Outside the mines, there are scenic hills for hiking, and you can see the Carquinez Bridge in the delta from the tops of the hills. For more information about visiting the East Bay Regional Park, see the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve website.

Click here to view the complete photo album on Google+

Boots Riley and others attend August, 2012 Art Murmur in Oakland

Boots Riley was spotted at 23rd St. and Telegraph Ave. at the start of Oakland's Art Murmur on August 3, 2012. Oakland First Fridays Art Murmur is one of the largest regular gatherings of artists, street vendors, food vendors, and performing artists on the West Coast.

I asked Boots Riley what he thought about the New York Times Magazine article "Oakland, the Last Refuge of Radical America" profiling him. He replied that he wasn't entirely happy with it. He expressed a sentiment similar to what he wrote on Twitter, that "Oakland isn't the end of an old radical movement. It's the beginning of a new one."

For a good recap of the night--the art exhibits, speakers, and food--read Susan Mernit's piece on Oakland Local. For photos of the event, see my photo album on Google+ .

Click below for photos of past Art Murmurs by Joe Sciarrillo and myself:
July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012

200 Cyclists Participate in 5th Annual Peace Ride

Mayor Jean Quan watches a boy plant a tree in honor of Hiram Lawrence in West Oakland
Hiram Lawrence was one-year-old when he was shot in Oakland on November 28, 2011. On Saturday, July 21, 2012 approximately 200 cyclists turned out for the 5th Annual Peace Ride in his honor. The event, sponsored by Bikes 4 Life bike shop, ended in West Oakland with a tree planting and dedication ceremony in Hiram's honor, attended by Oakland Mayor Jean Quan.
This cycling event started on the north side of Lake Merritt at 5pm. A diverse group of Oakland residents turned out on road bikes, mountain bikes, tandems, and scraper bikes riding as a pack through some of Oakland's "100 Blocks" neighborhoods. The riders cycled from Lake Merritt through the Fruitvale District near the Fruitvale BART station. They then continued on Embarcadero to Jack London Square, Downtown Oakland, and then cycled on 7th Street to West West Oakland. Riders ended the route in West Oakland in front of the Bikes 4 Life shop. Compared with other bike rides in the Bay Area like Critical Mass or the East Bay Bike Party, this ride had a unique focus on stopping the violence in Oakland's flatlands. The ride strategically passed through the San Antonio, Fruitvale, and West Oakland neighborhoods as riders chanted, "Stop the Violence" and "What do we want? Peace!" Riders on scraper bikes and carrying boom boxes played hip hop along the ride.
The block party after the ride was on 7th Street, just two blocks from the West Oakland BART station. Shop owner Tony Coleman led the ceremonies by introducing Alex Miller-Cole, an organizer with the West Oakland Green Initiative. Miller-Cole, an Oakland City Council's District 3 candidate, planted a tree with children ages 3-12 in honor of Hiram Lawrence.
Hiram's mother was present, as were family, who fought back tears as the crowd gave a moment of silence. Mayor Jean Quan was at the event accompanied by no security guard or press crews. Mayor Quan spoke about the need for peace in the neighborhoods and for youth to find positive alternatives to gang violence.
The event continued into the night, with street bike races and a wheelie contest with the Original Scraper Bike Team.

For more photos of the Peace Ride, see the photo album on Google+.

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Article by Joe Sciarrillo and Matt Werner, author of Oakland in Popular Memory. This post is cross-posted to Oakland Local.

Art Murmur cracks down on street vendors

Excerpt from sign posted at 23rd and Telegraph. See the full sign at the bottom.
Street vendors at the July 6, 2012 Art Murmur were in for a surprise. As many were setting up their tables on the Telegraph Ave. sidewalks between West Grand and 25th Street, security officers came by with flyers informing them that next month Oakland Police will be handing out tickets to people tabling and selling art and food on the sidewalks. 23rd Street was no longer blocked off for food vendors in July, and food vendors are restricted to the new "Eat Up" food pod at 21st and Telegraph.

The sign and flyer handed out to vendors instructs those who sell art, jewelry, books, and other hand-made items to sell them in Rock Paper Scissors or the 25th Street Collective. The issue with this is that both of those mixed-use spaces are full of vendors, and there's likely a waiting list to get in. These two venues couldn't hold the dozens of additional street vendors, which typically line Telegraph Ave. the First Fridays of each month. In fact, the street scene has become so big, that some people attend Art Murmur not to go to the galleries (because they're overcrowded), but to buy the art and wares sold by street vendors.
CCA students selling their art at July's Art Murmur
Enforcing these 'clean street' policies could could be a blow to the artistic movements that’ve been organically springing up in Oakland, documented in my book Oakland in Popular Memory. Joe Sciarrillo's Art Murmur photos feature the many art vendors and street musicians that make up the colorful street scene. Art Murmur in recent months has seen bikes shooting fire, Carnival flashmobs, and Occupy Oakland artists silkscreening Occupy posters.

What’s pulling the street vendors to Art Murmur is not just the thousands of people in downtown Oakland for First Fridays, but that it’s a buying public. Speaking with vendors, many expressed that they're there to share their work and to make some extra cash to help get by during the recession. Some sell tamales, others sell earrings, jewelry, drawings, and whatever they can create to help get by.
Street vendors selling handmade art at April's Art Murmur
The city has a public information-sharing session for Art Murmur vendors on Wednesday, July 18th at 6:00pm at City Hall in Hearing Room 2. The city first cracked down on food vendors in December 2011, only to overturn the policy and allow food vendors to set up first at 23rd Street, and now at the Eat Up food pod. It will be interesting to see if the city really supports the artistic renaissance happening today in Oakland and opens an additional lot for artistic vendors, similar to what it did for food vendors.

The barrier to be a legal art vendor isn't high. All you need is a State of California business license and a city of Oakland seller’s permit. But to some of the scrappy artists just getting by, this barrier is too high. And without a place to sell their stuff, they will be excluded from Art Murmur or face tickets for tying to sell their art on the sidewalks.

Occupy Oakland protester atop bus at July Art Murmur
Man holding Occupy Oakland sign on a bus double-parked on Telegraph Ave., July 6, 2012.
Another factor for the city to weigh is that if the Oakland Police crack down too hard on street vendors at the next Art Murmur, they may need to contend with an Occupy Oakland backlash. People in the Occupy Oakland movement double-parked a bus on Telegraph between 23rd and 24th at July's First Friday event. This bus and adjoining street party blocked two lanes on Telegraph Ave. from 8pm-11pm. We'll see what happens at Wednesday's session for vendors at City Hall, and if Occupy Oakland will respond at August's Art Murmur.
Poster at 23rd and Telegraph, on July 6, 2012, where food vendors had previously set up.
Click here for more photos from the July 2012 Art Murmur

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Update to blog post:
Hiroko Kurihara emailed me on July 17, 2012 clarifying that the 25th Street Collective isn't a formal member of the Art Murmur organization, and she wasn't notified about having the 25th Street Collective put on the flyer handed to street vendors. She wrote "we believe in the streets being open to all." She stressed at the same time that people's safety is her utmost concern. Due to the amount of pedestrian traffic for August Art Murmur, they will be "placing cones and blockades at both ends of 25th street asking, kindly, for car drivers to seek alternate routes."