I remember when I knew for sure that Oakland was going to be the right home for me: About five years ago, I was in the process of moving out of a temporary sublet in Berkeley and into a tiny new apartment in North Oakland. A friend of a friend was helping me to move, volunteering the spacious back of his old, listing, tied-together-with-a-bungee-cord biodiesel Mercedes Benz station wagon.
We were sputtering down Shattuck, heading towards the intersection of 52nd Street, having just crossed over the border from Berkeley into Oakland. The area was a good deal grittier than my temporary Berkeley Hills sublet. The Grove Shafter freeway overpass brutally sliced the neighborhood in half, turning it into a canyon of graffiti-covered concrete. Many of the houses looked sad and weary, with bars on the windows and busted concrete sidewalks.
Just before the smog check/drive-thru espresso bar, we drew up to a stop light, the car shaking and heaving under the strain of waiting. I was feeling tender and tentative. This move was a big one and I wasn’t yet sure of the direction I was going in or why I had ended up in Oakland after an almost 15-year love affair with San Francisco.
from WordPress https://jonathanwilhoite.wordpress.com/2017/01/31/a-love-letter-to-oakland-california-bite-sized-guide-oakland/
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