Oakland should be more like Istanbul

A trip to Turkey gave me a new perspective on home

I recently returned from an eye-opening trip to Istanbul. My wife and I stayed in a densely populated neighborhood called Kuzguncuk with our friend who grew up there and moved back after many years of living in Oakland. Maybe it’s my lack of international travel experience, but before the trip, I hadn’t considered how visiting Turkey would give me a different perspective on the place where I live, but that’s exactly what happened. From the moment I first hit the streets of this ancient metropolis, there was a small voice in the back of my head thinking “If only Oakland could be a bit more like Istanbul…”

We arrived around 11pm on a Sunday night and were starving. After dropping our luggage at my friend’s apartment we only had to walk about 30 seconds before encountering a street brimming with mouthwatering options. I was astonished. As we navigated the narrow sidewalk, I saw that both sides of the street were filled with cafes and restaurants - and they were all busy! For blocks, tables set up in front of these shops were filled with people sipping coffee, nibbling on sweets, enjoying aromatic kebabs, or simply chatting. And it wasn’t just young people, like you might expect at 11pm in a hip American city. Entire families, including elders and kids, were out on this balmy evening. 

After strolling for a few blocks, we grabbed a table on the sidewalk in front of a tiny restaurant that specialized in manti, a kind of Turkish ravioli. The owner, who had been sitting at a nearby table when we arrived, popped into her shop, whipped up the food, and had it on our table, alongside some homemade dolmas and kofte (lentil balls), within ten minutes. It was delicious and very affordable. After the meal, as we headed back to my friend’s home, the street scene was quieting down, but I soon learned it would roar back to life again within a few hours. When I went out to grab coffee the following morning, tables in front of the bakeries and cafes were already filling up again.  

The qualities that impressed me about Kuzguncuk weren’t confined to this quaint little neighborhood. Istanbul has 15 million residents and it often felt like all of them were in the streets. Even though the buses and ferries ran every few minutes, there was always a group gathered by the time the next one arrived. In neighborhoods like Kadıköy, which has dozens of nightlife options, many of the bars we visited were packed even on weeknights. On weekends, some of the pedestrian boulevards were filled with crowds well past midnight and I never felt unsafe* or witnessed any of the drunken shenanigans that you’re likely to see in bustling US cities during these late night hours. (*I don’t just mean safe from crime. Many sidewalks are lined with bollards to protect pedestrians from wayward drivers.) Obviously, like any major city, Istanbul is far from perfect, but I found the liveliness of its streets (and the wide range of incredible food being sold on them at all hours) to be enviable… and inspirational.                      

Maybe it’s not fair to compare a dense megalopolis that’s more than a millennium old with Oakland, a city with less than half a million residents that was established less than two centuries ago, but being in Istanbul was the best example I’ve ever seen of how lively streets bring so much joy to the experience of urban living. In Oakland, this critical mass of activity is usually only seen during special occasions like First Fridays, neighborhood block parties, farmers’ markets, outdoor concerts downtown, or events like Fruitvale’s Dia de los Muertos extravaganza. The huge response to Oakland’s recent night markets in Prescott and Chinatown show that there’s pent up demand for spaces where folks can feel safe to gather informally in large numbers outside at night. People don’t go to these events only for the food. The possibility of spontaneously connecting with your friends and neighbors can be just as alluring as discovering a new empanada truck or trying a limited-edition IPA.

Unfortunately, the trick of fostering a permanent home for this kind of activity (in other words, bringing more liveliness to the streets of Oakland) won’t be easy. Besides widespread fear of getting bipped (or worse), the dwindling number of restaurants, widespread commercial vacancies, lack of family-friendly attractions, and the ever-increasing price of drinks aren’t helping. In a recent essay, “Why U.S. Nightlife Sucks,” Darrell Owens explains some of the policy history behind why “downtown is dead” (Spoiler: Zoning that prioritizes auto traffic above all else is a death knell for thriving city centers.) But if Oakland wants to reverse the doom loop, there are a few relatively simple things it could do to spark the kind of activity that would bring people back downtown – and you don’t need to look all the way to Istanbul for examples. 

Across the Bay, San Francisco has been “activating” core locations like Union Square and the Embarcadero with free concerts and DJ performances throughout the summer. I attended a few of these shows and attendance was massive, bringing a flood of much needed foot traffic to nearby restaurants and retailers. Besides these special events, San Francisco has incentivized more steady activity with its “Vacant to Vibrant” program, which has filled up formerly vacant storefronts by offering temporary free rent to small businesses and nonprofits, like KALW radio. Considering Oakland’s slew of boarded-up, ground floor commercial spaces, figuring out a way to emulate this program over here seems like a no-brainer. While setting up programs like this will take some time, city leaders would do best by taking a hands-off approach to unpermitted gatherings that are filling the void in the meanwhile (as long as they’re not presenting a threat to public safety). 

I’m sure there are many other creative options for bringing more liveliness to Oakland’s streets (free BART shuttles, more secure bike parking, etc), but we all need to recognize that waiting years (or longer) for tech companies to start filling office space again isn’t the answer – and neither is allowing landlords to simply keep ground floor spaces vacant interminably. The city needs to encourage anything that will start building momentum. Clearly, having a wide array of evening street food options helps. May I suggest a doner kebab?

In Turkish restaurants, the best seats are in the streets.

More East Bay Yesterday news
Although Oakland has one of the highest concentrations of lesbians in the country, the history of this community is often overlooked. Lenn Keller tried to change that by creating the Bay Area Lesbian Archives, a wide-ranging collection of photographs, activist materials, meeting notes, videos and more. Although Lenn Keller passed away in 2020, the Bay Area Lesbian Archives is still going strong. The organization recently moved its vast and impressive collection of rare materials and books from a storage unit into a beautiful home in the East Bay hills, and they’re currently running an exhibition and event series at Eastside Arts Alliance. Listen to my new podcast to hear an interview with BALA members Dr. Kerby Lynch and Sharon de la Pena Davenport on why this history is still so vital — and how you can contribute to a time capsule they’re putting together!

On October 28, come to Clio’s to see me in conversation with Rosanna Xia, the award-winning author of “California Against the Sea: Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline.” We’ll be exploring “what sea level rise means for the Bay Area” through a historical lens, with a specific focus on threats faced by the East Bay’s flatlands neighborhoods. It won’t all be doom and gloom though, because we’ll also be discussing some promising mitigation efforts, like wetlands restoration at the old Alameda Naval Air Station. Get tickets here (The first round of tickets sold out, but a few more are now available.)

My last boat tours of 2024 are happening this weekend. On October 19 and 20, I’ll be taking folks out to visit sites ranging from Albany Bulb up to East Brother Island. Along the way, we’ll check out Red Rock Island, Richmond Harbor, Point Molate and several other stunning locations. Click here for tickets. If you’re not able to make it this weekend, I’ll be announcing the first round of 2025 tours in my next newsletter – just in time for the holidays, in case you’re looking for a unique gift idea. (For a little preview of one of my favorite tour stories, check out this great Peter Hartlaub article on the history of Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline.)

The exhibition about Idora Park, a long gone Oakland amusement park, that I profiled in last month’s podcast is now open to the public. If you want to check it out, the gallery (at the corner of 56th and Shattuck) will be open on Saturday afternoons for the next few weeks. Here’s a little preview of what to expect…

In Other News
Happy 110th birthday to Elmwood Theater! The Berkeley cinema will be celebrating with a presentation on how it’s managed to survive all these years followed by free movie and a “post-screening mingle.” Check out Berkeleyside for all the details.

If your favorite places to drink include dives like Merchant’s, The Alley, and Heinold’s, you’ll be excited to hear that Oakland Heritage Alliance is hosting an event on November 21 about The Town’s oldest bars. Tickets for “Watering Holes of Olde Oakland” are available now. Cheers!

Speaking of beverages, the mai tai is now Oakland’s official cocktail. Although the tropical concoction is typically more associated with sunny South Pacific beaches, it was allegedly invented on San Pablo Avenue in 1944 by “Trader” Vic Bergeron. In other food news, check out this SF Gate article on the Fratellanza Club to learn more about the legendary Italian feasts they’ve been serving since 1932. 

Yet another local institution is facing an uncertain future: According to SF Gate, Down Home Music could be losing its El Cerrito home if they can’t come up with enough money to buy the building where they’ve been located for the past 48 years. The property is also home to the Arhoolie Foundation and its vast music archive, as well as Les Blank Films, which was founded by the legendary Berkeley documentarian. The record store will remain open while the occupants scramble to raise funds to preserve their place on San Pablo Avenue. If you’ve never dropped by, it’s worth a visit, even if you’re not a record collector. “The [people who run the store] are so knowledgeable about music, and they will talk. They’re almost like docents, and this is a museum of music,” per Harrod Blank.

Much has been written on the destructive origins of Oakland’s highway system, but even if you’re already familiar with the topic, this insightful new essay “Running the World’s Shortest Freeway” is worth a read. Plus, this history is particularly relevant now, given the momentum growing around proposals to remove 980. As a bonus, the essay also features some incredible images unearthed from the Oakland History Center, including this one of the 12th Street Viaduct, circa 1950…

The Oakland History Center is still, sadly, closed due to renovations at the main library. But that’s not stopping them from hosting a series of upcoming events on topics including Chinatown, Joaquin Miller, and the Kaiser Convention Center. Get all the details here.

My friend Supriya Yelimeli wrote a bittersweet essay about how her hometown Fremont has changed over the past few decades. She contrasts the suburb’s reputation as a friendly haven for immigrant families with its current status as an increasingly unaffordable satellite of Silicon Valley. Read it to get a personal view on how the town’s rising housing costs, spurred on by the spread of tech money, has driven out many families, including her own. (On a sidenote, I’m far from a Fremont expert, so if you want to hear more about it from people who still live there, check out The Fremont Podcast.)   

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Finally
I’ve mentioned a few times in this newsletter that I’m helping to produce a documentary called “Reflections on Lake Merritt.” One of the things I’ve learned while working on this project is that licensing archival footage is incredibly expensive – a few seconds of historic video footage can easily cost thousands of dollars. Since this is a low-budget film, we’re hoping that community members might have footage (or photos) of some of the following events they might be willing to donate or share for a minimal fee:

-Free Huey rallies or other protests in front of Alameda Courthouse
-United Front Against Fascism Conference at Oakland Auditorium
-Bobby Hutton memorial at Camron-Stanford House
-Festival at the Lake
-People “cruising” and/or protests against the “no cruising” ordinance organized by the Young Comrades in the 1990s.

Please send me a message if you can hook us up! Here’s a little behind-the-scenes look at one of the interviews we recorded this summer with Dr. Saturu Ned of the Black Panther Party Alumni Legacy Network speaking in front of the Alameda Courthouse. We’d love to have some archival footage to accompany his incredible stories.

Thanks for reading!
Liam