Oakland

The Oracle is an indoor arena, in Oakland, California, located in the Coliseum Industrial area. It was originally constructed as the Oakland-Alameda... County Coliseum Arena in 1966. Among the current NBA venues in the state of California , it has the largest seating capacity, holding 19,596 spectators. It is also the oldest facility still in use by the NBA. The arena has been home to the Golden State Warriors since 1971, excepting the one-year hiatus while undergoing renovations. It had been used by the Warriors intermittently as early as 1966. The California Golden Bears of the Pac-10 played the entire 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons at the arena while their primary home, Harmon Gym, was being renovated into Haas Pavilion. For some years before then, the Bears played occasional games against popular non-conference opponents at the arena.
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The First Unitarian Church of Oakland, in Oakland, California, was designed in 1889 by Walter J. Mathews. This solid masonry Romanesque church... departed radically from California's traditional Gothic wood frame construction. Noted for its world-famous stained glass windows produced by Goodhue of Boston and for arching redwood spans, the widest at that time west of the Rocky Mountains, the church remains a significant cultural and architectural landmark. The church is listed as California Historical Landmark #896, and is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places . The building site was purchased in November 1888 from Jane K. Sather, a patron of the University of California. Construction began in 1890 and was completed in September 1891, although it began to be used for various activities while still unfinished. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake damaged the building, but did not destroy it.
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Oakland Harbor Light is a former lighthouse, now a restaurant in Embarcadero Cove, California. The original tower was built in 1890 at the entrance... of Oakland Harbor. The wooden pilings on which the structure sat had deteriorated by 1902, and a larger replacement lighthouse was constructed on concrete pilings nearby, which began operation in 1903. The original structure was then sold and removed. In 1966, the lighthouse was replaced by an automated beacon and deactivated. It was eventually sold to a private party and relocated to Embarcadero Cove in Oakland, where it opened in 1984 as Quinn’s Lighthouse Restaurant. The lantern room was removed after deactivation in 1966, and was transferred to Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse in Santa Cruz, California, where it continued to deteriorate and was replaced in 1996.
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Located in Oakland, California, the Cathedral Building, originally named the Federal Realty Building, was the first Gothic Revival style skyscraper... west of the Mississippi River. It is also called the "Wedding Cake" for its appearance, which resembles New York's Flatiron Building. Its narrow, triangular form is a result of its location on Latham Square, where Telegraph Avenue branches off diagonally from Broadway. It was built by architect Benjamin Geer McDougall, who designed the steel framed building. The building has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is currently owned by Brog Properties, a Downtown Oakland development firm. They are renovating the building for mixed residential and commercial units.
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Oakland Museum of California or Oakland Museum is a museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California located in Oakland,... California. The Oakland Museum of California is the only museum devoted to the art, history, culture, and natural environment of California. Opened in 1969, the museum's architecture, designed by Kevin Roche, is a three-tiered blend of galleries, terraces, patios, sculpture gardens, and ponds. The Museum's vast collections, together with special exhibitions and educational outreach programs, attract visitors from around the world. Located at Oak and 10th Streets in downtown Oakland, the museum can be reached easily by BART , car, or bus. The address of the museum is 1000 Oak St, Oakland, CA 94607. The museum cafe, Blue Oak, offers patio dining overlooking the koi pond. Museum hours are Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Friday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays ; $6 youth, ages 9–17; free to members, children 8 and younger.
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The Pardee Home is a house in Oakland, California that was home to three generations of the Pardee family. It is now a non-profit museum, showing... over 100 years of the life of a prominent California family. The house, a well-preserved example of Italianate architecture, is a city landmark, a California Historical Landmark , and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The house was constructed in 1869 by California State Senator Enoch H. Pardee. His son, George Pardee, a Governor of California, also inhabited the house, inheriting it after his father's death. After George's death in 1941, it passed on to his two daughters, Madeline and Helen , who lived in the house until their deaths in 1980 and 1981 respectively. The interior of the house is the main attraction of the museum. George's wife Helen collected knick-knacks from all over the world, including scrimshaw from Alaska, tobacco pipes from the Philippines, and a giant elk head. She was fond of giving house tours to show off her collection. All of the furnishings are original and the house looks as it did in 1981.
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The African American Museum and Library at Oakland is a museum and non-circulating library dedicated to preserving the history and experiences of... African Americans in Northern California and the Bay Area. It contains an extensive archival collection of such artifacts as diaries, correspondence, photos, and periodicals. It is currently located in the Charles A. Greene building in Oakland, which served as the Oakland Main Library from 1902 to 1951. The AAMLO began as a private collection in 1946, and in 1964 became the East Bay Negro Historical Society, Inc. It later changed its name to the Northern California Center for Afro-American History & Life, before being incorporated into the city of Oakland in 1994 under its current name, the African American Museum and Library at Oakland. Among the more than 160 collections in the library are archives relating to Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Africa, and genealogy. Materials include photographs, manuscripts, letters, diaries, newspapers, recorded oral histories, videos, and microfilms. AAMLO’s two galleries host changing exhibitions of art, history, and culture. AAMLO began as a private collection in 1946.
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The Dunsmuir House and Gardens is located in Oakland, California on a 50-acre site. The Dunsmuir House has a neoclassical-revival architectural... style and is listed in the US National Register of Historic Places. It is now used primarily for weddings, receptions, business gatherings and historical reenactment events. The house was built in 1899 by Alexander Dunsmuir, son of Robert Dunsmuir, a wealthy coal magnate from Victoria, BC. Dunsmuir, who came to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1878 to manage the family business, intended the house to be a wedding gift for his new bride, but didn't get to live in it with her as he fell ill and died while on his honeymoon in New York. His new bride returned to live in the home, but soon died herself in 1901. I.W. Hellman Jr. purchased the estate in 1906 as a summer home for his family and by 1913 the mansion was remodeled for the larger family's needs as well as to hold their growing acquisitions from European travel. Mrs. Hellman kept the estate well into the 1950s after her husband's death in 1920.
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Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American film actor, director, voice-over artist, writer and film producer. Hanks worked in television and... family-friendly comedies before achieving success as a dramatic actor portraying several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title role in Forrest Gump, Commander James A. Lovell in Apollo 13, Captain John H. Miller in Saving Private Ryan, Michael Sullivan in Road to Perdition, and Sheriff Woody in Disney/Pixar's Toy Story. Hanks is the third most successful actor in terms of box office totals, which exceed $3.3 billion.
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Amy Tan is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships. Her most well-known work is The Joy Luck Club, which has been... translated into 35 languages. In 1993, the book was adapted into a commercially successful film. Tan has written several other bestselling novels, including The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter's Daughter and Saving Fish from Drowning. She also wrote a collection of non-fiction essays entitled The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings. Her most recent novel Saving Fish from Drowning explores the tribulations experienced by a group of people who disappear while on an art expedition in the jungles of Burma. In addition to these, Tan has written two children's books: The Moon Lady and Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat , which was turned into an animated series which aired on PBS. She also appeared on PBS in a short spot encouraging children to write. Tan was born in Oakland, California.
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Reginald Martinez "Reggie" Jackson , nicknamed "Mr. October" for his clutch hitting in the postseason with the New York Yankees, is a former American... Major League Baseball right fielder. During a 21-year baseball career, he played from 1967-1987 for four different teams. Jackson currently serves as a special advisor to the New York Yankees. He helped win three consecutive World Series titles as a member of the Oakland Athletics in the early 1970s and also helped win two consecutive titles with the New York Yankees in the late 1970s. He is perhaps best remembered for hitting three consecutive home runs in the clinching game of the 1977 World Series. Jackson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993. Reggie Jackson was born in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, just north of Philadelphia. His father was Martinez Jackson, a half Puerto Rican who worked as a tailor and who was also a former second baseman with the Newark Eagles of the Negro Leagues. He was the youngest of four children from Reggie's mother, Clara, who was of Hispanic descent. He also had two half siblings from his father's first marriage.
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Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France. Gertrude Stein, the youngest of a family of five... children, was born on February 3, 1874, in Allegheny, Pennsylvania to well-educated German Jewish parents, Daniel and Amelia Stein. Her father was a railroad executive whose investments in streetcar lines and real estate made the family wealthy. When Gertrude was three years old she and her family moved for business, first to Vienna and then Paris. They returned to America in 1878, settling in Oakland, California, where Stein attended First Hebrew Congregation of Oakland's Sabbath school. Her mother died in 1888, and her father in 1891. Michael, her eldest brother, took over the family business holdings. He arranged for Gertrude, and another sister Bertha, to live with their mother's family in Baltimore after the deaths of their parents. In 1892 she lived with her uncle David Bachrach.
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Edwin "Ed" Meese, III is an attorney, law professor, and author who served in official capacities within the Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial... Administration , the Reagan Presidential Transition Team , and the Reagan White House , eventually rising to hold the position of the 75th Attorney General of the United States . He currently holds fellowships and chairmanships with several public policy councils and think tanks, including the Constitution Project and The Heritage Foundation. He is also a Distinguished Visiting Fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University Meese was born in Oakland, California, and is the eldest of four sons born to Leone and Edwin Meese, Jr. He was raised in a practicing Lutheran family of German descent. His father was an Oakland city government official, president of the Zion Lutheran Church, and served 24 years in the non-partisan office of Treasurer of Alameda County. At age 10, Meese published along with his brothers a mimeographed neighborhood newspaper, the Weekly Herald, and used the proceeds to buy a War Bond.
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Rickey Henley Henderson is a former Major League Baseball left fielder who played for nine teams from 1979 to 2003, including four stints with his... original team, the Oakland Athletics. Nicknamed The Man of Steal, he is widely regarded as the sport's greatest leadoff hitter and baserunner. He holds the major league records for career stolen bases, runs scored, unintentional walks and leadoff home runs. At the time of his last major league game in 2003, the ten-time American League All-Star ranked among the sport's top 100 all-time home run hitters and was its all-time leader in bases on balls. In 2009, he was inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In addition to the career steals record, Henderson also holds the single-season record for stolen bases and is the only player in AL history to steal 100 bases in a season, having done so three times. His 1,406 career steals is 50% higher than the previous record of 938 by Lou Brock. Henderson is the all-time stolen base leader for the Oakland A's and previously held the New York Yankees' franchise record from 1988-2011.
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Edwin "Ed" Meese, III is an attorney, law professor, and author who served in official capacities within the Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial... Administration , the Reagan Presidential Transition Team , and the Reagan White House , eventually rising to hold the position of the 75th Attorney General of the United States . He currently holds fellowships and chairmanships with several public policy councils and think tanks, including the Constitution Project and The Heritage Foundation. He is also a Distinguished Visiting Fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University Meese was born in Oakland, California, and is the eldest of four sons born to Leone and Edwin Meese, Jr. He was raised in a practicing Lutheran family of German descent. His father was an Oakland city government official, president of the Zion Lutheran Church, and served 24 years in the non-partisan office of Treasurer of Alameda County. At age 10, Meese published along with his brothers a mimeographed neighborhood newspaper, the Weekly Herald, and used the proceeds to buy a War Bond.
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Billie Joe Armstrong is an American rock musician and occasional actor, best known as the lead vocalist, main songwriter and lead guitarist for the... American punk rock band Green Day. He is also a guitarist and vocalist for the punk rock band Pinhead Gunpowder and provides lead vocals for Green Day's side project Foxboro Hot Tubs. Raised in Rodeo, California, Armstrong developed an interest in music at a young age, and recorded his first song at the age of five. He met Mike Dirnt while attending elementary school, and the two instantly bonded over their mutual interest in music, forming the band Sweet Children when the two were 15 years old. The band changed its name to Green Day, and would later achieve massive commercial success. Armstrong has also pursued musical projects outside of Green Day's work, including numerous collaborations with other musicians as well as serving as the primary vocalist for the bands Pinhead Gunpowder and Foxboro Hot Tubs.
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George Stevens was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer. Among his most notable films were Diary of Anne Frank ,... nominated for Best Director, Giant , winner of Oscar for Best Director, Shane , Oscar nominated, and A Place in the Sun , winner of Oscar for Best Director. He was born in Oakland, California, and his family included his father Landers Stevens and his mother Georgie Cooper, both of them stage actors. He also had two brothers, Jack and writer Aston Stevens. He learned about the stage from his parents and worked and toured with them, on his way to filmmaking. He broke into the movie business as a cameraman, working on many Laurel and Hardy short films, such as Night Owls . His first feature film was The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble in 1933. In 1934 he got his first directing job, the slapstick Kentucky Kernels. His big break came when he directed Katharine Hepburn in Alice Adams in 1935. He went on in the late 1930s to direct several Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire movies, not only with the two actors together, but on their own.
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Clarence Linden "Buster" Crabbe was an American athlete and actor, who starred in a number of popular serials in the 1930s and 1940s. He had the... starring role in the popular serial Flash Gordon. He was born as Clarence Linden Crabbe II to Lucy Agnes McNamara and Edward Clinton Simmons Crabbe I in Oakland, California. His father was born in Nevada and his paternal grandfather, Clarence Linden Crabbe I , was born in Hawaii. Buster had a brother, Edward Clinton Simmons Crabbe II , who was known as "Buddy". In 1910 the family was living in a boarding house in Oakland and Edward senior was working as a real estate broker. As with many Hollywood stars there is a conflict between the birthdate given in his official documents, and the one used in his Hollywood publicity biographies. His birth certificate and his Social Security application both use the birthdate of February 7, 1908. The Encyclopædia Britannica uses an incorrect birthdate based on his Hollywood publicity biography. Raised in Hawaii, he graduated from the Punahou School in Honolulu.
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Russell Albion "Russ" Meyer was a U.S. motion picture director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, actor and photographer. Meyer is... known primarily for writing and directing a series of successful low-budget sexploitation films that featured campy humor, sly satire and large-breasted women. Russ Meyer was born in San Leandro, California to William Arthur Meyer, a German-American police officer, and his wife Lydia Lucinda Hauck. His parents divorced shortly after he was born, and Meyer was to have virtually no contact with his father during his life. When he was fourteen years old, his mother pawned her wedding ring in order to buy him an 8mm film camera. He made a number of amateur films at the age of 15, and served during World War II as a U.S. Army combat cameraman for the 166th Signal Photo Company. In the Army Meyer forged his strongest friendships, and he would later ask many of his fellow combat cameramen to work on his films. Much of Meyer's work during World War II can be seen in newsreels and in the film Patton .
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Brandon Bruce Lee was an American actor and martial artist. He was the son of martial arts film star Bruce Lee. After a promising start in action... movies and the signing of a multi-film contract with 20th Century Fox, Lee was accidentally shot and killed in North Carolina at the age of 28 while filming The Crow. Brandon Lee was born in Oakland, California, the son of martial artist and actor Bruce Lee and Linda Emery. A week after his birth, his grandfather Lee Hoi-Chuen died. The family moved to Los Angeles, California when he was three months old. When offers for film roles became limited for his father, he and his family moved back to Hong Kong in 1965. His heritage on his mother's side is English and Swedish and his father is 3/4 Chinese and 1/4 German. When Brandon was eight, his father died suddenly from cerebral edema. After his father's death, his family moved back to the United States. They lived briefly in his mother's hometown of Seattle, Washington, and then in Los Angeles, where Lee grew up in the affluent area of Rolling Hills.
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