The Fruitvale Village: 30th Street & International Boulevard

We decided to ride towards the Fruitvale Transit Village: a few people said this was an East Oakland landmark.. When we arrived, the Plaza was packed. We couldn't help but notice that the small street heading into the Village was named De La Fuente Way, in honor of City Councilman and mayoral candidate Ignacio De La Fuente. He was instrumental in the creation of this mixed-used transit hub, which serves as a model for other developing other transit communities near Oakland BART Stations.

As we were walking through the first plaza, a group of tipsy and/or high folks laughed and shouted to us. One woman got up and started to look at the map on the sign; she confessed that she’s not too good at maps, but that she knows a lot about West and East Oakland, because she’s from the west and now lives in the east. She said, with a strange sense of pride: “West Oakland is where all of the rejects from East Oakland go. I should know: I’m from there.” We didn’t really know how to respond to that, so we rolled along.

Then we entered the main part of the plaza; a lush fountain rose out of the center and around the periphery were storefronts, some occupied and some vacant. Three stories of buildings grew out of this ground level. The building house community centers, medical clinics and affordable residences.

We setup in front of a vacant storefront so we wouldn’t be hindering any business. A few store employees/owners stepped out to witness what was going on. The plaza was a mix of school age kids and young parents with babies.

We noticed that the Village was being watched over by two security guys. They noticed us too. After we were all setup, the younger of the two, a brawny guy with dark sunglasses, came over and asked us what we were up to. He was pounding away at a new pack of Salems. We explained and he nodded, uh huh, uh huh.

Security:“Yeah, that’s nice and all, but you can’t be here.”
WE Riders: “Well, this is an art project, sponsored by the city.”
S: “Yeah, I don’t care. You can go over there (pointing to the sidewalk near the BART entrance). Then it’ll be the BART Polices’ problem.”

He didn’t leave much room for argument; his intimidation prevented us from asking the most obvious question: isn’t this public space? We supposed that this beautiful plaza is like so many shopping malls that spring up: regulated private places in the guise of public space. A high price to pay for urban renewal.