I have always had a habit of thinking about “today” or “yesterday” or “tomorrow” in relation to when I sleep and wake up again, rather than by the traditional means of following the clock. In the strictest sense, it is already Saturday and as with all the other’s so far, this post is “late” because it’s for Friday’s prompt. I say, however, that it’s the thought, the intent, that matters and not the very “letter of the law”, so, whatever. Here it is.
The Fat Mum Slim Photo-A-Day prompt for Friday, January 3, 2013 is “My Town”, which is actually kind of a neat coincidence, given that the town I live in, Oakland, California, is known as “town” or “the town” because of its geographic location across the bay from San Francisco, commonly referred to by the locals as “the City”.
*Quick side note: I’ve always held the philosophy that there are hundreds of “the city”s in existence. When I was attending my one semester of University in 1993, I was attending a relatively small school about 40 minutes east of Oklahoma City and many of the students at this university referred to Oklahoma City as “the city”. I always thought that was kind of funny, quaint even, because I had often heard people on television refer to New York City as “the city”. Then I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and heard the locals talking about “the City”. It didn’t take long for me to adopt the vernacular and begin referring to “the City” myself.
I finally arrived at the inescapable conclusion that it is all accurate, but in its own way; it just depends on how you spell it. Observe: Living outside Oklahoma City when my friends and I wanted to go to the nearest metropolis, Oklahoma City, we made plans to go to “the city”. I suspect that anyone living near a metropolis, could, and many do, refer to that metropolis as “the city”. I now live in a significant town with a population of over 400,000 people. With a large downtown business district and new housing and arts and shopping areas popping up all the time, Oakland is a metropolis in it’s own right, however, it is overshadowed by the specter that is its sister city across the bay, San Francisco. Therefore Oakland isn’t “the city” because there is a larger city within a reasonable distance. San Francisco is “the City” (notice the capital C). New York City, however, is the city with the highest population in the country at nearly nine million people. With the nations financial center and the east coast hub of the entertainment industry, it is easy to see how New York City would be “The City” (also written as THE City).
Anyway, for the part of the country where I live, San Francisco is “the City” and that makes Oakland “the Town”. (I’m not making this up. I actually read this recently in a local paper.) Since today’s prompt was “my town” I decided to go out into “the Town” to get some shots of a few local iconic sites. There are literally dozens, if not hundreds of things I could have taken pictures of, but I decided to limit myself to three basic concepts.
On the southwest edge of Downtown Oakland, near the Lake Merritt BART station (a name that has always amused me, given it’s distance from Lake Merritt) is a smallish community college campus, which happens to be the location of my swimming classes. The main, most identifiable building on the campus is a three sided structure, roughly nine or ten stories tall. Tall enough, that with an unobstructed view it is visible from quite a distance. If I had been out late enough, I would have attempted some evening shots as well. The script sign at the top of the building is repeated on all three sides and created out of green neon lights, making the building distinctive, and distinguishable even after the sun has gone down.
Arguably the most notable and iconic sight in the Downtown Oakland skyline is the Oakland Tribune building’s clock tower. It’s visible from all directions, again if your view is unobstructed. Also created using neon lights, this time in red, the Tribune sign at the top of the tower is visible day and night. There’s a long, rich history, I’m sure, but unfortunately, I don’t personally know anything notable other than the fact that one Sunday afternoon a few years ago, an employee of the paper climbed up to the clock tower and jumped to her death and since that’s not an uplifting story, we’ll just move on to the pictures.
Next I made my way to the Port of Oakland where there were lots of things to take pictures of. The iconic view that I wanted to capture was that of the cranes used to off load the shipping containers when the cargo ships come into port. The entire area is surprisingly bustling with 18 wheeler tractor/trailer trucks rumbling around constantly. I was standing on one street corner with my camera at my eye, positioned just so and ready to take a crucial picture when a truck pulled up along the curb in front of me completely blocking my view. The driver got out, detached the trailer from his rig, then climbed right back in the cab and drove away. That shot was not to be had. But that’s okay because it forced me to walk a little further down the street and ended up with a better vantage point of what I wanted.
While I’m sure this is anything but common knowledge around the country, it is commonly held lore around these parts that some of these cranes were George Lucas’ inspiration for the design of the AT-AT Walkers seen in Star Wars: Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back. (I am a bit disappointed to have just read this article which seems to definitively debunk that theory.)
Of course, my town wouldn’t be my town without the equally iconic views looking out. From my vantage point at a public park located in the midst of all the activity at the Port of Oakland, I was able to get some nice shots of “the City” (my City – or so I wish!).
One last shot worth sharing. This sign was posted at every pedestrian and mobile entrance to the park. Guess what I spent the entire time avoiding walking in…
Riggledo 