Peralta Villa, Oakland, California

The Cypress Village housing projects (officially named Peralta Villa Public Housing Community) are a series of housing complexes stretching from 10th Street to 14th Street and Kirkham Way. Cypress is located in between the Acorn neighborhood and Lower Bottoms neighborhood in West Oakland. Cypress Village is one of the three housing projects in West Oakland, along with the Campbell Village Court and the Acorn Projects. Cypress Village was built by the Oakland Housing Authority after World War II, when many African-Americans began to migrate to Oakland. It was one of four all-black segregated projects built at the time. After the Cypress Freeway was built in 1954-1957 immediately in front of the project, most whites and middle-class blacks left the neighborhood to avoid the noise and pollution. By the 1980s Cypress Village was a "drug supermarket" where Huey P. Newton purchased drugs. The neighborhood suffered further disruption in 1989 when the freeway collapsed in the Loma Prieta earthquake. However, at the city of Oakland's insistence, the State of California rebuilt the freeway to avoid the neighborhood and instead cleaned up contamination on its property and, fifteen years later, completed a boulevard on the site named the Mandela Parkway, with a landscaped park in the median. Cypress Village is the home of rapper J Stalin of the Livewire record label.Due to close proximity, skirmishes between Cypress Village and neighboring Acorn as well as Lower Bottoms occur frequently. In order to reduce the violence between the two housing projects, in 2003 rappers from both Acorn and Cypress released an underground mixtape titled Acorn & Cypress inspired by other unity rap albums like the Bloods and Crips Bangin' on Wax releases. Since then, West Oakland based rap label Livewire Records founded by J Stalin (who originates from Cypress Village) has signed numerous rappers from both housing units including Acorn resident Shady Nate.

The Crucible is a nonprofit industrial arts school in Oakland, California, United States. Established in Berkeley in 1999, the institute was moved to its present location in 2003.The Crucible has classes in blacksmithing, ceramics, enameling, fire performance, foundry, glass, hot wheels, jewelry, kinetics and electronics, machine shop, moldmaking, neon and light, stone working, textiles, welding, woodworking, and other industrial arts with an average of 5,000 students a year. The Crucible's Youth Program serves over 3,000 youth annually, half of whom are members of the West Oakland community who have access to free classes and workshops. Founder, Michael Sturtz, has created two fire operas, a fire ballet, and a burning version of Homer's Odyssey, in addition to the annual Fire Arts Festival held in July. As a nonprofit organization, The Crucible relies on annual membership donations, grants and individual donations.

Liberty Hall is a historic meeting hall used by African-American organizations in Oakland, California. The building, located at 1483-1485 8th St., was built in 1877 as a store and residence. The building was designed in the Italianate style and features projecting bays at its northwest and southwest corners, a bracketed cornice, a frieze with dentils and crown moldings, and a hipped roof.Local 188 of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, the African-American fraternal organization founded by Marcus Garvey, purchased the building for its headquarters in 1925. Founded in 1920, Local 188 was the largest chapter of the UNIA in northern California. The chapter renamed the building Liberty Hall, the name used by all of the UNIA's meeting halls. During its time in the building, the UNIA used it for its meetings, activities, and holidays such as Lincoln's Birthday and Garvey Day. A fire burnt the building's roof in 1931, and the UNIA's activism in Oakland declined afterward. The organization sold the building in 1933.After the UNIA left the building, one of Oakland's chapters of the International Peace Mission movement took over the building. The International Peace Mission was a religious movement led by Father Divine, an African-American preacher from New York. Father Divine, who was considered the Second Coming by his followers, was known for hosting free banquets at his home during the Great Depression. The International Peace Mission continued to operate in the building until the 1950s, though its activities declined after the early 1940s.The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 30, 1989.

Prescott (also known as The Lower Bottoms or The Bottoms) is a residential neighborhood and commercial district in West Oakland in Oakland, California. The neighborhood boundaries are Mandela Parkway to the east, 7th Street to the south, West Grand Avenue to the north, and Frontage Road to the west.

West Oakland station is a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station serving the West Oakland neighborhood in Oakland, California, United States. It has two elevated side platforms, and is located near the eastern end of the Transbay Tube. All lines except the Richmond-Berryessa/North San José line stop at the station. The Oakland Wye is located to the east of the station.

West Oakland is a neighborhood situated in the northwestern corner of Oakland, California, United States, situated west of Downtown Oakland, south of Emeryville, and north of Alameda. The neighborhood is located along the waterfront at the Port of Oakland and at the eastern end of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. It lies at an elevation of 13 feet (4 m).

AMCO Chemical was a chemical distribution company located in Oakland, California. The land the company operated on is designated as a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund cleanup site. Operated from the 1960s until 1989, chemicals were brought to the company in rail tank cars. The contents were off-loaded into 55-gallon drums which were stored on the lot until the chemicals were transferred into smaller containers for re-sale. An investigation by the Oakland Fire Department, Alameda County and the U.S. Coast Guard found over 100 full and empty 5- and 55-gallon drums, some of which were leaking. Subsequent to AMCO ceasing operations in 1989, the lot was used by DC Metals for scrap storage until 1998, and by Cable Moore, Inc. for cable storage until the present time. In June 1995, a construction crew digging a trench noted a strong chemical odor in the dirt. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), DC Metals, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted an investigation which uncovered chlorinated solvents and other contaminants, including vinyl chloride, and soil gas. Due to the presence of groundwater found during the investigation, emergency remediation processes were initiated but later ceased before completion. The EPA had collected enough data to determine the nature and extent of contamination in the groundwater and soil beneath the former facility. Around 90 chemicals in the groundwater and 40 chemicals in soil beneath the former AMCO facility exceeded screening levels. The EPA also collected soil and produce samples in the yards of residences next to the former AMCO facility fence line (on Center and Third streets). The samples were tested for VOCs, metals and pesticides. Lead was detected at high concentrations in a limited number of soil samples. The levels in the shallow and deep soil samples range from 26.2 to 53,000 milligrams/kilogram (mg/kg). Some of these levels are well above levels that would be considered safe for residential exposure, particularly for children. Urban soils typically have lead levels of about 500 mg/kg. In Oakland, naturally occurring lead level for native soil is 14 mg/kg. The site was listed on the National Priority List (Superfund) on September 29, 2003. The detailed remediation investigation concluded in 2006.

The Amtrak Oakland Maintenance Facility is a passenger train servicing depot in Oakland, California. It is located on the Union Pacific Railroad Niles Subdivision, 1.8 track miles (2.9 km) north of Oakland–Jack London Square station. It provides maintenance for Amtrak's regional and long-distance trains in northern California, including the California Zephyr, Capitol Corridor, and San Joaquins.

The Village Bottoms is a historic cultural district in the predominantly Black neighborhood of West Oakland, California. Its current revitalization and cultural arts renaissance is being catalyzed by artist/cultural worker Marcel Diallo and a neighborhood of young, black artists including Githinji wa Mbire, Eesuu Orundide, letitia ntofon, and rappers Boots Riley of The Coup, Zumbi of Zion I and Adimu Madyun of rap group Hairdooo.The Village Bottoms Cultural District contains The Black Dot Cafe, The Continental Club, Ester's Orbit Room, Pacific Cannery Lofts, 16th Street Train Station, Velocity Circus, Lower Bottom Playaz Community Theater and Environmental Indicators Project and more.The "Village Bottoms" is a name that many in Oakland's black cultural community, including the late Oakland poet laureate Reginald Lockett prefer to call a small section of the old West Oakland neighborhood that their parents, grandparents and/or great-grandparents lived in. Although the city of Oakland officially calls the larger district Prescott, the 1980s generation called it the boondocks and then The Lower Bottoms, and many of the new gentrifying residents prefer the even older Oakland Point, what ever one believes the name to be, its many names point to the overwhelming fact that the neighborhood is indeed gentrifying and is undergoing an intense transition and struggle for its very identity similar to what occurred in New York's Lower East Side neighborhood two decades earlier.

Acorn or Acorn Projects are a series of housing projects in the Acorn Redevelopment Project Area or the Acorn neighborhood of West Oakland. Acorn, also known as "The Corns" or the "Cornfields", neighbors a wide variety of public housing. It is bordered by the high rise City Towers Apartments and low rise Mohr Apartments to the South, Cypress Village to the West, Market Street to the east and 10th Street to the north. Originally consisting of three housing units, Acorn 1, Acorn 2 and Acorn 3, The City of Oakland Housing Authority renovated the entire Acorn housing complex during the late 1990s in efforts to combat crime. Acorn 2 and Acorn 3 were renamed "Town Center Apartments at Acorn" and "Courtyard Apartments at Acorn". Meanwhile, Acorn 1 was completely demolished and small community of two-story single-family houses between Filbert and Market Streets were built in its place. Adjacent to Acorn, there are three high-rise buildings known as the City Towers (formally named Apollo Housing) that resemble the high-rises of Chicago and New York City. Technically, City Towers (or "The Highrises" as they are known to locals) are a separate community of housing projects however, during the renovation of Acorn in the 1990s, many of the original residents of Acorn were relocated to City Towers. As a result, City Towers are often mistaken as being part of the same public housing units as Acorn. Acorn is home to the Acorn street gang. Due to close proximity, skirmishes between Acorn and neighboring Cypress Village as well as Lower Bottoms occur frequently. In order to reduce the violence between the two housing projects, in 2003 local rappers from both Acorn and Cypress released an underground mixtape titled Acorn & Cypress inspired by other unity rap albums like the Bloods and Crips Bangin' on Wax releases. Since then, West Oakland based rap label Livewire Records founded by J Stalin (who originates from Cypress Village) has signed numerous rappers from both housing units, including Acorn native Shady Nate. In 2014, the housing project was featured in season 5, episode 2 of the National Geographic Channel television show Drugs, Inc. A segment of the episode titled "Cokeland", was filmed in and around the Acorn and City Towers housing complexes.

Campbell Village is a neighborhood of Oakland, California in Alameda County, California. It lies at an elevation of 16 feet (5 m). Campbell Village is the site of the Campbell Village Court housing projects.

The Campbell Village Court housing projects are a series of complexes located in the Campbell Village part of the Lower Bottoms area of West Oakland California. Campbell Village Court is bound by Willow Street to the west, Campbell Street to the east, 10th street to the north, and 8th street to the south.It is not far from the abandoned 16th Street Train Station and the Mandela Parkway.