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Children's Fairyland

1950 establishments in CaliforniaAmusement parks opened in 1950Buildings and structures in Oakland, CaliforniaSan Francisco Bay Area amusement parksTourist attractions in Oakland, California
Fairyland shoe entrance
Fairyland shoe entrance

Children's Fairyland, U.S.A. is an amusement park, located in Oakland, California, on the shores of Lake Merritt. It was one of the earliest "themed" amusement parks in the United States. Fairyland includes 10 acres (4.0 ha) of play sets, small rides, and animals. The park is also home to the Open Storybook Puppet Theater, the oldest continuously operating puppet theater in the United States.Fairyland was built in 1950 by the Oakland Lake Merritt Breakfast Club, a local service club. The park was immediately recognized nationally for its unique value, and during the 1950s it inspired numerous towns to create their own parks. Walt Disney toured many amusement parks in 1950, including Children’s Fairyland, seeking ideas for what turned out to be Disneyland. He hired the first director of Fairyland, Dorothy Manes, to work at Disneyland as youth director, in which position she continued from the park's opening until 1972.Numerous artists have contributed exhibits, murals, puppetry, and sculptures to the park. Some of the better-known artists are Ruth Asawa and Frank Oz, who was an apprentice puppeteer in the park as a teenager.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Children's Fairyland (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Children's Fairyland
Bellevue Avenue, Oakland

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Wikipedia: Children's FairylandContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 37.809 ° E -122.2599 °
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Address

Children's Fairyland

Bellevue Avenue
94610 Oakland
California, United States
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Phone number

call(510)4522259

Website
fairyland.org

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linkOpenStreetMap (25169933)

Fairyland shoe entrance
Fairyland shoe entrance
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Cathedral of Christ the Light (Oakland, California)
Cathedral of Christ the Light (Oakland, California)

The Cathedral of Christ the Light, also called Oakland Cathedral, is the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland in Oakland, California. It is the seat of the Bishop of Oakland. Christ the Light, the first cathedral built entirely in the 21st century, replaces the Cathedral of Saint Francis de Sales, irreparably damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989.The Cathedral of Christ the Light Complex, as a larger cathedral center, is composed of the cathedral church, the chancery office of the bishop's curia, a conference center, rectory (priests' residence), Order of Malta Northern California Health Clinic (which provides free diagnostic services to people without health insurance), and a mausoleum. The mausoleum features twelve crypts reserved for the bishops of Oakland and burial sites available to the members of the diocese for a comparable price to the other Catholic cemeteries in the diocese. The cathedral center also houses City Lights Cafe and the Cathedral Shop, as well as a public plaza and garden.The Cathedral of Christ the Light was designed by architect Craig W. Hartman, of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The Catholic Cathedral Corporation of the East Bay, the incorporated owner of the cathedral, chose Webcor Builders as the general contractor of cathedral construction.Originally planned in 2000 under the direction of Bishop John Stephen Cummins and finally breaking ground on May 21, 2005, Christ the Light was consecrated and dedicated by Bishop Allen Henry Vigneron on September 25, 2008. On All Souls' Day November 2, the mausoleum was dedicated and the first Bishop of Oakland, Floyd Lawrence Begin, was reburied in one of its crypts. Located at 2121 Harrison Street in Oakland, the cathedral serves as the mother church of approximately 530,000 Catholics in the counties of Alameda and Contra Costa.

Kaiser Center
Kaiser Center

Kaiser Center, also called the Kaiser Building, is a 28-story office building located at 300 Lakeside Drive, adjacent to Lake Merritt, in downtown Oakland, California, designed by the architectural firm of Welton Becket & Associates of Los Angeles. The property is bounded by Lakeside Drive, which terminates and joins Harrison Street at the site, 20th-, 21st-, and Webster-streets. When completed in 1960, it was Oakland's tallest building, as well as the largest office tower west of the Rocky Mountains. A three-story office/retail building adjacent to the main tower was completed in 1963. Kaiser Center was the headquarters of Kaiser Industries, a Fortune 500 conglomerate that was headed by industrialist Edgar F. Kaiser at the time the building was constructed. The building's roof garden was designed by San Francisco-based landscape architecture firm, Theodore Osmundson & Associates, and was the first built in the United States after World War II. While legend has it that Henry J. Kaiser resided in a penthouse apartment on the 28th floor, by 1960 the elder Kaiser had turned over the Oakland-based company to his son, and pursued projects based in Honolulu. It is much more likely that his son Edgar, who was in charge of Kaiser industries and a major power broker in the Bay Area by the time the building was commissioned, was the person who occupied any residential apartments. According to a National Park Service study, Edgar commissioned the architecturally significant rooftop garden after the building had been designed, inspired by the gardens of Rockefeller Center in N.Y.The building is currently home to the headquarters of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), which in 2003 relocated from its former administration building atop the Lake Merritt station, due to earthquake concerns. In 2019 BART announced that it would leave the building in the Spring of 2021. Other tenants include the University of California Office of the President, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, The Port Company, and California Bank & Trust. Global technical services company AECOM moved into the building in 2016.

East Bay Chinese School

East Bay Chinese School (EBCS, Chinese: 東灣中文學校; pinyin: Dōngwān zhōngwén xuéxiào), is a non-profit, Chinese heritage school located in Oakland, California. It offers classes in Standard Mandarin and Chinese culture. It began offering classes in 1981. The school's classes are held at Westlake Middle School. The school has grown from a student body of 26 in 1981 to over 450 students. Classes are held on Saturday mornings for 32 weeks during the school year. In 2007 the school began offering adult Mandarin classes for both beginning and intermediate learners. Its target group for this service is the members of interracial marriage families. In 2009 it offered 29 total Chinese language classes and 15 Chinese culture classes. In recent years there is a growing number of non-Chinese-heritage students attending the school, possibly due to rising Chinese influence in the global economy. To meet the needs of the school's diverse student body EBCS has implemented several initiatives to ensure the school continue to provide quality education. First, the school put more rigors around academic prerequisites and age requirements for new student enrollment. The intent was to ensure basic standards for all classes so teachers can focus on delivering a quality education. Also, the school requires all teachers to submit their lesson plans for the entire academic year so that progress can be tracked. The school also conducted a school-wide assessment (excluding kindergarten). The purpose of this test was to ensure standards were being met across all levels, and to identify students that need additional help. In 2009, the school adopted new textbooks and multimedia materials designed specifically for Chinese-as-second-language (CSL) learners. EBCS also is working with the Oakland Unified School District to start Chinese lessons in the classrooms and introducing the Chinese language and culture to the public school students.