Sun Moon Studio

The Cypress Street Viaduct, often referred to as the Cypress Structure or the Cypress Freeway, was a 1.6-mile-long (2.5 km), raised two-deck, multi-lane (four lanes per tier) freeway constructed of reinforced concrete that was originally part of the Nimitz Freeway (State Route 17, and later, Interstate 880) in Oakland, California. It replaced an earlier single-deck viaduct constructed in the 1930s as one of the approaches to the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. It was located along Cypress Street between 7th Street and Interstate 80 in the West Oakland neighborhood. It officially opened to traffic on June 11, 1957, and was in use until October 17, 1989. At approximately 5:04 p.m. that day, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck the Bay Area, resulting in a large portion of the freeway's upper deck collapsing onto the lower deck. The collapse killed 42 people and resulted in the subsequent demolition of the structure.The Cypress Freeway Memorial Park is located in Oakland, at 14th Street and Mandela Parkway.

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.

McClymonds Educational Complex was the collective name of the two small high schools occupying the building of McClymonds High School, operated by the Oakland Unified School District from August 2005 to 2010. As of 2010, the complex has returned to being a single high school, McClymonds High School.

McClymonds High School is a public high school in the West Oakland neighborhood of Oakland, California, United States. In addition to being the third oldest high school in Oakland, it is the only comprehensive high school in West Oakland, operated by the Oakland Unified School District.

Raimondi Park is a 4,000-seat ballpark and public park in the West Oakland neighborhood of Oakland, California. It is the home field of the Oakland Ballers of the independent Pioneer League, and is closely connected to the history of baseball in Oakland. Formerly known as West Oakland Park and Bay View Park, the park was renamed in 1947 to honor Pacific Coast League third baseman and United States Army infantryman Ernie Raimondi, who was killed in action during World War II. The city of Oakland acquired the land for the park in the 1890s, and it has served a variety of functions since. The park has been a venue for formal and informal baseball since the early 20th century, and has played a significant role in the history of baseball in Oakland. In addition to its baseball facilities, the park functions as a neighborhood public park, with soccer fields and a playground. The park's current configuration is the result of a $1.6 million privately funded improvement program organized by the Oakland Ballers, which was completed in time for the team's inaugural season in 2024.

Peralta Villa is a neighborhood in Oakland in Alameda County, California. It lies at an elevation of 20 feet (6 m). It was formerly an unincorporated community.

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).

Dogtown is a nickname for a portion of West Oakland (officially Clawson) in the city of Oakland, California. Oakland Police officers coined the phrase due to a large population of stray dogs dating from the early 1980s. It is bounded on the east by Adeline Street, on the west by Mandela Parkway (previously the Cypress Street Viaduct), and its north–south limits are the 580 freeway and 28th Street. The area is undergoing rapid redevelopment from former industrial uses to live-work and other residential forms.

St. Mary's Gardens is an Oakland, California elderly housing facility noted for its airy, open design and innovative use of low-cost plywood. The building was designed by Thomas J. Caulfield of Peters, Clayberg, and Caulfield. The design received a national Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1981.

16th Street station (Oakland Central) is a former Southern Pacific Railroad station in the Prescott neighborhood of Oakland, California, United States. The Beaux-Arts building was designed by architect Jarvis Hunt, a preeminent railroad station architect, and opened in 1912. The station has not been served by trains since 1994.

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.

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.