Fox Theater—A Sneak Preview

Early next year, Downtown Oakland’s Fox Theater will be abuzz with crowds of concertgoers and charter school students. Currently, the only noises generating from the theater are the pounding of hammers and the buzzing of saws and drills.

Construction crews are working hard to hammer out the final renovations for the theater—installing seats and elevators, hanging doors, and touching up paint—in time for the grand opening gala on Feb. 5.

The Fox Theater construction office—which sits across from the nearly-renovated Telegraph Avenue theater—is the headquarters of Turner Construction Co., which is overseeing the $70 million construction job slated for completion early next year.

I recently stopped by the Turner Construction office to check on the status of the renovation. Inside, a few people were working at desks, and two men stood hunched over a drafting table nearby—including Mike Richard, superintendent of the project, and Ryan Murphy, the project engineer.

I asked Murphy what had happened to the large vinyl counter that had, until recently, been hanging in the entrance to the Fox, counting off the days until the theater’s opening. The question drew chuckles from the workers, who said that because the completion date has been pushed back a number of times, the sign was removed to avoid confusion.

Richard, one of the men at work at the drafting table, encouraged me to ask him any questions I had about the theater. What I really wanted to know was if I could have a look inside.
I was surprised when Richard conceded to my request. He spit sharply into a metal wastebasket at his feet before turning to Murphy, the young project engineer.

“You wanna take her over there?” he asked Murphy.

Murphy said he wouldn't mind, and before I knew it we had donned white hard hats and were crossing Telegraph toward the theater.
As we approached the entrance, I felt a strange anticipation. This was a scene I had passed hundreds of times on my bicycle, never thinking I’d actually go inside—at least not before the scaffolding and construction crews had disappeared.

Turner Construction oversees nearly 50 subcontractor companies, and Murphy estimates that on any given day the theater has 120 to 180 subcontracted employees working on the building.
Murphy lifted up a piece of yellow construction tape that was strung in front of the lobby, and we stepped under it and onto the terrazzo floor, which was covered in a fresh layer of wood dust. Workers scuffled past with power cords and beams of wood.

Inside the theater’s annex, the walls were gilded in gold, green and maroon. “When we originally walked in here, the walls were black,” Murphy said, attributing the discoloration to years of dust, cigarette smoke, and a small fire in 1973.

We stepped inside the main theater, which is still awaiting seats and other final installations and paint jobs. Looking up, I noticed the high plaster ceiling was patterned with wood-grained starbursts, which Murphy said were repainted by 30 specialized painters over a three-month period.

Painters have been hired to restore, and in some places recreate, the theater’s original paint job. He revealed that the parts of the ceiling that appear to be made of wood are actually just painted to look that way. I got a closer look later in the tour, and he was right—not a splinter of wood in sight, just endless slivers of painted detail.

The theater itself is overwhelming for its incredible detail, much of which is original ‘30s architecture. On either side of the 5-foot high stage were these monstrous, Buddha-like statues backed by tall, flowery grates.

I learned that at one point in the theater’s history, there were organs set up behind the statues, and during performances smoke would snake from the bowls as the statues’ eyes lit up green. Murphy said they were considering using these effects in the renovated theater, but would hold off on the organs, “since organs aren’t too popular with the younger crowd.”

Because the Fox’s primary booking agent, Another Planet Entertainment—who also books shows at Berkeley’s Greek Theater and the Independent in San Francisco—will be holding a consistent variety of concerts, it’s inevitable that the old theater will see it’s share of younger audience members.

Still, the new Fox will be unveiling what Murphy estimates to be nine bars throughout the lobby and upstairs areas, so concerts may be geared toward the 21 and up crowd.

Murphy also showed me the upper-level of the theater, including an area called the “lighting runway,” which won’t be accessible to the public. The lighting runway looks out over the entire theater, giving one a sense of the true vastness of the space.

Along the lighting runway were even more beautiful details, like sculpted lion’s heads with fixed scowls, which had most likely gone unseen by all but a few lucky people for many years.

My tour guide said that sculptures like these have been restored throughout the entire theater through a process in which sculptors made molds of undamaged pieces, and then placed the same damaged version in the mold, filling any missing parts with new plaster.

Murphy, who joined the project seven months ago after graduating from Chico State University, said he feels really lucky to be a part of it. “It’s pretty neat,” he said. “To see where the theater is now [compared to a few months ago] is amazing.”

There are an overwhelming amount of ornate and historic details resting inside the Fox Theater, waiting for their great unveiling in February. I feel lucky that I was able to get a sneak peak of the building, and as for everyone else in Oakland whose been patiently counting down—and up—the days, it will be well worth the wait.

Bakeries in Oakland Chinatown

Chinatown is sprinkled with as many bakeries as a puff pastry topped with powdered sugar. Here are some of those tasty locations.



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Wigging Out at the Wig Shop

Behind big windows and a locked glass door sit hundreds of long-necked women. Their statuesque profiles are framed by shining hairdos—not one the same as the next or the one before it.

One woman wears a short brown bob, another sports a silver shag, and there are long layers of all hues. The diversity of ‘dos is contrasted only by the unifying stillness of the women, whose plastic faces rest motionless on plastic posts that line long shelves.

The only movement comes from beneath a modest hairdo: a cluster of fine black curls atop the head of Laura Kwon. She carefully combs out a wig affixed to a bronze-skinned display head at her Downtown Oakland shop Wigs by Tiffany.

Kwon is the Telegraph Avenue store’s fourth owner—the fourth “Tiffany” to command the mass of wigs that sends shelves sagging under years’ worth of their weight. For 19 years Kwon has been selling wigs and weaves to women of all follicular fancies.

Customers come to Kwon’s shop to cover up hair thinned by age, sickness or overzealous scissors—others are just looking for a quick style fix.

And while much of the store’s business comes from wig-wearing women between 30 and 60, Kwon says a lot of her customers are young women buying braids and extensions.

One wall of the shop is decorated with chords of rope-like weaves that hang like horsetails. Some of this hair comes from human heads, though many of the wigs and weaves are synthetic.

“Synthetic hair is more popular than human hair,” Kwon says. “It’s more lightweight than the real stuff and has better color.”

There is a heavy air of solitude about the shop—the hundreds of mannequin heads filling the small room create a sense of artificial company. Customers are sparse, and a sign on the perpetually locked door implores them to “knock lightly” before Kwon lets them inside.

After a silent interval, a light knock on the door reveals a customer. Kwon excitedly greets Sue Browne, who is looking for her bi-annual wig replacement. After scanning the shelves, Browne settles on a short, tightly curled hairstyle. “It’s curly, but if I comb it out it’ll be a little more relaxed,” she says decidedly.

Kwon agrees, and $43 later she has a happy customer.

Browne has been a customer at Wigs by Tiffany for years. She says it’s Kwon’s friendliness, and the store’s variety of ever-changing hairstyles styles that keep her coming back. Browne is also among the minority of clientele who prefer human hair to the synthetic brand.

"You don’t have to throw away the human hair so soon. You can wash it and set it and keep re-wearing it,” she says.

And asked why she adopted a wig-wearing lifestyle—she has a generous amount of hair herself—Browne explains: “When I can’t get my own hair to act right, I don’t have to keep messing with it. I always have something I can throw on my head.”

A Closer Look at Oakland's Downtown & Chinatown

As I headed down Telegraph Avenue into Oakland’s Downtown (location of both Chinatown and the City Center) last Saturday, I was initially struck by both the new development of The Uptown Apartments and the re-development of the Fox Theater.

The Uptown Apartments are a three-building, 665-unit complex of brown bricks and metal balconies, and inside the Welcome Center waits Chase Maxwell, the Uptown’s concierge. He reveals that the massive apartments are “green,” span four city blocks, and are still looking for residents.

A block away, the Fox Theater whizzes with construction crews, while a vinyl sign counts off “50 Days Till Open.” According to its Web site, the theater is slated to re-open in January 2009 after a nearly 40-year hiatus. The restored venue will host live entertainment and serve as the new location for Oakland School for the Arts.

At Frank Ogawa Plaza, where City Hall is located, the area is noticeably quiet compared to the weekday bustle of city officials and office workers. Across the street at the City Center (14th & Broadway—Telegraph diverges at 15th) it’s the same story: Two floors of shops (sans shoppers) are shadowed by surrounding office buildings, and inside a Top Dog sits Galen Evans, a lonely hot dog slinger.

Evans is a part-time student living in West Oakland, who says the downtown location caters to office workers and is one of the few in the plaza to stay open through the weekend. “We lose a lot of business on the weekend,” he says, as a pile of hotdogs ruminate on the grill behind him.

Down Broadway and left onto 12th Street, an explosion of shops and sounds contradict the scene behind me. Oakland’s Chinatown! Its commercial section fills the territory between 7th and 12th and Broadway and Harrison streets.

Outside the New Sun Hun Fat Supermarket, people crowd together in a sort of cordial chaos. The street is lined with Asian produce, and inside are isles of Japanese candies—seemingly anything edible is offered pickled.

On 9th Street is the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. This is home to the Oakland Library’s Chinatown branch, which houses books in eight Asian languages.

On the upper-level of the Cultural Center is the office of Jennie Ong, the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce’s executive director—she shares with me some of Chinatown’s issues and assets.

Ong cites traffic as a big issue in Chinatown, attributing car congestion to the neighborhood's proximity to the 880 Freeway and the Alameda tunnels. She describes the “Scramble System” built this year at the intersections of 8th and Webster and Franklin and 9th. The crosswalk is an all-directional system allowing pedestrians to safely cross streets from all angles while cars wait.
The crosswalk is marked by colorful inlayed tiles, which Ong labels as generic Ching dynasty-era patterns intended to represent Chinatown’s cultural identity.

Downtown Oakland is a growing center of culture and commerce that has a historic value, despite modern developments. I’m excited to spend the coming months exploring this community!