14th and Broadway

14th and Broadway in Downtown Oakland is like, Oakland’s version of the San Francisco. The streets remind me of Market Street by how it is a non-stop, fast paced, piece of the neighborhood. Even though I went mid-day when all the yuppies were still suppose to be working, the streets were filled with all types of people: walking, eating, running, Indian people, Asian people, this street doesn’t seem to discriminate. The first thing I noticed, the clock on the Tribune tower is wrong. I don’t know why that bothered me so much, but I kept trying to figure out if the clocks had changed or something? The time was hours off but once it hit 12pm on the wrong clock 5pm in real time, the chimes started going and out came the people. All at once they fall out the buildings, and the streets change for night. The kids from Oakland Technical High School flood Broadway, the students come to hang out, and eat but Broadway is nothing of what it used to be.
I use to work in downtown and in the past 4 years it has changed so much from what I remember. There are guards on the streets, not policemen, guards specifically for the downtown area, they removed the benches on Broadway, is all different. I asked around and it seems as though they are moving the people of color out of the area, and moved in restaurants and more businesses, but I have yet to really explore why this is happening.
Between 12 to 14th and Broadway is the heart of Downtown Oakland, its where the most happens probably because it’s the most accessible place, or one of the most accessible. Countless buses that come from places outside Oakland like from alameda and San Francisco, not mention BART 12th street Oakland stop, which is a transfer point so there are many people passing though, Amtrak in jack London square.
There’s a lady (the one who ran from me) who seems to be the neighborhood annoyance, but she seems to be on drugs, she was at the bus stop talking to an imaginary person tell them that she’s going to be a pastor and then in the middle of the sentence she started to spell pastor with a silent “q” corrected herself then claimed that it was suppose to be in the word pastor, it was just silent. Weird.