East Bay Hipster Gulch: The Motel

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The Temescal district, the neighborhood surrounding Telegraph Avenue and 51st Street in North Oakland, has become a contender for the title of East Bay Hipster Gulch. By which I mean the area is characterized by lots of young folks hanging out, sporting the latest in fashion and barely rideable bicycles. In fact, the first Friday of the month is a phenomenon all the way up Telegraph from downtown to 51st. Galleries are open late, clubs are thronged, and except for the very wide well-paved street you might think you were in non-colonial Williamsburg–the one in Brooklyn.  

But traces of the avenue’s up-and-down history persist. Smack in the middle of a block that features an odd but cool gallery (it featured a live Halloween display with a young woman making like Norman Bates’s mother and spooking some visitors), a Burmese restaurant, and a good pizza-and-beer joint, you’ll find a rent-by-the-week motel. But like the rest of the area, it’s going through changes. I prefer to think of it as the Maya, but that’s because I formed my impression facing north. South-facing viewers see the Telegraph-Shattuck (those two streets meet, or diverge, a block away).

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New Ho Ho

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A sighting on our weekly Friday night stops in Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood. One of many restaurants in the area and part of an almost equally large group we have not yet tried. “New Ho Ho”? Somewhere, there’s an original Ho Ho Restaurant, I guess. And the “Ho Ho” part? The Chinese version shown below, shot with exceedingly slow shutter and excessively moving hands, gives a hint. The character for “ho” is repeated (you can just make that out in the red characters above the awning). “Ho” apparently means “good.” I don’t know whether doubling it means “extra good.” Or maybe “greasy spoon.”

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