The State Market Liquor store at 707 Willow Street in the Lower Bottoms neighborhood of West Oakland is hitting the market with a $2.25 million asking price.
And while the sale doesn’t include the inventory inside, it does include the building, which is technically 1716 7th Street, along with the adjacent 11,000-square-foot parking lot.
And the parking lot parcel appears to be zoned for development up to 60 feet in height.
Who is responsible for all the graffiti in West Oakland. Is this the responsibility of all the artists living in Oakland? One would think that artists would want to keep a low profile and make sure properties are free of graffiti and blight. Every fence and just about every business in West Oakland is marked up with graffiti. Who does this? Does anyone have any ideas?
Right, no kidding.. who is doing this? There is none of that in my neighborhood (Pac Heights)
But plenty in the Mission, SOMA, Tenderloin, etc. It makes the neighborhoods look rundown and ugly. I hope it’s not the artists living in the warehouses and other semi industrial spaces. They should make sure their living spaces are spotless and free of graffiti and blight. Instead these places usually look incredibly blighted and neglected.
Everything should be beige. Beige is the only appropriate color.
Taging is ugly. Graffiti brings down neighborhoods. I’d rather have beige than the incredible blight these vandals/artists bring to certain Oakland neighborhoods.
Those are the choices? Graffiti or beige? Where do you live and I’ll come by and “express myself” all over your property.
Gang members are artists too!
Most of this stuff is not gang graffiti. This blight is created by people who come to vandalize Oakland because they couldn’t get away with doing this in places like Walnut Creek, Lafayette or Orinda.
There is graffiti everywhere.
Including European cities that San Francisco imagines itself to be.
From what I understand, most graffiti people (not calling them artists) are bored white people. And it makes everything look bad, agree.
Four generations in SF and you’re still at the “from what I understand” stage regarding graffiti?
Sit down, dude. The entirety of this argument started with the “graffiti” on the liquor store – despite it being, you know, sanctioned art, not graffiti. Wait for it — the store paid for them to make this mural. By your argument, blight would include advertising billboards as well.
The mural is fine if it’s sanctioned by the property owner. But as you can see from the picture there are tags just above the “State Market Liquor ” sign. In many cases targets don’t even respect murals. Do you think that Oakland Chinatown looks better now completely inundated with graffiti than it did just 5 years ago when graffiti was minimal? I think it looks much worse and much more blighted.
Billboards are blight as far as I’m concerned.
I wonder if 7th street will ever recover or get its act together. the underlying issue is BART. it of course should have been built underground, and its presence makes street life basically impossible (as demonstrated by the many abandoned buildings which once thrived. this is a step in the right direction though. I also hope they build that large apartment complex adjacent to the weoak BART station down the street.
I agree, this development should help. That street needs to thrive again.
Graffiti art is acceptable, urban, artistic and expected in big cities. Sure some is repulsusive / amuetuer.
E. gons. Who are you? You bash SF, praising Oakland, then bash Oakland graffiti. You are a troll.
I am no graffiti artist nor do I necessarily support it. But I do greatly appreciate street art / graffiti when done correctly
Clarion alley in SF, the port of Oakland tags as seen from Bart, west Oakland as seen from Bart, the bat mural at ~500 Howard st in SF.
How can people not appreciate creativity, or just constantly bash things? Urban street art is awesome and amazing and should be fully supported.
Bland blank nothing is a reflection of a brain of emptiness. Creativity, expression of views, and tolerance is good!
Graffiti is disgusting. The vandals have already destroyed Oakland Chinatown, West Oakland and parts of East Oakland. Graffiti creates a demoralizing effect on neighborhoods, increases illegal dumping, increased crime, etc.. Oakland city government and OPD have dropped the ball as these vandals run amok destroying private and public property.
“disgusting”
“destroyed”
Deep breaths, deep breaths.
Yeah. Destroyed and disgusting. Take a walk around Chinatown. Every building is covered in disgusting graffiti that is destroying the neighborhood. West Oakland isn’t far behind along with Fruitvale. Why should people have to put up with numbskulls crapping all over their neighborhood?
Exactly. These vandals disrespect these neighborhoods. They are selfish people who impose their blight on others. The city let’s them run amok to do whatever they want and the citizens are the ones who suffer.
if you think that street art has “destroyed” Oakland Chinatown, you’re wrong. much of the street art in that neighborhood is sanctioned by property owners and showcases real talent—for example: Dragon School.
yes, there are some ugly/uninspired and illegal tags among the better work. but a lot of people who actually live in these neighborhoods would take both the truly creative art along with the “disgusting” graffiti, rather than have none at all. of course, it sounds like you might not know anything about living in such a neighborhood.
Oakland is a great town but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have problems. I’m not going to sit here and pretend all is rosy when I see these vandals ruining neighborhoods and no one lifts a finger to stop them.
This is hysteria. Graffiti is a trivial issue when compared to the other issues Oakland faces.
Murals can be beautiful. Most of the tags I see in Oakland are blight.
Graffiti leads neighborhoods down to more serious issues such as illegal dumping and increased crime. It signals that no one cares and anything goes.
So you get to decide what’s done correctly and what’s not? Maybe E. Gonsalves has made that choice and decided they don’t like any of it. Where’s your tolerance of their opinion? You can avoid the whole question by respecting other people’s property, but I guess to the sanctimonious that’s too hard of a concept.
NYC in the 70’s was a bastion of “creativity.” There was graffiti everywhere, all over the subway, Central Park, Times Square, you name it and it was trashed with graffiti. NYC was dying and it was a dirty disgusting crime filled mess. Now it’s a pleasure to go to Manhattan and ride the subway. NYC has cleaned-up as Oakland and S.F. keep tolerating the vandalism which almost doomed NYC. Oakland and S.F. are going back to the 70s in NYC and the politicians do nothing about this huge problem which is takes away from the quality of life in our cities. Shameful.
SoMa is much cleaner and better policed than it was ~25 years ago. Mission Bay, Dogpatch, Showplace Sq, Hayes Valley too. Even Tenderloin and Civic Center are better. Oakland not so much.
I’m talking about graffiti. Plenty of Oakland neighborhoods are much better now than they were in the 70’s and 80’s. Uptown, didn’t even exist. Jack London Produce District had no residences. Temescal was nothing like it is today. Lakeshore, Grand Lake, Piedmont Avenue, Rockridge, Fruitvale, are all better now. What’s not better is the amount of graffiti and illegal dumping in fringe neighborhoods around and near freeways and in certain under developed sections of downtown. I just don’t want to see the graffiti and blight spread like it did in NYC in the 70’s.
SF has less graffiti than it did 25 years ago. And far less of the handbills that used to be pasted on walls and stapled to telephone polls. SF has even cracked down on the corporate graffiti. There is also less garbage dumped in all those SF neighborhoods I mentioned above.
Uh, not on my property or when my taxes have to clean it up. You can’t make an argument for unsanctioned street art without making one for anarchy. Not everyone appreciates the artistic value.
UPDATE: The asking price for the Lower Bottoms liquor store, restaurant space, parking lot and two apartments at 707 Willow Street has just been reduced 17.7 percent to $1.85 million.