THE PLACE

In Oakland’s San Antonio district, children nearly outnumber adults. In the middle of this low-income and intensely multi-cultural neighborhood sat the crumbling 1.6-acre expanse of BellaVistaPark, butted up against the overcrowded BellaVistaElementary School. Essentially a desolate wasteland of cracked asphalt with tired basketball hoops and tennis courts with no nets, surrounded by a chain-link fence, the site had no landscaping, no bathrooms, no drinking fountain, no green, not even a place to sit down. It was a park in name only.

The surrounding neighborhood offered no alternative gathering or play spaces. Local businesses consisted of liquor stores that doubled as illegal drug depots and training grounds for future pushers.

While the park was well utilized by BellaVistaSchool students during the day as a playground, the park belonged to drug dealers and gamblers at night.  It was a rare morning when there weren’t numerous beer bottles and condoms left strewn about the park.  The park was regularly covered with graffiti.