An aging bald man waist-high in trash rummages through a dumpster outside Stay Gold Delicatessen. Residents walk by and yell, tell him to stop messing with junk, but he keeps sorting through it as if he can’t hear them. Just over a fence covered with black fabric and grapevines, another Oakland exists.

There, the beer garden is hopping.

The Friday afternoon scene on either side of the fence offers a glimpse of what was and what might be on the corner of San Pablo Avenue and 27th Street in a patch of West Oakland, known for its high rates of poverty and crime.

Read the rest of the story by Laura Newberry on Oakland North.

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