Surely but steadily the word has spread about Art Murmur, that food, art, clothing and music street festival that invades a strip of downtown Oakland on the first Friday evening of every month.
I went there last June when the side streets
between Broadway and Telegraph Avenue, from 25th Street down to 21st Street, filled with lively crowds walking through art galleries and trendy vintage clothing boutiques that would otherwise be closed that time of night. Some 21 galleries and nine other mixed venues are the primary sponsors, but so much more is now making the event a regular street festival.
When a friend from London who fancies herself a foodie visited me this week to do some stories about the final week before the presidential election, I thought we'd take a look at Art Murmur as a new way to disabuse her of various negative stereotypes about Oakland. What a great idea! And how Art Murmur has grown! Now it stretches from West Grand Avenue down to 18th Street. Telegraph Avenue is completely closed to traffic and offers itself as a broad boulevard through which enormous crowds now wander - winding through an exotic blend of international food stalls and trucks, live bands, street dancers and open deck tour buses on which people dance to the music.
Food trucks drew long lines of customers (in November!) wafting with aromas from Italy, India, Mexico,Poland, Germany, Southeast Asia, pastries dripping with chocolate and raspberries and cream, soups and potato latkes, spinach knishes, burritos and stir fries - it just kept on going for blocks and blocks!
On the sidewalks were more food vendors, jewelry stands, eclectic T-shirt and leather goods. This is not just one block but changes from street to street along Telegraph. The side streets, too, are filled with cavernous indoor galleries where more artists, sculptors, clothing vendors, musicians and foodies gather. Even an auto body shop has opened its doors, with welders sipping beer in deck chairs while visitors look at classic cars and old wrecks ready for rebuilds.
Around 21st street, we stumbled upon a grove of old Detroit monster beauties - the kind of cars I grew up with that you almost never see around these days. An enormous white 1961 Continental convertible with gleaming whitewalls staked out one corner, its hard-top roof down and trunk lid open. I swear a sofa and table could sit inside that trunk. Nearby and similarly strutting their wares were 1960s examples of a Pontiac GTO, Camaro, Corvette and Cadillac convertible. On the next block, not to be outdone, was a corral of big motorcycles, Harleys, Ducatis and more.
What we thought would be a quick one-hour stroll lasted hours. Our last purchase, from two young women sitting on the sidewalk, was a small bag of chocolate truffles, dipped in rum and other obscenely sweet liqueurs. My friend was speechless - someone who knows New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, Berlin has seen it all. But seeing it all in Oakland, on a Friday night, was more than she ever expected. Well done, Art Murmur!
In the words of a friend, "Calling this 'crab soup' would be like describing the QEII as 'a pretty big boat' - words don't do it justice, you gotta eat it to believe it."
