#Oakland is not just underrated, it’s one of the most beautiful & livable cities in the world. @laureola.bsky.social & I spent the day downtown where we witnessed the grand reopening of The Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts. Our city’s auditorium was built in 1915 as a civic arena and theater.

It hosted holiday pageants, Harlem Globetrotter games, operas, and rock concerts. It fell into disrepair, but is now renovated & fully open again for the first time in 20 years. Entertaining tour from architecture historian Scooter Marriner. (This portico by Sterling Calder sports a merman. C’mon!)

Lunch next door at Town Fare, great soul food on Oakland Museum of CA’s sunny midcentury terrace overlooking #LakeMerritt. This public park is people-centered brutalism at its best. A multilayered rooftop garden of concrete & greenery, multiple access points, and endless picturesque views. #OMCA

We walked to the Oakland Main Library which happened to be celebrating its 75th birthday with concerts and cake. The party was filled with folks of every walk of life, tapping feet to a multigenerational jazz quartet. (Yes, this man is wearing a party hat. I think he’s a library administrator.)

Ended the afternoon at Mountain View, our glorious hilltop cemetery, to take in the countless 19th-century monuments and day’s final rays. Then strolled the mystical halls of Chapel of the Chimes. Built by Julia Morgan, one of the country’s first women architects, it somehow combines Gothic & Deco.