History
Standing at the intersection of Harbour Way and Nevin Avenue sits the famed New Hotel Carquinez. Most of the people passing through the ornate entryway these days are senior residents of the subsidized apartments inside. There is no fancy restaurant, no bellhops, no grand chandeliers.
Governor Brown signed a bill into state law Tuesday in Richmond, signaling what sponsors portrayed as a milestone in the decades-long battle for equal pay for women.
A new exhibition of rarely seen prints by California artist Emmy Lou Packard opened Saturday in Richmond, offering visitors a glimpse of one of the Bay Area’s most noteworthy 20th century artists at work during World War II.
This year is the driest in recorded history in California. This has forced the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) to declare a stage 4 drought, the highest stage ever announced in the area, although even higher stages can apply if the drought gets worse. EBMUD is asking East Bay citizens to cut down their water usage. Water is a vital resource to survive. But most of the water on Earth is salt water and not directly usable for humans. Only about…
In 1980, refugees from Laos gathered in the living room of a modest three-bedroom Richmond apartment. Their daunting goal was to help their growing community find jobs and housing in America after fleeing the destruction wrought by the Vietnam War. On Wednesday last week, Lao Family Community Development, Inc. celebrated its 35th anniversary at Maple Hall in the San Pablo Civic Center. Each year, the non-profit organization helps 15,000 people from more than 30 countries become self-sufficient. From its humble…
It’s not over yet. The measles outbreak, which started in December, 2014, at a Disneyland theme park in Orange County, is still ongoing in the United States, and has now reached Mexico and Canada, where more than 100 people have been reported to have the disease. By March 6, 17 US states and the District of Columbia reported measles cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website. The CDC is only one of the many health…
Roughly 40 people filled up the theater at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park’s visitor center on Saturday morning to meet Elizabeth Escobedo, author of From Coverall to Zoot Suits: The Lives of Mexican American Women on the World War II Home Front. The author and associate professor of history at the University of Denver was invited to the museum to share her research. During her presentation, Escobedo showed a variety of advertisements, newspaper articles, and photos…
Walk down Macdonald Ave from the Civic Center toward downtown Richmond, and something will make you say, “Huh?” At the 20th Street intersection, you can buy five Christian music CDs for $20, walk four feet, and buy two cigars for 99 cents. How many cities do you know where a Bible store and a smoke shop share a wall? There’s a 100-year-old flower shop on the same block— and three Metro PCS stores within a half-mile stretch. I’ve done the…
It was on a regular night more than three decades ago when Shonda Dilliehunt woke to several masked gunmen raiding her home. Life wasn’t perfect at their small apartment in the Kennedy Park housing complex, but she never imagined something like this. All she heard was a distinctive boom, and men she didn’t know forced her and her family to the floor. “That was the first SWAT raid,” she said. “I didn’t know what was going on.” Memories of those…