Photo: Courtesy of the Oakland Library History Room]

by Now Playing: Gentrification

By Greg Novak

Signs of change in a community can be seen on her commercial streets. Do buildings have fresh paint on their walls or sheets of plywood on their windows? Are there weed-covered lots or bright "Grand Opening" banners? Our own community's most dramatic new changes are the towering arches gracing the MacArthur entrances into the Laurel. A mile west is a building with a history of drama that is in the final stages of an extreme makeover.

Sometimes a community can move forward by razing buildings to create anew, as happened to the old Hillcrest Motel or Laurel Liquors at High and MacArthur. Often the best way to improve is more subtle. That is to reuse the building in a way different from that originally intended.

Restaurants come and go from the same address. Gas stations change their names. These changes keep the architectural integrity of the neighborhood, and without the destruction and waste from tearing down and starting from scratch.

And so it is with the old 1325-seat art moderne gem on Fruitvale originally known as The Dimond Theater. It's been more than 50 years since the projector last flickered and Everett Nourse last tickled the keys on the mighty Wurlitzer organ, with nothing remaining of the old jewel but her cold and hollow shell. Walking inside this echoing, cavernous treasure this past spring, I was reminded of the magnificence that our theaters once had when they truly were movie palaces.

This diamond, however, is about to shine anew. Maybe you knew her as Lucky's or Albertsons or, most recently, Crazy John's. Now you can just call her Farmer Joe's. Our good Laurel friends at Farmer Joe's are opening their next store here this fall. This will be the second time that Joe and his partner in both marriage and business, Diana, have turned the lights on in a dark and all but forgotten building in our community. They did it with great success in 1994 to the old Guy's Drugstore, which had sat as a boarded-up eyesore for more than five years.

Farmer Joe's grand plans have been underway for many months. The curtain will soon rise again in the Dimond, this time to reveal a treasure rescued and a building being given another chance.

We are fortunate to have urban pioneers in our community such as Joe and Diana, with their uncanny and daring ability to lead the way.