High Street Neighborhood News


by Adelle Foley


Capture a Painted Chair at MLA’s Auction

Melrose Leadership Academy is holding its first Uptown Auction to Save the Music on Saturday February 18 from 7:30 to 11:30 p.m. The benefit will be swingin’ to the music and serving tasty appetizers and drinks in the Oakland Uptown Body and Fender shop at 401 26th St. Donations range from $30 to $50. Contact MLA at 535-3832 to reserve your tickets. You can also purchase $2 raffle tickets for a chance to take home a variety of prizes, including popular electronic equipment and wooden chairs that have been painted by local artists and MLA students.

The Fourth Wall

The Maxwell Park Mosaic team has opened the fourth (and final) year of wrapping the rest room cinder blocks in artistic bits of tile and mirror. The team is calling for community members interested in helping to design the mosaic for the front of the building. If you would like to submit a design, take a look at the surfaces to be covered and the other three walls, and contact Beverly Shalom bahiashalom@sbcglobal.net or Nancy Karigaca nkarigaca@comcast.net to let them know if you can attend a meeting on one of the first three Saturdays in February. You can also register your interest in volunteering for the construction or preparation phases of the project.
If you don’t know the location of the project, the restroom is in the park in the 4500 block of Fleming.


Magnets with Library Hours

The Friends of Melrose Library began the year with a full complement of officers. Brenda Cooper joined the roster as Treasurer and Rosetta Egan as Secretary. Susanne Perkins and Adelle Foley continue as Chair and Vice-Chair. The meetings are now held the second Tuesday of the month at 6 p.m. All Friends of the branch are also invited to help create our second batch of magnets with library hours listed, at a work session on Saturday, February 25 from 10 a.m. to noon.

Acting Branch Manager Joyce Bratton distributed a schedule of 2012 library closures for holidays and City Closure, including February 10, 11, 13, 20, and 21. You can get your own copy at your branch or at the Main Library.

High Street Traffic Light

Sometimes a wish is fulfilled long after a request is made, denied, and almost forgotten. Those of us working to calm High St. traffic have long thought that the youngsters crossing this major thoroughfare to the Boys & Girls Club needed a safer way to get to the club. We proposed the addition of a traffic light, but our request was rejected. Now, years later, the need is still very real, and we’ve heard that a traffic signal will be installed at Porter and High. We know it takes quite a while, but we’re watching and waiting.

[PLEASE BE SURE TO LEAVE A SPACE]

As I walk outside.

Silence. Dim headlights emerge.

Surrounded by fog

[PLEASE BE SURE TO LEAVE A SPACE]

On the way to BART

Tulle fog frizz-dries my hair

And moistens my face.

[PLEASE BE SURE TO LEAVE A SPACE]