How I Fell In Love With Oakland’s Funktown

When I first figured out that San Francisco wasn’t for me, I didn’t know where I was going to end up. I had initially hoped that I would return to The Laurel, a neighborhood that straddles the line between East Oakland and the Lower Hills where I spent a long stretch of adolescence. That neighborhood is still special to me, but its specialness is exceeded by its expensiveness. 

After the beating my wallet took in San Francisco, I was looking for something that wouldn’t fuck my finances, but was still close to cool stuff, good food and wasn’t gentrified to the point of of no return. 

Credit: Emma Pearl

After a few months of aimlessly driving around Oakland and zillowing my attention span down to zero, I found an apartment that was affordable (Bay Area affordable, not real life affordable) and walking distance to Lake Merritt in a neighborhood with a name that changes depending on who you’re talking to. Google Maps calls it Clinton, real estate agents call it East Lake, a group of Vietnamese business owners call it “Little Saigon” and the dudes who loiter in front of liquor stores call it Funktown. 

Since Funktown sounds cooler, I’m going to go with that. 

The existence of the neighborhood feels defiant. Funktown is almost exclusively inhabited by immigrants, working class families and artists, but it’s walking distance to luxury condos with views of the lake and Oakland’s skyline. Even from my street you can see the lights of Downtown Oakland shimmering in the distance.

What I initially noticed when I walked around the neighborhood is that every street feels different, and the architecture drips with history. The neighborhood is home to a number of Victorian mansions, some converted into apartments, others left untouched. The neighborhood was originally its own city. The city was called Brooklyn, California and stretched from Lake Merritt at what is now Lakeshore Drive all the way to 23rd Avenue in East Oakland.

Another feature that differentiates Funktown from the rest of Oakland are the way its streets are designed. Many of the intersections feature curved turnoffs that prevent people from speeding through the heavily residential areas off of the main roads. Which can be annoying at first if you’re new to the area in a car, it makes the neighborhood safer and vastly more walkable than other parts of East Oakland.

Curved intersections aren’t the only things that make this unique, Clinton, Funktown or whatever the fuck you want to call it is home to the Oakland Buddha: a magical Buddha statue that prevents crime. I’m not kidding, I have stats that back up this claim. The Oakland Buddha statue is so famous it has gotten documentaries and writeups by national and international news publications. Even Al Jazeera couldn’t resist the urge to report on Oakland’s beautiful Buddha.

Food is another feature of Funktown that should be addressed. It’s no secret that Oakland has the best food in the Bay, and the area really lives up to its “Little Saigon” moniker as you stroll down International Boulevard. The are a number of Vietnamese and Cambodian grocery stores and restaurants that offer everything you can eat and more from every corner of Asia. If International is a little too spicy for you, Champa Garden is in a less edgy part of the neighborhood and is delicious.

I know people are going to get mad at me about this last part, especially since I’m writing an article talking about how cool this area is, but East Lake (or Funktown, Clinton, Little Saigon) even with the best attempts of real estate agents, remains ungentrified despite literally being next to pretty much everything you’d want to be near in Oakland. This isn’t a bad thing. This is a great thing. Is the area hood? Kind of, but that’s why my two-bedroom apartment with parking is only 2k a month.

There are studios in North Oakland that cost as much my apartment for a fraction of the square footage. Have I heard gunshots? Sometimes… But gunshot is an ugly term. I prefer referring to them as auditory expressions of rent stabilization made possible by professional property depreciators. As long as no one gets hurt and the rent prices stay low, in my opinion, they’re doing the Lord’s work. I’m a firm believer in minding my own fucking business.

Also, if that doesn’t convince you of Funktown’s dopeness, one of Oakland’s best rappers, Ezale, is from here. So there’s that.

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