Alfred Zampa was a working-class Italian-American who worked on every bridge in the Bay Area, including the Carquinez Bridge, and is now remembered as the accidental founder of the “Halfway to Hell Club” and the namesake of the Alfred Zampa Bridge.

When I was 12 years old, I left Oakland for a small town on the southern edge of the Carquinez Strait. The towering buildings of Oakland and neighboring San Francisco were replaced by the smokestacks of refineries.  The East Bay is primarily defined by Oakland and Berkeley, but there is

It’s Springtime in San Francisco, which means it’s time to put your phone on silent for a while and step out into our fair city to sing, eat, and play with the wonderful people and programming on offer. Whether in the flesh or on a live stream, the journalists and

If you go north of Berkeley, you’ll notice something interesting about the East Bay’s shoreline. It becomes increasingly industrial once you cross the boundary into Contra Costa County. Richmond is the first city you hit (El Cerrito is just rich Richmond) and it serves as a quintessential example of an

America is in the grips of a mental health crisis, and it’s manifesting on the streets of our cities. In San Francisco, residents are constantly confronted with the unhoused wandering the streets to the point of desensitization, and in recent years, utter contempt. In the suburbs surrounding San Francisco, mental

Target is a perfectly fine place. I don’t have anything against Target or the people who shop there. I like their dog mascot with the red circle around its eye. I think it’s cute. And who doesn’t remember the “Blue Light Special?” Was that Target? I think it was. I’m

A series of desperate screams were heard underfoot in Antioch last weekend, prompting concerned passerby to call 911.  On Sunday, March 20, 50 firefighters, police officers, and rescue personnel were called to the site of a 16-inch (40-centimeter) storm pipe, no bigger than the “width of a large pizza.”  Inside,

In a little more than one week, Contra Costa County customers will have to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test if they want to eat inside a restaurant, drink in a bar or work out in a gym, among other things. San Francisco and the city of

As the thirsty state continues to bite and scratch for every last drop of water, new restrictions and states of emergency are rolling out across the Bay Area region in rapid succession.  Gov. Gavin Newsom last week called on all Californians to voluntarily cut back water usage by 15 percent