Studio One aerial c2005

Description:
Aerial photograph of the vicinity of the Studio One Art Center (at center), 365 45th Street, Temescal district, Oakland, Calif. Surrounding features shown include the Oakland Technical High School track and gym (at left), a portion of the campus of Park Day School (at top), the Temescal Pool (at left), 45th Street (at bottom), and neighboring residences.

Date of Document:
circa 2005

Document Author:
Unknown

Geographic Location:
365 45th Street, Oakland Calif.

Context:
Inspired by the great Chicago fire in 1871, the Ladies Relief Society of Oakland formed in 1872 to help Oakland s indigent women and children. The Society operated residential facilities for elderly women, children, and infants on the "old Beckwith estate" a 10-acre parcel in the Temescal district, Oakland Calif. The property, which the Society purchased in 1873, extended from 42nd Street to 45th Street, and from Emerald Street west to about Shafter Avenue. The organization built a new, two-story, brick and shingle, U-shaped Children s Home in 1894. A fire in 1906 destroyed the second story, but the facility was quickly rebuilt. Boys and girls, either orphaned or from families too poor to provide for them, continued to live there into the 1940s, by which time child welfare programs had shifted away from institutionalization to a foster care model. During World War II, the Ladies Relief Society (later known as the Ladies Home Society) leased the building to the Army. In 1947, the North Oakland Area Council launched a major fundraising drive to purchase the building and adjacent boy's playground and donate it to the city of Oakland for use as the North Oakland Recreation Center and the future site of the Temescal Pool. When the North Oakland Recreation Center opened in 1948, it also housed the fledgling Studio One Arts Center, begun the year before at Bushrod Park. After years of deferred maintenance, during which Studio One classes, labs, galleries, and offices gradually took over the entire building, the facility closed in the spring of 2005 for a $12.5 million renovation and seismic upgrade funded by Measure DD, which was approved by Oakland voters in 2002. Studio One reopened in 2008.