Alta Bunker article 1947

Description:
Newspaper article about Mrs. Alta S. Bunker, head of programs, Recreation Department, City of Oakland, Calif. Bunker was with the department 1921-1936, and 1947-1957.

Date of Document:
1947

Document Author:
Unknown

Geographic Location:
465 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.