Viewing Oakland as art: the secret poetry of broken bottles

In my more grossly sentimental moments, I sometimes think the only thing Oakland needs is a… In my more grossly sentimental moments, I sometimes think the only thing Oakland needs is a poet capable of recording its personality. On certain autumn or late spring evenings, the town seems idyllic. The sun rises and sets in the Cathedral’s windows, highlighting a sky that is bluer for all its grayness.

Frisbees and footballs arc over the lawn, and the air is spiced with cigarette smoke as cars begin to switch on their headlights. The restaurants and pubs are bustling with life, inviting sidewalk traffic to come in and relax for a bit. These transition months blossom in the cracks between sweltering summer and frozen winter, and I often consider them while walking to class in February, with everyone heavily wrapped in overcoats and seasonal depression.

True, Oakland isn’t exactly a postcard community. Its warm evenings and active nights are religiously followed by ghost-town mornings, broken-bottle sidewalks, streets dotted here with vomit, there with blood and all over with a kind of spiritual dust.

If I could reconcile the nights with the mornings and so purify it all, I would. But as it is, I must also appreciate these blocks for their raw humanness and for the potential they host.

Oakland is home to thousands of people who believe college is about sowing wild oats; living today because the business world will effectively kill you tomorrow. It’s a depressing idea, one that might be countered if more of us would develop a greater sense of nobility in our own lives.

Walk any street in any town and you walk with history, alongside the ghosts of those who walked it before you. Oakland must have millions of them – frat boys and sorority girls, leaders and followers, alcoholics and addicts, athletes, geniuses, dropouts, and normal kids. All of whom donated a portion of their lives to these streets and then moved on to be replaced by us, and so we will also be replaced. Much of Oakland’s charm is invisible and historic, but still as evident as the uneven sidewalks, barred windows and disheveled sofas.

Many streets are lined with houses that might truly be haunted. Student lifestyles and expectations are generally relaxed enough to make slum-lording the sweetest gig in town.

But if the houses aren’t all polished like certain other areas, they are richer in character. There’s something wholly honest about a house with broken shutters and shag carpet, a coziness that says “I am what I am.” In my house, we break things from time to time, and it’s no big deal. Not breaking anything means you’re not doing anything, and then missing out on cracks and splits and scars, which have a value all their own.

On certain sunny afternoons, I’ll spend hours on Craig Street browsing the bookstores, sometimes eating at the Thai Place Cafe or watching CMU students discuss robotics in hushed and hurried tones. Sometimes after intramural games, I’ll retire to Denny’s with the team to discuss strategy over a pitcher and the jukebox. There are concerts, sporting events, and two unique local businesses for every chain that comes through.

Oakland is itself artistic – all of Pitt’s yellowish, grayish, tannish buildings remain stained with steel-era soot. At certain points in the evening, the view over Panther Hollow is inspiring. Each street is webbed with tangled power lines and framed with porches. The grass in front of Soldiers’ and Sailors’ is as lush as it is forbidden. Every third parked car is adorned with a boot. It’s a work constantly in progress, with changing landscapes, architecture and inhabitants. Old bricks, rusted rails, broken glass, winding ivy vines and forgotten legacies define just about any residential street you can think of, yet each is somehow singular.

If Oakland does not get better with age, it does get more interesting, like a bottle of wine shattered and tossed haphazardly on the sidewalk. Ours is a town with complexities that often go unconsidered – they are rusted complexities, but not any less endearing for their rust.

E-mail Eric Miller at save101@hotmail.com.