CRP Bay Area Archives - Community Rejuvenation Project

CRP Announces Alice St. Mural Project Block Party June 6

June 2, 2015

Nearly two years in the making, the Community Rejuvenation Project (CRP)’s Alice St. Mural recently completed Phase II of its production. The massive wall prominently features figures of cultural importance in the history of the Alice Arts Center/Malonga Center for the Arts, as well as Filipino dancers and onetime Oakland Chinatown resident and kung-fu icon Bruce Lee (representing the Hotel Oakland’s Chinese-language constituency).This fourth and final wall finishes the transformation of a blighted parking lot littered with graffiti tags and…

CRP Begins New Mural Project, Announces Community Painting Day

November 7, 2014

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CRP Blog & Updates, Events

Fall is here and with it comes another exciting new mural by the talented artists of CRP, Desi Mundo and Pancho Peskador. The two recently began work on painting the union hall of Local 20, the Engineers and Scientists of California (IFPTE, AFL-CIO & CLC), located at the intersection of 8th and Clay Sts. in Old Oakland. The mural is a partnership between CRP, Local 20, and Youth Spirit Artworks, an interfaith “green” art jobs and job training program which…

Alice Street Mural Project A Big Hit With Local Media Outlets

August 21, 2014

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CRP Blog & Updates, Press Clippings

Recently, CRP pulled off a pretty cool feat: within the course of ten days, the Alice Street Mural Project received media hits from the Mercury News , Oakland Tribune, KQED, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan’s newsletter, Oakland Tribune (again), and the Contra Costa Times. That’s easily the most attention from local media CRP has ever gotten for any of the 150 mural projects the organization has done in the past four years. Even more impressive was what the media had to…

Alice St. Mural Project Phase I Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony Highlights

August 14, 2014

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CRP Blog & Updates, Events

On Friday, August 8, 2014, CRP announced the completion of Phase I of the Alice St. Mural Project with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, held in the parking lot at Alice and 14th St., in front of two sections of the mural wall. The event, which was noted by the Oakland Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News, and KQED, was an overwhelming success, with over 120 attendees, including approximately 75 residents of the Hotel Oakland, along with neighborhood residents and artists-in-residence at…

Alice Street Mural Project Report-Back

July 17, 2014

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CRP Blog & Updates

After a little more than a week of painting the wall at 14th and Alice, CRP is pleased to report the wall is nearing completion. This project has been a real eye-opener; the level of interaction we’ve had with the community has been unprecedented. It’s not an exaggeration to say the mural has started to become a magnet for community-building, even before it’s completed. The project started with covering the entire wall—covered with unsightly and highly unartistic graffiti tags–with…

CRP’s Desi Mundo Returns to Chicago for Two-Week Residency at Hyde Park Art Center

June 2, 2014

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CRP Blog & Updates

It’s been said you can’t go back home again. For Community Rejuvenation Project founder and Executive Director Desi Mundo, however, that wasn’t exactly the case. After 14 years of living in Oakland, where he founded CRP — which has become the city’s most prolific producers of public murals — Mundo returned to Chicago, the city he first learned the aerosol arts in, for a two-week residency at Hyde Park Art Center, which happened to be celebrating its 75th anniversary. In…

CRP x StopWaste.org x Melrose Leadership Academy mural raises awareness about composting

April 28, 2014

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CRP Blog & Updates

Did you know composting food waste is one of the easiest and most effective ways of recycling? According to Stopwaste.org, food scraps and food-soiled paper – paper plates, pizza boxes, and paper napkins – comprise the largest portion of the waste stream. Such scraps represent 35% of all waste in Alameda County. While removing harmful toxic waste and hazardous household waste is more complicated and may require safety precautions, recycling food scraps by sending them to a composting facility allows…

The Zero Graffiti International Conference: At Odds with Long Term Solutions?

January 25, 2013

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CRP Blog & Updates, Op-Eds

The First Annual Zero Graffiti International Conference was held in San Francisco last week. Hundreds of police officers, public works officials, “graffiti” consultants, and industry reps from 52 cities gathered as the industry that has grown up around abatement announced that it had made $17 billion in profit in the United State alone. Despite the massive expenditure, no study has been undertaken to measure the effectiveness of simple abatement on vandalism recidivism. San Francisco alone spends $20 – 30 million…

Bratton, Broken Windows and the Anti-Graffiti Ordinance

January 24, 2013

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CRP Blog & Updates, Op-Eds

What’s perhaps most problematic about both Oakland’s hiring of Bill Bratton and its anti-graffiti ordinance is that they represent a shift in city politics toward tough-on-crime rhetoric as opposed to identifying and pursuing holistic solutions, which could have more beneficial long-term impact.

Oakland Community Art Coalition Scores Major Victory Against “Comprehensive Anti-Graffiti Ordinance”

December 19, 2012

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CRP Blog & Updates

What’s in a name? For the Oakland Community Art Coalition, everything. After issuing recommendations to Councilpersons Nancy Nadel and Libby Schaaf and speaking before the Public Works Committee on two occasions, advocating in favor of modifications to a proposed “Comprehensive Anti-Graffiti Ordinance,” the committee recommended adoption of several of the Coalition’s suggestions following a December 12 hearing. The recommendations included removing the word “graffiti” from the ordinance – a major point of contention for the Coalition, who argued that the…