East Bay Yesterday

Emeryville is a tiny town – less than 2 square miles. It’s nestled between Oakland and Berkeley, right at the foot of the Bay Bridge, and most people probably think of it as a place to go shopping. Two major freeways cut through Eville and from your car, while you’re inevitably sitting in traffic, you can see giant signs for Ikea, Target, and Bay Street mall. If you’re not from the Bay Area, you might know it as the home of Pixar. This era of Emeryville as a mecca of cartoons and commerce is relatively new. A generation ago, the landscape looked drastically different. Media often described it as an “industrial wasteland” due to the toxic pollution left behind by factories that fled in the 1970s and 80s. It was also known as a place where corruption festered during the reign of an allegedly corrupt police chief who “ruled the town with an iron fist,” according to former city manager Joe Tanner. Flash forward to 2024 and Emeryville’s brand new mayor Courtney Welch, the first Black woman to hold that positio