The sky begins to brighten behind the clouds, and as I stand here waiting for the bus I wonder what was here before the freeway cut my neighborhood in half. My apartment is on one side, with a nice view of 580...the bus stop is on the other side, on another one-way street going the other direction, with a cruddy view of the wall that hides whatever's underneath 580. Are old Oakland houses still there in some form? Would I even be here if it weren't for 580 cutting cleanly through?

The bus runs up Broadway, meandering towards the Macarthur BART station, and slowly, as it has done for hundreds of years, Oakland awakens.