Dogtown - Oakland - LocalWiki

photo by mk30

Dogtown is an informal neighborhood in West Oakland. Both the boundaries and the source of the name are in dispute. It is mostly within the Clawson neighborhood.

Name

Most sources say that the name came from the dogs that guarded the many junkyards in the neighborhood, even suggesting that there were more dogs than people, although many of these sources also mention the story reflected in the Wikipedia entry for the neighborhood, which states that "Oakland Police officers coined the phrase due to a large population of stray dogs dating from the early 1980s" (no source is given for that information).

Oakland native Donnell Stevens gives another source for the name, stating that the name "Dogtown" first started to be used to describe this neighborhood in the late 1960s. Apparently he and other young men who often played basketball in the neighborhood would know when it was dinner time when the dogs started to take over the streets. Everyone put their dog out during dinner so that they wouldn't beg and as a result, around dinner time, it became "dogtown time." Eventually the name was just shortened to Dogtown.

Boundaries

Dogtown map from SF ChronicleThe boundaries are also in dispute. Some say the neighborhood is bounded by 34th, Hollis and 32nd Streets and Mandela Parkway, while other sources agree give different bounds.

An article from 1993 in the Oakland Tribune shows a map that is vague, indicating roughly between Peralta Street and San Pablo Avenue, and above West Grand Avenue. ¹
An Oakland Planning Commission Report from 2002 gives the smallest bounds as described above, between Mandela and Hollis, from 32nd Street up to 34th Street.
A 2004 Tribune article shows a map with the bounds as Mandela to Peralta, from 28th Street up to to the MacArthur Freeway.
A 2013 San Francisco Chronicle article shows slightly wider bounds, going as far east as Adeline.

Also of interest is that the 1993 article is labeled as part of a series called "The Talk of North Oakland." Before the freeways, some considered the area as part of North Oakland. These days with the freeways well established, many people consider West Oakland the area enclosed by the freeways.