The event that touched off Oakland’s reappraisal of itself and its fortunes was a natural calamity. On October 17, 1989, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake crumpled the Bay Area. In Oakland, 42 people died when a 1,200-meter (3,900-foot) elevated section of Interstate 880 in West Oakland, the Cypress Freeway, collapsed. Across the city’s central core, signature […]