Cypress Village, Oakland, California facts for kids

Cypress Village is a group of homes in West Oakland. It is located between 10th Street and 14th Street, near Kirkham Way. Cypress Village is one of three similar housing areas in West Oakland. The others are Campbell Village Court and the Acorn Projects.

Building Cypress Village

Cypress Village was built by the Oakland Housing Authority after World War II. At that time, many African-Americans moved to Oakland. Cypress Village was one of four housing areas built for African-American families.

The Cypress Freeway and Changes

From 1954 to 1957, the Cypress Freeway was built right in front of Cypress Village. The noise and pollution from the freeway caused many people to move away.

In 1989, a big earthquake called the Loma Prieta earthquake caused the freeway to collapse. The city of Oakland asked the State of California to rebuild the freeway away from the neighborhood. The area where the freeway used to be was cleaned up. Fifteen years later, a new road called Mandela Parkway was built there. It has a park in the middle.

Community and Music

Cypress Village is known as the home of rapper J Stalin. He is part of the Livewire record label.

Sometimes, there were disagreements between people from Cypress Village and nearby neighborhoods like Acorn and Lower Bottoms. To help reduce these tensions, rappers from Acorn and Cypress Village worked together. In 2003, they released a music album called Acorn & Cypress.

Since then, Livewire Records, founded by J Stalin, has signed many rappers from both Cypress Village and Acorn. This includes Acorn resident Shady Nate.