Acorn or Acorn Projects are a series of housing projects in the Acorn Redevelopment Project Area or the Acorn neighborhood of

West Oakland West Oakland is a neighborhood situated in the northwestern corner of Oakland, California, United States, situated west of Downtown Oakland, south of Emeryville, and north of Alameda. The neighborhood is located along the waterfront at the Po ...

. Acorn, also known as "The Corns" or the "Cornfields", neighbors a wide variety of public housing. It is bordered by the high rise City Towers Apartments and low rise Mohr Apartments to the South, Cypress Village to the West, Market Street to the east and 10th Street to the north. Originally consisting of three housing units, Acorn 1, Acorn 2 and Acorn 3, The City of Oakland Housing Authority renovated the entire Acorn housing complex during the late 1990s in efforts to combat crime. Acorn 2 and Acorn 3 were renamed "Town Center Apartments at Acorn" and "Courtyard Apartments at Acorn". Meanwhile, Acorn 1 was completely demolished and small community of two-story single-family houses between Filbert and Market Streets were built in its place. Adjacent to Acorn, there are three high-rise buildings known as the City Towers (formally named Apollo Housing) that resemble the high-rises of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Technically, City Towers (or "The Highrises" as they are known to locals) are a separate community of housing projects however, during the renovation of Acorn in the 1990s, many of the original residents of Acorn were relocated to City Towers. As a result, City Towers are often mistaken as being part of the same public housing units as Acorn. Acorn is home to the Acorn street gang. Due to close proximity, skirmishes between Acorn and neighboring Cypress Village as well as

Lower Bottoms Prescott (also known as The Lower Bottoms or The Bottoms) is a residential neighborhood and commercial district in West Oakland in Oakland, California. The neighborhood boundaries are Mandela Parkway to the east, 7th Street to the south, West Gran ...

occur frequently. In order to reduce the violence between the two housing projects, in 2003 local rappers from both Acorn and Cypress released an underground mixtape titled ''Acorn & Cypress'' inspired by other unity rap albums like the

Bloods The Bloods are a primarily African-American street gang founded in Los Angeles, California. The gang is widely known for its rivalry with the Crips. It is identified by the red color worn by its members and by particular gang symbols, includin ...

and

Crips The Crips is an alliance of street gangs that is based in the coastal regions of Southern California. Founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1969, mainly by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams, the Crips were initially a single alliance ...

Bangin' on Wax ''Bangin' on Wax'' is the debut album by American hip hop group Bloods & Crips. The album was released in 1993 by Dangerous Records. ''Bangin' on Wax'' peaked at No. 86 on the ''Billboard'' 200 albums chart. Bangin' on Wax at Billboard.Billboar ...

'' releases. Since then, West Oakland based rap label Livewire Records founded by

J Stalin Jovan Smith (born January 25, 1983), better known by his stage name J. Stalin (also stylized as J Stalin or J-Stalin), is a rapper from the Cypress Village housing projects in West Oakland. In 2007, he signed to Zoo Entertainment Production C ...

(who originates from Cypress Village) has signed numerous rappers from both housing units, including Acorn native

Shady Nate Shady Nate, is an American rapper from Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Ba ...

. In 2014, the housing project was featured in season 5, episode 2 of the

National Geographic Channel National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television television network, network and flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel owned by the National Geograp ...

television show

Drugs, Inc. ''Drugs, Inc.'' is an American documentary style television series on the National Geographic Channel that explores global narcotics production and trafficking. The series features drug dealers, recreational users, and addicts, as well as profes ...

A segment of the episode titled "Cokeland", was filmed in and around the Acorn and City Towers housing complexes.

References

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