There are classes for adults as well as children (a special one-week Spring Arts Camp April 12 through 16 during spring break is a very popular program). In addition, the studio -- a nearly 100-year-old building that once served as an orphanage -- offers an expanded listing of fitness classes such as yoga and tai chi. The class session lasts eight weeks.

A grass-roots organization, "1,000 Friends of Studio One," maintains a Web site dedicated to increasing awareness of the facility, its history and its progress as it undergoes renovations with Measure DD funds approved by voters in 2002. The DD bond measure, which also calls for major improvements to Lake Merritt and Lakeside Park, has allocated $10 million for Studio One's overhaul, including earthquake retrofit and wheelchair access.

Members of the friends group sit on an advisory committee overseeing the renovations, which, if all goes according to plan, are estimated to be completed in 2006. Shah Kawasaki Architects have been selected to carry out the project. According to the friends group, public input during the design phase, will be solicited (a user survey is available on the Web site).

"Our group is also assisting with the preparation of a National Register of Historic Places application for Studio One," says Betsy Yost, an architect and a long-time arts center participant. "Our preliminary research has shown that nationally, Oakland's Parks and Recreation Department was in the forefront during the post World War II-era in providing affordable arts-related classes, taught by professional level arts instructors, to city residents."

Library History Room files reveal the concept of a city-run studio arts program first came about at North Oakland's Bushrod Park, starting in 1948. The classes proved to be so popular that the Bushrod space became too small. Community organizers raised funds to acquire the former orphanage building on 45th Street behind the Technical High School campus and then donated it to the city in 1949, files say.

The simple U-shaped, two-story structure with ground floor brick exterior and shingled upper level with pitched roof was originally part of a complex operated by a group known as the Ladies Relief Society. The members, many the wives and relations of wealthy Oakland bankers, capitalists and business leaders, formed their organization in response to the devastating Chicago fire of 1871. They knew a cold Midwestern winter would soon be setting in, the files say, and "scores of busy hands cut, basted, finished, folded and packed warm garments which, shipped in large boxes, found their way to the needy on the bleak shores of Lake Michigan."

Once mobilized, the ladies decided to look closer to home for their assistance efforts, turning their attention to East Bay indigent elderly women and orphaned children. The group eventually acquired property known as "the old Beckwith place" in the Temescal district, at the time several miles out in the country. The property was described as "beautiful land, comprising of fruitful fields, dimpled pastures and tasteful gardens situated halfway between Oakland and Berkeley; nearby flowed Temescal Creek."

In a large house, which came with the estate, a staff saw to the needs of 20 elderly women and a number of children. Relief Society members canvassed the city for donations (in this era predating public welfare assistance), going door-to-door for solicitations of 10 cents to a dollar to meet the $450 monthly operating costs. The group also hosted garden parties, concerts, dramatic renditions and "calico socials."

The current Studio One building was constructed in 1906, replacing an earlier orphanage dormitory damaged by a fast-moving fire that destroyed the upper floor and attic (fortunately all the residents got out safely, the files say).

Architectural and urban historian Marta Gutman, a visiting scholar at the California Studies Center at UC Berkeley, has studied the Relief Society's orphanage and several other social service institutions in Oakland's past. She will be one of the presenters at an Oakland Heritage Alliance program called "Women's Work: How Women's Clubs Helped Build Oakland," from 7 to 9 p.m. March 25 at St. Paul's School, in the historic Casa Romana auditorium (formerly a 1923 women's clubhouse) at 124 Montecito Avenue.

Reservations for the lecture and the walk are strongly encouraged. Call OHA at 763-9218 for additional information, or send an e-mail to## info@oaklandheritage.org.

For more information on the Friends of Studio One, visit www.friendsofstudioone.org, or contact Beth Maher at (510) 420-5852.

The phone number to call for class registration, or additional information, is (510) 597-5027. An art fair/open house at Studio One, will be held 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. March 27.

The Oakland Tribune: Cityside
Leanne McLaughlin, Managing Editor
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