Oakland Auditorium
History
Opened April 30, 1915, the Oakland Auditorium (originally the Oakland Civic Auditorium) is a Beaux-Arts civic landmark built 1913–1915 on the shore of Lake Merritt at 10 Tenth Street. Supervising architect John J. Donovan and consulting architect Henry F. Hornbostel designed a monumental multi-purpose hall whose arena seats roughly 5,500; the complex also holds a theater and a ballroom. For decades it was the East Bay's principal big-room venue for conventions, sporting events, and concerts — a civic arena on a different scale from San Francisco's smaller ballrooms. In the 1960s it absorbed touring and psychedelic-era rock shows and became one of the Grateful Dead's home venues. After a 1984 renovation it was renamed the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center; in 2023, following a long closure and adaptive-reuse project, it was renamed the Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts.
Its Place in the Scene
For this archive, the Oakland Auditorium is the East Bay's big-room counterpart to San Francisco's intimate ballrooms — the arena-scale civic hall the SF-centric histories tend to skip. Promoter Bill Quarry staged his "Teens 'N Twenties" shows here, including the June 28, 1967 bill where the Grateful Dead filled in for the departed Sparrow under headliners the Young Rascals, with Country Joe and the Fish — the Dead's first appearance at the room. The hall became one of the band's signature venues: the Grateful Dead played it roughly fifty-seven times between 1967 and 1989.