A half-acre park at the gateway to Oakland's Sobrante Park neighborhood reopens Saturday for the first time in 24 years, closing out a saga that began with a barbecue shooting and a six-foot fence back in 2002. Tyrone Carney Park, sitting at the intersection of 105th Avenue and Acalanes Drive in East Oakland, will host a free public celebration from 11 a.m. to noon, complete with a ribbon-cutting, live music, remarks from city leaders and the unveiling of a statue.
The park's return marks the end of one of East Oakland's longest-running public-space closures, according to The Oaklandside. Mayor Barbara Lee, Councilmember Ken Houston and community members including Deborah Carney are expected to attend Saturday's festivities, per the outlet's reporting. The roughly one-acre park was built on what had been an abandoned, weed-strewn lot where a department store had burned down, and it opened in 1968 under a name meant to honor a young man from the neighborhood.
Named for a 20-Year-Old Marine Who Never Came Home
Tyrone Carney was a 20-year-old Marine killed by grenade shrapnel during the Vietnam War. PFC Tyrone Edward Carney served as a rifleman in Hotel Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division, and died from explosive device wounds on June 9, 1968, in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, according to HonorStates. His name is listed on Panel 56W, Line 12 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and he was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland. Before deploying, Carney attended Castlemont High School and Merritt College, was a member of Community Reformed Church of Oakland, and had planned to become a minister, per the Oaklandside's account.
The park that carried his name featured a geodesic dome, basketball courts and a picnic area, but as East Oakland lost industries and unemployment climbed, young unemployed men began using the playground and courts to deal drugs, the outlet reports. Neighbors picketed the park in 1984, chanting “dope dealers must go” and “give us back our park,” and police surged the area for a month in 1992 trying to break up the drug trade. Former City Councilmember Larry Reid said people were afraid to live their lives, according to the Oaklandside's reporting.
A Shooting, a Fence, and 24 Years of Closure
The breaking point came in 2002, when four men were shot during a barbecue at the park; one of them, Jayway The'Son, was killed. City workers installed the six-foot-tall fence shortly after, and then-Police Chief Richard Word called it an unprecedented tactic to shut down drug sales in the area, according to SFGate's 2002 coverage, with Word noting the city lacked better tools to clear the gang presence. The park's basketball court had also borne a painted memorial for the local “11-5” drug gang, listing 38 members who died in local street violence, according to Wikipedia's entry on the neighborhood; the gang's name and the “11-5” tag referred to OPD's radio code for drug sales, per the Oaklandside.
Houston, who now represents District 7 on the Oakland City Council, was among those who pushed the city to shutter the park after stray bullets flew near his construction site, and he has said he helped close it and is now helping reopen it. Sobrante Park itself was built after World War II as an all-white suburb and became a predominantly Black community by the 1960s; the neighborhood, bounded by San Leandro Creek and rail tracks in Deep East Oakland, is now 53.5% Black and 38% Latino and includes 18 streets with Spanish names, per Wikipedia.
A $5 Million Overhaul, Years in the Making
City officials and community leaders broke ground on the park's reconstruction on September 27, 2025, kicking off a project that ultimately cost about $5 million. Oakland first obtained a $2.5 million state Natural Resources Agency grant in 2018, and the California Department of Parks and Recreation later awarded $2,469,155 from the Proposition 68 Statewide Park Program during the 2020–2021 grant cycle, according to California State Parks. Oakland voters' 2022 approval of Measure U, an $850 million infrastructure bond, contributed another $200,000 to the project, and the city also received $1 million from California's Transformative Climate Communities program.
The rebuilt park now has new play structures for children, along with shrubs, mulch, lights, walking paths, landscaping, community-created artwork and a memorial. The design followed community outreach sessions led by the East Oakland Neighborhoods Initiative, which partnered with Oakland's Public Works Department and drafted a roadmap for improving neighborhood infrastructure, including parks, in the late 2010s. The initiative, along with the Sobrante Park Resident Action Council, has backed the park's revitalization throughout the process, the Oaklandside notes.
Who Will Keep the Park Running
Going forward, the nonprofit Oakland Parks and Recreation Foundation will maintain Tyrone Carney Park, after the City Council's Community and Economic Development Committee advanced a lease agreement in June allowing the foundation to manage and operate the site, according to City Desk. Houston pushed for enhanced local community input in that arrangement, aiming to ensure the neighborhood stays engaged with the park rather than seeing it slip back into neglect. City spokesperson Monica Pelayo Lock said community partnerships are central to the park's revitalization.
Longtime Sobrante Park advocate Sylvia Brooks said, in a 2025 interview, that the community is excited and happy to see the park moving forward. City officials describe the goal simply: a safe and welcoming recreational space for residents in a neighborhood that spent more than two decades separated from its own park by a chain-link fence. Saturday's ceremony at 10501 Acalanes Drive is free and open to the public.
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