The civic square in front of Oakland City Hall, flanked by mature oak trees and open to Broadway. The plaza is named after a Japanese-American city council member who served for decades, and is surrounded by the architectural landmarks of downtown Oakland. It functions as the city's town square: farmers' markets on Fridays, protests after every national event, and concerts in summer.
The City Hall building behind it is worth a look — a Beaux Arts tower from 1914 with a distinctive clock tower that was heavily damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and later restored. The view down Broadway from the plaza gives a sense of what the city looked like at the height of its early 20th-century prosperity.