Woman Beaten to Death on Emeryville's Mean Streets

Emeryville resident Hayok Kay was beaten to death by an unknown assailant where she slept over the last couple of years; on the sidewalk on San Pablo Avenue in front of the CVS Pharmacy police said.  Police are looking for the suspect in the horrific killing, Emeryville's first since 2012.
The beating took place early in the morning on July 6th and by the time Emeryville police arrived at the scene, Ms Kay was unconscious.  She was taken to Highland Hospital in Oakland where she later lapsed into a coma from extensive brain injuries due to the attack and was pronounced dead on August 18th after doctors removed her from life support.

Hayok Kay 1954-2015
Murdered in Emeryville

A native of Seoul South Korea but a longtime Emeryville resident and fixture, Hayok Kay, 61, lived for many years without a home and at the margins in town.  She performed as a drummer the '80's post punk band Polkacide and in several Bay Area all girl punk bands many years ago but more recently made her living by recycling in Emeryville and West Oakland.  Ms Kay's gender and her small stature, unusual for people living with homelessness on the streets, made her well known by the clannish local recycler population, many of whom felt protective of her.  After her partner, the landscape painter Fred Griffing died some years ago, she lost the shelter of the car she shared with him and was flung to the streets.
 
Hayok, known affectionately as 'Miss Kay' by her many friends was the subject of a recent film, Dogtown Redemption, on the lives of people living with homelessness in West Oakland and Emeryville.  Sadly, film director and producer Amir Soltani was prescient in 2013 when, upon the release of his film, he predicted Ms Kay would not last long on the streets, "A diminutive and much diminished Asian-American woman, Miss Kay is easy prey.  Amongst the recyclers, her chances of survival are by far the worst."

The City of Emeryville has no policy or programs or shelter for people experiencing homelessness and they usually get pushed around town by police responding to complaints.  The exposed sidewalks around CVS Pharmacy where Ms Kay was beaten to death is a place where encampments are common for people now after the City fenced off the nearby former bike/pedestrian path known as the Pixar Bike Path, a place people without shelter found attractive because of its relative off the street safety.   Emeryville police refused to comment further on the case still under investigation by the Alameda County District Attorney.

Pixar's "Bike Path To Nowhere" Opens

'Bike Path To Nowhere' Dubbed 

'Joseph Emery Park'

Seven months behind schedule, Pixar finally reveals the bike path formally known as the 'bike path to nowhere', now called Joseph Emery Park.  The paean to bad city planning and abject politics opened Wednesday without fanfare.  The path, or park, won the enmity of Emeryville's Bike / Pedestrian Committee last year when the city joined with Pixar and broke off negotiations with the unanimous committee over the contentious $700,000 corridor.
Below is a partial re-print from a December 10, 2010 Tattler story on the circuitous history that resulted in a bike/pedestrian committee voting against a bike/pedestrian path:
  

The strange story of the "bike path to nowhere" begins in the 1990's with a planned path extending north from City Hall along the trace of an old rail road spur a half block east and parallel to Hollis Street.  Starting at 45th Street and heading north, the old rail line has been turned into an alley known as Spur Alley.  Spur Alley was intended as a bike path but it has been instead turned over to cars in subsequent years because the city hasn't mustered the political will and because it never required the section heading south to City Hall at Haven Street to be built when Pixar took over the vacant land in 2000.  Instead, the city permitted Pixar to jog the incipient path over to the east two blocks to Watts Street owing to Pixar's need for secrecy.  This change happened just after the Bike Plan was first completed and was changed by a vote of the council.Then Pixar wanted to take possession of Watts Street and they were given the street by the city, so again the city permitted Pixar to jog the path east, this time to Emery Street.  This required another Bike Plan change.  Then Pixar planned a campus expansion so the city gave them Emery Street and granted Pixar permission to jog the path over to the east one last time to it's final resting place behind the I-Hop.  This last change also required a change to the Bike Plan.

Got all that?

The Pixar main gate is aligned with

 what used to be Watts Street

By the time of the last change when Pixar took possession of Emery Street, the Bike/Pedestrian Committee had enough of jogging this path to the east.  Committee members expressed dismay that the path was now so far shifted to the east that the original path was rendered useless for biking or walking.  The committee subsequently voted unanimously to let Pixar off the hook for building the path but asked that they give a cash payment to the city for the amount of money the path would have cost them to build.  The committee instructed the city to use the money to upgrade biking and pedestrian facilities throughout the city on a "as needed" basis.

Strangely, Pixar would have none of that and announced it planned to build the bike/ped path anyway, the committee be damned.  The city council ceded to Pixar's desire and the path, by now unofficially dubbed the "Bike Path To Nowhere" after the famous bridge in Alaska, is nearly completed.

The path may be seen here: Pixar Study