Video: Martial Arts Master Bruce Lee's Oakland Roots

Many of you may not know this, but martial arts icon Bruce Lee spent some important years in Oakland before launching his movie career in LA. He lived in East Oakland's Maxwell Park and had a martial arts studio on Broadway in the north, right by Oakland Tech High School. It was here that Lee had an infamous showdown with the Bay Area's martial arts leader for the right to teach non-Asian students.

Check out this 2005 article in the Contra Costa Times about the search for information linking Bruce Lee to Oakland, and peep the video about his Bay Area showdown below that. Take it away guys!

Bruce Lee had a studio in Oakland
Posted in the Contra Costa Times
on Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Written by Erika Mailman


Picture the scene, a triumvirate of history-minded people: Betty Marvin, head of the Oakland Cultural Heritage Survey; Kathy Ferreira, former admin director of the Oakland Heritage Alliance; and me. We're eating Vietnamese food a stone's throw from City Hall and full of glee over Betty and Kathy's discovery. They've figured out where Bruce Lee's studio was. 

Flash back to a year ago: Ferreira was working at OHA's former site, the Camron-Stanford house on the edge of Lake Merritt. A French tourist stopped her on her way into the building, saying that he had come all the way from France to see Bruce Lee's studio. Ferreira launched into action, calling Jeff Hull since his group, Nonchalance, put out a poster depicting Lee. All that the two could put together was stories that Lee had taught out of someone's house in East Oakland, where there was no signage to mark the gung fu fighter's time there.

Ferreira called Marvin for help. Stumped, Marvin poked around city directories (much like today's phone books, only organized by address as well as name) but didn't get very far. The man returned to France without an answer and months passed.

Then, at the survey office where Marvin works, a colleague was doing research on Upper Broadway, looking at the permit history building by building on microfiche. "She says, 'Wow, Bruce Lee's martial arts studio! I wonder if it's THE Bruce Lee.' I vultured down on her and we printed it out," said Marvin.
That simple permit, filed by Lee and his friend James Yimm Lee to open a martial arts studio, provided a lot of answers.

For one thing, we now know where the studio was: 4157 Broadway, where the Toyota dealership near Dave's Coffee Shop now stands. Unfortunately, the martial arts studio was torn down, but at least we can pay homage to where it once was!

We also know that the permit was filed July 24, 1964. as a new business changing location from Seattle. And we learn that at the time of application, Bruce and James Lee lived together at 3039 Monticello Ave., which is in Maxwell Park. Bruce and Linda Lee moved in with James after his wife, Katherine, died in 1964, coming from Seattle to further train James -- who had visited Bruce there on a tip -- and open the studio.

The name of the studio is hard to read on the microfiche printout, but it looks like friends chose the name "Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute" as a "Chinese Self-Defense School." Unfortunately, the studio didn't do too well and had to close. Bruce Lee later moved to Hollywood, and the rest is history.
But as Ferreira and Marvin eloquently argue, Oakland should acknowledge his sojourn here.
"Bruce Lee's contribution to Oakland is something that's been completely overlooked," Ferreira said. "I mean, if you have some Gen-Xer from France traveling all the way here ... This is a huge issue that the visitors' bureau is just blowing."

Their possibly tongue-in-cheek suggestion? A statue of Bruce Lee on the Broadway median near where his studio stood."Who doesn't like Bruce Lee?" said Ferreira, who took judo in high school. "He's like a god, an international hero. I can't think of another Oaklander like that, with his bucking tradition and the norm."

The "bucking tradition" she refers to is that Bruce Lee got into trouble with the Asian martial arts community for sharing martial arts information with non-Asians. Ferreira heard that Bruce Lee was challenged to a duel with another fighter named Wong Jak Man in the basement of the home on Monticello. If he lost, he was to stop teaching -- but of course, he won.