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Last year I passed a benchmark: I'd lived in Berkeley for half of my life, since moving here in August 1989. Already, however, Berkeley had long been my home, the place I'd lived the longest--after living in St. Louis, Hoffman Estates, and Milpitas through my yougnest years and San Jose during the last 9 years of my adolescence.
I guess that just goes to show that my parents moved around while they were young adults, and I did not.
In any case, I've decided to write an occasional posting here to show those of you not from Berkeley what my home town looks like. Just keep an eye on the "tour of berkeley" tag (below) and you should see the posts.
Any tour of Berkeley must begin with the University of California at Berkeley. The city, you see, was just the northern part of the "Oakland Township" when work on the UC Berkeley campus began in 1868. Classes began at UC Berkeley in 1873, and it wasn't until five years later that the city itself was incorporated. Even today, when the city fills all the space from the campus down to the Bay, the University is its strong and vibrant center.
And, any tour of UC Berkeley must begin with one of its two best-known icons, the Sather Gate:
Sather Gate appears on any number of postcards of the city of Berkeley. For me it's iconic because of the Free Speech Movement, and pictures I've seen that show students marching for their rights through the gate*.
I also love the fact that its mere existence shows off the history of the city and the university.
Sather Gate, you see, is located on the south side of campus, whereas the most frequent entrance to campus is probably the west, the direction that points toward BART, highway 880, and the Bay. Further, Sather Gate is not actually located at the edge of campus, but rather several hundred yards in, past Sproul Plaza.
So why is there such an iconic entrance gate not at the main entrance to campus and not even at an entrance at all?
The first part of the answer comes from what I said earlier: Berkeley was originally the northern part of the Oakland Township. People got into Berkeley by taking a trolley north from Oakland, up Telegraph Avenue, a one-and-quarter hour trip when it was still horse-drawn. Thus, the south-facing Sather Gate was an obvious main entrance to the campus at the time, before the highway and a Union Pacific line appeared to the west.
(Now you can still make out the circle where the trolleys used to turn around, just outside the gate.)
The second part of the answer comes from the fact that the university has continually grown. When ground was broken in 1868, the campus consisted of 160 acres which lay between the two branches of Strawberry Creek. The southernmost of those branches runs right under the bridge on the far side of Sather Gate. Thus, it was the real entrance to the campus at the time that the Gate was completed (in 1910). At that time what is now Sproul Plaza was streets and buildings: the edge of the city of Berkeley. Today the University is 6651 acres. A lot of that growth was expansion into the hills, but the campus also grabbed an extra city block or so to the south, which is the area from Sather Gate to Bancroft Avenue.
So that's Sather Gate, the iconic entrance to the University of California at Berkeley, and thus one of the most iconic landmarks of the city itself.
* One of the things that I find interesting about the Free Speech picture is the fact that the four pillars that hold the gate each have big blank panels on them. They should have bas relief figures, as you can barely see in my own photograph. It's of the opposite side of the Gate, but there are four panels on each side. So, what happened?
These panels show classical nudes and they were taken down in the 1910s because of public protest. Fortunately they were saved and rediscovered almost seventy years later and reinstalled. But at the time of the Free Speech Movement it appears that they were still ... censored.
I guess that just goes to show that my parents moved around while they were young adults, and I did not.
In any case, I've decided to write an occasional posting here to show those of you not from Berkeley what my home town looks like. Just keep an eye on the "tour of berkeley" tag (below) and you should see the posts.
Any tour of Berkeley must begin with the University of California at Berkeley. The city, you see, was just the northern part of the "Oakland Township" when work on the UC Berkeley campus began in 1868. Classes began at UC Berkeley in 1873, and it wasn't until five years later that the city itself was incorporated. Even today, when the city fills all the space from the campus down to the Bay, the University is its strong and vibrant center.
And, any tour of UC Berkeley must begin with one of its two best-known icons, the Sather Gate:
Sather Gate appears on any number of postcards of the city of Berkeley. For me it's iconic because of the Free Speech Movement, and pictures I've seen that show students marching for their rights through the gate*.
I also love the fact that its mere existence shows off the history of the city and the university.
Sather Gate, you see, is located on the south side of campus, whereas the most frequent entrance to campus is probably the west, the direction that points toward BART, highway 880, and the Bay. Further, Sather Gate is not actually located at the edge of campus, but rather several hundred yards in, past Sproul Plaza.
So why is there such an iconic entrance gate not at the main entrance to campus and not even at an entrance at all?
The first part of the answer comes from what I said earlier: Berkeley was originally the northern part of the Oakland Township. People got into Berkeley by taking a trolley north from Oakland, up Telegraph Avenue, a one-and-quarter hour trip when it was still horse-drawn. Thus, the south-facing Sather Gate was an obvious main entrance to the campus at the time, before the highway and a Union Pacific line appeared to the west.
(Now you can still make out the circle where the trolleys used to turn around, just outside the gate.)
The second part of the answer comes from the fact that the university has continually grown. When ground was broken in 1868, the campus consisted of 160 acres which lay between the two branches of Strawberry Creek. The southernmost of those branches runs right under the bridge on the far side of Sather Gate. Thus, it was the real entrance to the campus at the time that the Gate was completed (in 1910). At that time what is now Sproul Plaza was streets and buildings: the edge of the city of Berkeley. Today the University is 6651 acres. A lot of that growth was expansion into the hills, but the campus also grabbed an extra city block or so to the south, which is the area from Sather Gate to Bancroft Avenue.
So that's Sather Gate, the iconic entrance to the University of California at Berkeley, and thus one of the most iconic landmarks of the city itself.
* One of the things that I find interesting about the Free Speech picture is the fact that the four pillars that hold the gate each have big blank panels on them. They should have bas relief figures, as you can barely see in my own photograph. It's of the opposite side of the Gate, but there are four panels on each side. So, what happened?
These panels show classical nudes and they were taken down in the 1910s because of public protest. Fortunately they were saved and rediscovered almost seventy years later and reinstalled. But at the time of the Free Speech Movement it appears that they were still ... censored.