Features

“The people want public parks where we can all go, and be free.” One hundred years ago in late April, 1908, that was the sentiment at a meeting where voters gathered to urge the passage of bonds to purchase undeveloped land for public park use in north Berkeley. 

Berkeley dates the origins of its public park system to that same era, when another property—what is now San Pablo Park, in southwest Berkeley—came into public ownership as a result of a real estate subdivision in that area. 

This Saturday, May 3, almost exactly 100 years later, Berkeley citizens are invited to gather again to look to the future of local public parks, as well as celebrate the achievements of the past century.  

The occasion is a free public event in Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Park downtown. 

The program grew out of the work of two UC landscape architecture faculty members, Louise Mozingo and Marsha McNally who collaborated with one of their graduate students, Sadie Mitchell, on a study of the evolution of Berkeley’s park system. 

Last fall they put together an exhibit and event, “The Legacy of Berkeley Parks: A Century of Planning and Making” at the Berkeley Art Center (described in the Nov. 27, 2007 issue of the Planet). 

The exhibit boards are now on display downtown in the Addison Street Windows on Addison Street, across from the Berkeley Repertory Theater. 

Saturday’s “Day in the Park” event is sort of an outdoor town hall, built around a sequence of brief public comments by more than two dozen individuals involved with Berkeley parks. It looks to the future more than the past. 

“The format will be reminiscent of the Free Speech Movement—for 10 minutes each speaker will have a soapbox and a mike,” the organizers say. Members of the public are encouraged to bring a picnic—or get a snack at the adjacent Berkeley Farmers’ Market—and take in all or part of the program. 

Each speaker has been invited to talk in their own way about Berkeley’s parks, particularly “the next big steps.” 

“We believe it is time to look for the next vision,” say organizers Mozingo, McNally, Mitchell and Hayley Diamond, another landscape architecture graduate student working on the program. 

“We have a lot on our minds as Berkeleyans—public health, pedestrian planning, the quest for a food policy, global warming. Why not envision these things connected, perhaps picking up additional agendas of path wandering, food production, carbon sequestration, habitat restoration, downtown design?” 

Invitees range from past City park department heads including Frank Haeg and Lisa Caronna, to former elected officials including Shirley Dean and Fred Collignon, UC faculty, and private and public sector landscape architects. Some have been working on local parks issues for four decades. 

Also speaking are several individuals who have been leaders in community groups creating, maintaining, and/or popularizing Berkeley parks and open space, including creek advocates Carole Schemmerling and Susan Schwartz, community garden organizer Beebo Thurman, and Aquatic Park angel Mark Liolios. 

The event also features bluegrass music at mid-day. There’s a competition, with cash prizes, in which participants are invited to “paint a park on a Chinese takeout box.” Judging of the impromptu illustrations will be at 3:30 p.m. 

It will all take place next to the always lively and busy Berkeley Farmers Market on Center Street, between the park and the Veteran’s Memorial Building. 

Introductions and speakers start at 10 a.m., pause at noon for lunch, and resume at 1 p.m. The scheduled speakers finish at 3 p.m. 

There’s an “open mic” period from 3:00—3:30 when participants not on the formal agenda can have their turn, and the event closes at 4 p.m. 

If you can’t attend the event you can still drop by the exhibit, which is viewable from the sidewalk in front of 2018 Addison St. through May 17, then moves to the Central Berkeley Public Library for display, starting May 27.  

Organizing Berkeley’s park history into distinctive eras, the exhibit includes maps showing the evolution of the park system. 

A whimsical adjunct to the formal exhibit is a display of “parks in a bottle” created by students in Landscape Architecture 136, taught by Chip Sullivan.  

“Response has been wildly enthusiastic and positive” to both the exhibit and the program Saturday, McNally says. “We hope to create a summary of the ideas proposed on May 3 and send it to the Parks and Recreation Department as well as the City Manager’s office.” 

Although the event organizers are soliciting broad and eclectic ideas, they also have their own thoughts about Berkeley parks, crystallizing out of their study of local park history. 

Berkeley should think in terms of “connecting the parks—think of the whole city as a park—make the streets become part of the system,” McNally says. Mitchell also wrote her masters thesis on this concept—“street-as-connecting-park.” 

“In a region comparison, Berkeley does well—it has done some really innovative things (such as) Strawberry Creek Park, landscape roundabouts, emphasis on pathways, greenways, connections,” Mozingo says. 

Importantly, and as our research makes clear, the citizen and political leadership in Berkeley has never rested on its laurels but is always looking for the next improvements. We hope our event could spur some of that thinking.” 

Mozingo points to Seattle, Portland, and Chicago as “other American cities we can learn from.” Seattle has a strong emphasis on planning for urban agriculture and food security, and “some pretty darn good parks.”  

“Portland is committed to making every bit of open space operate as part of storm water remediation,” and “Chicago has a venerable tradition of neighborhood parks and is one of the few cities that still has a very robust system of recreation leaders.” 

And what of our local tradition, and those proposed park bonds a century ago?  

Bond supporters made a passionate pitch, presciently predicting a population boom in the East Bay and ever increasing needs for open space. 

“We even of this generation will live to see … a solid habitation along the bay shore north to Carquinez straits,” said P.W. Rochester, of the Chamber of Commerce, at an election eve rally for the bonds. 

“We must have breathing spaces interspersed in this solid mass of habitations to meet the exigencies of 20, 30, 40 or 100 years from now. It should be our pleasure and glory to provide for those who follow.” 

The bonds won a majority, but failed to capture the necessary two-thirds approval of Berkeley voters.  

The area that would have been purchased—the so called “Indian Burial Grounds” in north Berkeley—was largely privatized as the Thousand Oaks residential subdivision. Park advocates were discouraged. 

But, as the exhibit shows, their spirit survived and thrives today, a century later. 

Steven Finacom is a local writer and historian, and will be one of the speakers at the Saturday program. 

Berkeley Parks  

Centennial Events 

Saturday, May 3: “A Day in the Park” event. 

Speakers program and other activities, Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Park (MLK Jr. Way and Center Street, downtown Berkeley), 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Free. 

“The Legacy of Berkeley Parks”, exhibit through May 17 in the Addison Street Windows, south side of Addison Street between Milvia Street and Shattuck Avenue. Re-opening May 27, Central Berkeley Public Library. 

Saturday, May 31: Talk on the history and legacy of Berkeley parks, by Professor Louise Mozingo, paired with a talk by historian Gray Brechin on the Works Progress Administration legacy in Berkeley. Central Berkeley Public Library, Kittredge west of Shattuck, 2 p.m. Free.