Downtown Berkeley in the foreground, with San Francisco seen across the Bay.

Downtown Berkeley is the central district of the city of Berkeley, California, centered around the intersection of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street, and extending north to Hearst Avenue, south to Dwight Way, west to Martin Luther King Jr. Way, and east to Oxford Street. Downtown is the mass transit hub of Berkeley, with several AC Transit and UC Berkeley bus lines converging on the city's busiest BART station, as well as the location of Berkeley's civic center, high school, and Berkeley City College. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2032x1354, 461 KB) Summary Licensing File links The following pages link to this file: Downtown Berkeley, California Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create or digitize it. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2032x1354, 461 KB) Summary Licensing File links The following pages link to this file: Downtown Berkeley, California Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create or digitize it. ... Nickname: The City by the Bay; Fog City Location of the City and County of San Francisco, California Coordinates: Country United States of America State California City-County San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom Area    - City 122 km²  (47 sq mi)  - Land 121. ... Berkeley is a city on the east shore of San Francisco Bay in northern California, in the United States. ... AC Transit (in full, Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District) is a regional bus agency serving parts of Alameda County and Contra Costa County in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area. ... BART redirects here. ... Categories: Stub ... Berkeley High School is the only public high school in Berkeley, California. ... Berkeley City College, formerly Vista Community College, is a community college located in Berkeley, California. ...

History

The area was formerly a settlement site of the Huichin/Chochen band of the Ohlone indigenous people. Artifacts were found in the 1950s during the digging of a basement on Kittredge Street. The site was probably associated with the proximity of Strawberry Creek which ran along what is today's Allston Way. During the days when the land was part of the vast Rancho San Antonio, a ford existed across Strawberry Creek beneath a clump of oak trees at approximately the intersection of Shattuck Avenue and Allston Way. The road or trail which crossed here connected the ranch houses of two of the Peralta brothers, Domingo and Vicente. Map of the Costanoan languages The Ohlone (formerly Costanoan) are an ethnic group whose members lived in what is now the San Francisco Bay Area and Monterey Bay areas of California until after the European discovery and settling of this area. ... Strawberry Creek is the principal watercourse running through the City of Berkeley, California. ... Rancho San Antonio, also known as the Peralta Grant, was a 44,800-acre land grant by Governor Pablo Vicente de Solá, the last Spanish governor of California, to Don Luís María Peralta, a Spanish Army officer, in recognition of his forty years of service, on August 3...

Following the Mexican-American War, four Americans laid claim to four equal strips of land in what is now downtown Berkeley, among them, Francis K. Shattuck. Shattuck's portion lay west of what is now Shattuck Avenue. He built a house here at the site of what is today the Shattuck Hotel. The county road going to Oakland along his property was informally called "Shattuck's road", but the planners of the College of California dubbed the street "Guyot" on their plat map. That name never caught on and the street name was upgraded to "Shattuck Avenue". In the 1890s, Strawberry Creek was culverted through the downtown section, the oak trees were removed, and Shattuck and University Avenues were improved. Nonetheless, the area developed slowly until about the time of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, after which it developed rapidly. Combatants United States Mexico Commanders Zachary Taylor Winfield Scott Stephen W. Kearney Antonio López de Santa Anna Mariano Arista Pedro de Ampudia Strength 7,000 - 43,000 18,000 - 40,000 Casualties KIA: 1,733 Total dead: 13,283 Wounded: 4,152 25,000 killed or wounded (Mexican government... Francis Kittredge Shattuck was the most prominent civic leader in the early history of Berkeley, California, and played an important role in the creation and government of Alameda County as well. ... The College of California was the predecessor of the University of California. ... A culvert is a flowing body of water which passes underneath a road, railway, or embankment, or the part thereof that does so. ... Arnold Genthes famous photograph of San Francisco following the earthquake, looking toward the fire on Sacramento Street The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco and the coast of northern California at 5:12 A.M. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. ...

The Central Pacific constructed its Berkeley Branch Railroad line connecting the area to the Oakland Pier and the transcontinental rail line in 1876, two years before the people living near the University of California and in Ocean View incorporated Berkeley. The end of the line at University Avenue was initially called the "Terminus" until the line was extended north, after which time it was called "Berkeley Station". In the early years, downtown Berkeley was synonymous with "Berkeley Station", referring to the area around the railroad depot. The railroad served both passengers and freight at Berkeley Station. A telegraph office and Wells Fargo office were situated across the street from the depot. External link Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum Categories: Corporation stubs | Historical stubs | Defunct railroad companies of the United States | California railroads | Nevada railroads | Utah railroads | Historic civil engineering landmarks ... The Berkeley Branch Railroad was a 3. ... The Oakland Long Wharf was a massive railroad wharf and ferry pier (mole) in Oakland, California. ... A transcontinental railroad is a railway that crosses a continent, typically from sea to sea. Terminals are at or connected to different oceans. ... The University of California (UC) is a public university system in the state of California. ... Ocean View was the name of an unincorporated town which today is the western part of the city of [[Berkeley, California. ... A typical Wells Fargo branch, located in Berkeley, California Norwest redirects here. ...

The Key System opened up its electric train service to San Francisco from Downtown Berkeley in 1903. The Southern Pacific responded by electrifying and extending its lines in Berkeley in 1911 (East Bay Electric Lines) and moved its downtown freight operations just south of downtown to Ward Street and Shattuck. In 1941, however, SP ended its electric commuter train service. From then until April of 1958, downtown Berkeley's commuter train service was solely in the hands of the Key System. Buses replaced the trains from 1958 to the present. In 1973, BART opened its own Berkeley station at Center Street and Shattuck, once again providing electric train service to San Francisco and elsewhere in the Bay Area. The Key System (or Key Route) was a company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area from the 1900s until 1960 when the system was sold to a newly formed public... The East Bay Electric Lines was a division of the Southern Pacific Railroad which operated a system of electric interurban-type trains in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. ... Downtown Berkeley Station is a Bay Area Rapid Transit station located on Shattuck Avenue, between Allston Way and Center Street in downtown Berkeley, California. ...

Commercial issues

Addison Street, between Oxford Street and Shattuck Avenue, in 1994.

Berkeley's downtown section has always been the principal commercial center of Berkeley. However, it has had to compete with the secondary commercial sections which emerged starting as early as the 19th century. Three of these in the past were West Berkeley (Ocean View), North Berkeley (Berryman's) and the Telegraph area immediately south of the University of California campus. Others which came a bit later were the Elmwood area along College near Ashby, San Pablo Avenue, South Berkeley (formerly the Lorin District) and Thousand Oaks along Solano Avenue. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1182x680, 225 KB) View down Addison St. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1182x680, 225 KB) View down Addison St. ... West Berkeley is generally the area of Berkeley, California which lies west of San Pablo Avenue, abutting San Francisco Bay. ... On a normal day, street vendors line Telegraph Avenue near the UC Berkeley campus. ... California State Highway 123 or San Pablo Avenue runs along the flats of the East Bay in California, from Oakland to Crockett, through: Emeryville, Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito, Richmond, San Pablo, Pinole, Hercules, and Rodeo. ... South Berkeley is a neighborhood in the city of Berkeley, California. ... The Lorin district is located in the southern part of Berkeley, California. ... Solano Avenue is a two mile (3. ...

Starting in the 1970s it also had to compete with the emergence of major shopping centers and malls outside of Berkeley, especially El Cerrito Plaza, Hilltop Mall, and Emeryville. These resulted in the loss of several formerly prominent downtown businesses, including a large department store, Hink's, whose building was converted to a movie theater and several smaller stores. Contributing factors which continue to date are high commercial rents, a lack of parking, and higher consumer prices than those offered elsewhere. The latter has been a problem since the earliest days as there has always been a tendency to view the University population as a captive consumer base. The city has created an official arts district along Addison Street and passed laws restricting business hours in other neighborhoods in an attempt to increase night time activity downtown. El Cerrito Plaza is a shopping center in El Cerrito, California. ... This article needs to be wikified. ... The city of Emeryville highlighted within Alameda County Emeryville is a city located in Alameda County, California. ... Arts District may mean: Arts District of Dallas, Texas. ...

Today, Berkeley's downtown is highly eclectic, with numerous small businesses. Currently, Berkeley is contemplating a new downtown plan in conjunction with the announced plan of the University to build a hotel, conference center, and museum along Center Street.

Trivia

• For several years after the Key System's F train stopped running on Shattuck, its tracks (originally, the old SP tracks) remained in the pavement of Shattuck Avenue. Parking islands were created along the centerline of Shattuck overlapping the northbound tracks. In the early 1960s, a series of fountains were constructed which replaced some of these parking islands, extending from Center to Haste. The fountains quickly became the favorite targets of vandals who regularly put bubble bath in them. They were soon removed, just before Shattuck Avenue was torn up for the BART subway construction.

External links

• Downtown Berkeley Association
• Downtown Area Plan