Northbrae is a neighborhood in Berkeley, California built as part of the early 20th century northern expansion of Berkeley. The name broadly refers to the communities north of Berryman Street, south of Solano Avenue, east of Spruce and west of Albany. It's bordered by the two commercial districts on Solano Avenue and Hopkins Street, as well as hilly terrain made up of volcanic rock, rhyolite, and 136 stairways carved into the landscape. The Northbrae development area is visibly distinct for its pink sidewalks and many stone pillars topped with concrete globes denoting street names. The central hub of Northbrae is the Fountain at the Circle, a water fountain designed by the head architect of the University of California surrounded by terra cotta roundabout and stairwell. Northbrae made it into the American Planning Association's list of Great Places in America in 2011.[1][2]
The Fountain at the Circle, centerpiece of Northbrae
After a 1906 earthquake along the western coast, about 15,000 residents from San Francisco decided to move East. Commuter rail had made it possible to now inhabit the countryside and Duncan McDuffie and Joseph Mason took full advantage of this. Under Mason-McDuffie Co., they purchased 700 acres for a subdivision that would eventually be known as Berkeley. Garden suburbs and the Beaux Arts style were prominent influences for this new area. At one point, the local Chamber of Commerce even proposed that Berkeley be named the state capital and the developers named the streets of Northbrae after various California counties but it did not succeed. Northbrae was split up into five sections: "Northbrae" west of The Alameda, "Northbrae Terrace" east of the Alameda and denoted by two pillars rather than just one at each entrance on The Alameda, Berkeley Heights as a predecessor to the Berkeley Hills, Berkeley Square which was north of Marin Avenue and focused along Arlington Avenue and The Alameda, and a small portion called Grand View Terrace which contains the districts most finest homes between Shattuck and Spruce streets. Since then, "Northbrae" has grown to refer to smaller subdivisions bordering the original such as the Peralta Park development around Hopkins or the Highlands development near Eunice Street.
Duncan McDuffie led Berkeley to become the first city in the United States to prohibit multifamily housing through zoning and Northbrae was the widest zoned single-family district. As with all of Mason-McDuffie Co. subdivisions, their homes in Northbrae included deed restrictions prohibiting sale to anyone who wasn't white.[3][4]
Natural and physical features
Stone pillars that sit at nearly every intersection in the neighborhood.
The Northbrae neighborhood is known for its hilly terrain. The built environment follows along the natural topography which includes trees and existing outcropping of volcanic rock. The volcanic rock in the area, rhyolite, is primarily composed of quartz and is a significant feature of the area. The streets are arranged predominantly N-S in order to emphasize the views of the San Francisco bay and the hills. Most of the homes are bungalows and are tucked into the hills, connected by stairways that have been carved into the landscape. The original subdivision is visible by its pink colored sidewalks and stone pillars, though several rock pillars have been destroyed by property owners and automobiles over the years. The rock pillars and fountain were designed by John Galen Howard, the lead architect of the University of California, Berkeley campus.
Notable places and public amenities
The North Branch Berkeley Library, the Martin Luther King Middle School, and Solano Avenue shopping district are all integral parts of Berkeley. Northbrae is also home to several large parks. The MLK Middle School runs a program called the Edible Schoolyard that attracts many people every year. There are also many paths in the neighborhood originally built as shortcuts to streetcar lines.
Transportation
The neighborhood was originally designed with the intention of each single family home having direct access to the train under the 1916 zoning law. Today, however, the North Berkeley BART station is a half mile away. Four AC Transit bus lines currently run through the neighborhood. There are 2 bicycle boulevards that promote alternative transportation.
Berkeley is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emeryville to the south and the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington to the north. Its eastern border with Contra Costa County generally follows the ridge of the Berkeley Hills. The 2020 census recorded a population of 124,321.
Duncan McDuffie was a real estate developer, conservationist, and mountaineer based in Berkeley, California, United States.
Telegraph Avenue is a street that begins, at its southernmost point, in the midst of the historic downtown district of Oakland, California, and ends, at its northernmost point, at the southern edge of the University of California, Berkeley campus in Berkeley, California. It is approximately 4.5 miles (7.2 km) in length.
Solano Avenue in Berkeley and Albany, California is a two-mile (3.2 km) long east-west street. Solano Avenue is one of the larger shopping districts in the Berkeley area. Businesses along Solano Avenue cover a wide range, including grocery stores, coffee shops, drugstores, bookstores, antique dealers, apparel outlets, ethnic restaurants and a movie theater.
Indian Rock Park is a 1.18-acre (4,800 m2) public park in the city of Berkeley, California, on the slope of the Berkeley Hills. Located in the city's Northbrae neighborhood, it is about two blocks north of the Arlington/Marin Circle, and straddles Indian Rock Avenue. The central feature of the park is a large rock outcropping on the west side of Indian Rock Ave. The larger portion of the park, on the opposite side of the street, has several much smaller rock outcroppings, grass fields, and a small barbecue and picnic area. The rock is composed of Northbrae rhyolite.
The East Bay Electric Lines were a unit of the Southern Pacific Railroad that operated electric interurban-type trains in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Beginning in 1862, the SP and its predecessors operated local steam-drawn ferry-train passenger service in the East Bay on an expanding system of lines, but in 1902 the Key System started a competing system of electric lines and ferries. The SP then drew up plans to expand and electrify its system of lines and this new service began in 1911. The trains served the cities of Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville, Oakland, Alameda, and San Leandro transporting commuters to and from the large Oakland Pier and SP Alameda Pier. A fleet of ferry boats ran between these piers and the docks of the Ferry Building on the San Francisco Embarcadero.
The Claremont district is a neighborhood straddling the city limits of Oakland and Berkeley in the East Bay section of the San Francisco Bay Area in California, United States. The main thoroughfares are Claremont and Ashby Avenues.
La Loma Park is a neighborhood and tract of land located in the Berkeley Hills section of the city of Berkeley, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. The land had been the property of Captain Richard Parks Thomas, a veteran of the American Civil War and Berkeley businessman. Today, it is entirely a residential area The Spanish word loma means "rise/low hill". Although hilly throughout, its average elevation is about 614 feet (187 m).
Whitley Heights is a residential neighborhood and historic preservation overlay zone in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Central Los Angeles, California. Known as a residential area for actors and other people in the motion-picture industry, it is divided between a hillside single-family district and an apartment area. It is notable for an attempt by its homeowners' group and the city to close off public streets to outside traffic, an effort that was ruled illegal by the courts.
The Beaumont-Wilshire neighborhood of Portland, Oregon is located in the city's northeast section, on Alameda Ridge with views of Downtown, the Willamette River, and the Cascades. It is bordered by the Alameda, Concordia, Cully, Rose City Park, and Grant Park neighborhoods. "Beaumont Village", located on NE Fremont Street, from NE 42rd Ave. to NE 50th Ave., is the main commercial district in the neighborhood, but the neighborhood also lies within walking distance of the Hollywood District, a major commercial and shopping area to the south.
Downtown Oakland is the central business district of Oakland, California, United States. It is located roughly bounded by both the Oakland Estuary and Interstate 880 on the southwest, Interstate 980 on the northwest, Grand Avenue on the northeast, and Lake Merritt on the east.
Shasta Hanchett Park is a historic residence park and neighborhood in the greater Rose Garden district of central San Jose, California, near Downtown San Jose and The Alameda.
The Elmwood District is a neighborhood of the City of Berkeley, California. It is primarily residential, with a small commercial area. The district does not have set lines of demarcation, but is focused around College and Ashby Avenues. The most extreme definitions of the district's boundaries do not extend past Telegraph Avenue to the west, Dwight Way to the north, or the Oakland city limit to the south. Elmwood was a streetcar suburb that was developed in the 1900s housing boom following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and was the first Berkeley subdivision to be assigned single-family residential zoning.
Thousand Oaks is a neighborhood of Berkeley in Alameda County, California. Located at the base of the Berkeley Hills, it lies at an elevation of 239 feet.
Panoramic Hill is a residential neighborhood of the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, California defined by the homes along and within the access corridor defined by Panoramic Way.
The Northbrae Tunnel, also referred to as the Solano Avenue Tunnel, was built as a commuter electric railroad tunnel in the northern part of Berkeley, California, and was later converted to street use.
Rawlins Park is a rectangular public park in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C., two blocks west of the White House grounds and two blocks north of the National Mall. The boundaries of the park are 18th Street NW to the east, E Street NW to the south and north, and 19th Street NW to the west. The park was an undeveloped open space for many years, until plans were made to install the statue of John Aaron Rawlins in 1874. Various improvements were made, but the area surrounding the park remained mostly undeveloped. This changed in the 1890s when the area was cleared of marshes, and houses were built on the park's southern border.
The F is a bus service operated by AC Transit in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is one of the operator's many transbay routes, which are intended to provide riders a long-distance service across the San Francisco Bay between the East Bay and San Francisco. The service is descendant of the foundational Key System streetcar and ferry line that operated prior to the formation of AC Transit.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
