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Temescal | |
|---|---|
 Location of Temescal in Oakland | |
| Coordinates: 37°50′14″N122°15′44″W / 37.837222°N 122.262222°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | California |
| County | Alameda |
| City | Oakland |
Temescal is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Oakland, California, located in North Oakland, and centered on Telegraph Avenue. The neighborhood derives its name from Temescal Creek, a significant watercourse in the city. [1]
Temescal was originally a separate unincorporated village that had built up around the estate of Vicente Peralta, which was located near the modern intersections of Telegraph Avenue and Claremont Boulevard. [1] (Vicente's estate was part of the larger Peralta Grant that spanned 44,800 acres of land in the East Bay.) The name came from the creek upon whose banks Peralta had established his home. The word temescal derives from the word temescalli/temazcalli (various transliterations), which means "sweat house" in the Nahuatl language of the Mexica ("Aztec") people of Mexico. It is surmised that the Peraltas or perhaps one of their ranch hands (vaqueros) had seen local indigenous (Ohlone) structures along the creek similar to those in other parts of New Spain which were called temescalli. [2]
A post office opened in North Temescal in 1877; the name was changed to Alden in 1899. [3] The name commemorated S.E. Alden, farmer and landowner. [4] In 1908, the Alden post office was designated as Station E of the Oakland post office. [4] [5] [6]
In 1897, the residents of Temescal voted to join the City of Oakland in an effort to gain access to higher quality public schools and police services. [1] [7] At the time that the City of Oakland annexed Temescal, Temescal was considered to consist of all land north of 36th Street (the northern bound of the City of Oakland at the time) between the Emeryville city limit to the west and Broadway to the east. [1]
Temescal has long been an important junction of several principal thoroughfares: Telegraph, Claremont, and Shattuck Avenues, and 51st Street.
The earliest telegraph wire from Oakland to Sacramento went through the area, up Claremont Avenue and over the hills at Claremont Canyon. Temescal was the site of agriculture, cattle grazing and greenhouses when, in the 1890s, an opera house was built in parkland north of the creek crossing at 51st street. The area grew and was developed into Idora Park, the earliest "trolley park" in the East Bay. In 1929 the amusement park was closed and was razed in 1930. A plan to build mid-rise apartment blocks called the Midtown District fell through, and a tract of storybook houses was built on the site between 1930 and 1934. It is reported to be the first development in the American west with underground utilities.
Until the early 20th century, a wide wooden bridge spanned Temescal Creek, carrying both road (Telegraph Avenue) and railroad tracks.
The horsecar line to the University of California along today's Telegraph Avenue (then called Humboldt Avenue in Oakland and Choate in Berkeley) operated out of a horse barn at 51st and Telegraph. When the horsecar was replaced by electric streetcars, the horse barn was replaced by a carbarn. The carbarn became the Western Carhouse of the Key System's streetcar division, the East Bay Street Railways. When the streetcars ceased operation in November of 1947, the car barn was remodeled to become Vern's market. Vern's closed in the 1970s and the building sat vacant for years. Eventually it was demolished and replaced by a strip mall, including a Walgreens store.
The neighborhood's boundaries have changed substantially over time and have often been considered different by different groups of people. [1] The modern neighborhood's western bound is generally considered to be the Grove-Shafter Freeway (State Route 24), [1] [7] due to the visual divide of the elevated freeway. However, some consider Martin Luther King Jr. Way [1] [7] to be the western border. The eastern bound is generally considered to be Broadway. The northern bound historically is considered to end at Alcatraz Avenue & Shattuck (at the South Berkeley border), [1] and the southern bound to be either 36th [1] or 40th Street. [1] [7]
Temescal is primarily a residential neighborhood. Most of the houses in Temescal are early twentieth century bungalows along tree-lined streets. There are also many multi-family homes and mid-size apartment complexes interspersed throughout the neighborhood.
Temescal was an Italian-American neighborhood until the late 1960s. Temescal saw many changes in demographics in the past 10 years as new developments and upscale shopping and restaurants entered the neighborhood. Large numbers of young couples with children moved to Temescal as the real estate prices in nearby Rockridge grew too expensive for middle-class families. People of different racial and economic backgrounds live side by side in the neighborhood. Temescal is a diverse neighborhood with concentrations of Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants.
Also see overview of crime in Oakland, California.
Temescal experiences crime as other neighborhoods in Oakland do.
On April 2, 2023, there was a shooting in the 4900 block of Telegraph Avenue that left one person injured. [8]
The commercial heart of Temescal is Telegraph Avenue, between the MacArthur BART Station and 51st Street. This area is known locally as the home to popular restaurants including North Light. [9]
Another commercial zone runs along 40th Street, between Broadway and Telegraph. This area includes a mixture of food service and retail.
There are many Ethiopian restaurants here, especially on Telegraph north of 51st Street. There are also many Korean establishments along Telegraph Avenue. Temescal Farmers' Market, begun in 2006, is held on Sundays in the parking lot of the Department of Motor Vehicles facility on Claremont Ave. [10]
Studio One, located on 45th Street, is home to art classes and workshops. Counter Culture Labs is a public laboratory and hackerspace located in the Temescal neighborhood. Royal Nonesuch Gallery is an artist run art and event space located on Telegraph and 43rd. Temescal Pool, located next door, is open to the public. The neighborhood is also home to several public and private schools, including Park Day School and the architectural landmark Oakland Technical High School on Broadway.
Temescal is home to one of the few tool-lending libraries in the Bay Area—indeed, in the U.S. (The Berkeley Public Library also has a tool-lending library at their nearby South Branch.) The Temescal branch of the Oakland Public Library operates this facility, which lends tools, free of charge, to library patrons for repairs and home-improvement projects. The Tool Lending Library also has instructional materials (books, videos, etc.) and gives "how-to" workshops. [11]
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.
The Key System was a privately owned company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany, and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area from 1903 until 1960, when it was sold to a newly formed public agency, AC Transit. The Key System consisted of local streetcar and bus lines in the East Bay, and commuter rail and bus lines connecting the East Bay to San Francisco by a ferry pier on San Francisco Bay, later via the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. At its height during the 1940s, the Key System had over 66 miles (106 km) of track. The local streetcars were discontinued in 1948 and the commuter trains to San Francisco were discontinued in 1958. The Key System's territory is today served by BART and AC Transit bus service.
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 km) in length.
The Piedmont Avenue neighborhood is a residential and commercial district in the North Oakland region of Oakland, California. It is named for Piedmont Avenue, a commercial street known for dining and retail. The neighborhood is roughly bounded by Temescal and Broadway on the west, Oakland Avenue and the City of Piedmont on the east, the Mountain View Cemetery on the north, and the MacArthur Freeway section of Interstate 580 on the south.
Montclair is a hillside neighborhood in Oakland, California, United States. Montclair is located along the western slope of the Oakland Hills from a valley formed by the Hayward Fault to the upper ridge of the hills.
Elmhurst is a residential neighborhood in the southernmost part of Oakland, California. Originally a separate unincorporated town, it was annexed by Oakland in 1909, and today is considered part of East Oakland. It lies at an elevation of 39 feet.
Idora Park was a 17.5-acre (71,000 m2) Victorian era trolley park in north Oakland, California constructed in 1904 on the site of an informal park setting called Ayala Park on the north banks of Temescal Creek. It was leased by the Ingersoll Pleasure and Amusement Park Company that ran several Eastern pleasure parks. What began as a pleasure ground in a rural setting for Sunday picnics evolved into a complete amusement park visited by many residents of the San Francisco Bay Area. Its popularity declined after the advent of the automobile, and it was closed and demolished in 1929.
Temescal Creek is one of the principal watercourses in the city of Oakland, California, United States.
The Oakland Public Library is the public library in Oakland, California. Opened in 1878, the Oakland Public Library currently serves the city of Oakland, along with neighboring smaller cities Emeryville and Piedmont. The Oakland Public Library has the largest collection of any public library in the East Bay, featuring approximately 1.5 million items. It consists of a main library located in downtown Oakland, and 16 branch libraries throughout the city.
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.
The Bushrod neighborhood in North Oakland, Oakland, California is an area surrounding its namesake park, and bounded by Martin Luther King, Jr. Way to the west, Claremont Avenue to the east, Highway 24 to the south, and the Berkeley border to the north. It borders the neighborhoods of Santa Fe to the west, Fairview Park to the east, and Temescal and Shafter to the south and southeast, respectively. Notable landmarks include the Bushrod Park ballfields and the former Bushrod Washington Elementary School, which share adjoining land on a large greenbelt and open space in the heart of the neighborhood.
Shattuck Avenue is a major city street running north–south through Berkeley, California, and Oakland, California. At its southern end, the street branches from Telegraph Avenue in Oakland's Temescal district, then ends at Indian Rock Park in the Berkeley Hills to the north. Shattuck Avenue is the main street of Berkeley, forming the spine of that city's downtown, and the site of the Gourmet Ghetto in North Berkeley. The street was named for Francis Kittredge Shattuck, an early landowner and booster who later served as Mayor of Oakland. Shattuck was largely responsible for the original construction of the road as well as for a railroad built along its route.
Glen Echo Creek is a creek that runs from the Oakland Hills to Lake Merritt in Oakland, California. Although most of it is underground, the creek does surface in several locations. It has two branches, the Rockridge Branch and the Broadway Branch.
The Rockridge-Temescal Greenbelt also commonly known as Frog Park is a public park and greenway that connects the neighborhoods of Temescal and Rockridge in Oakland, California.
Media related to Temescal, Oakland, California at Wikimedia Commons