Berkeley

In November of 2018, the skies over the Bay Area were filled with smoke from the worst wildfire in California history. The smoke brought Northern California the worst air pollution it had ever seen. So I delayed my visit to Berkeley, intended for November, till December, after my visit to the Randall Museum. The skies were clear by then…of smoke, anyway. Instead, it was a typically overcast December. But my spirits were bright as I headed back to the East Bay to tour one of the United States’ most celebrated public universities, University of California, Berkeley.

University of California, Berkeley

UC Berkeley was founded in 1868 as the University of California in Oakland. It moved north to Berkeley in 1863. It’s now the premier campus of the large University of California system. When the land that was to become Berkeley was selected for the young university’s campus, the new town was named for George Berkeley, an Anglo-Irish philosopher.

The Board of Regents sent out a distinguished representative to meet me when I arrived on campus.

For a somewhat urban campus, the Berkeley campus is quite beautiful. (Of course it’s no Cornell. No campus is as beautiful as Cornell’s.) It’s built on the western slope of the Berkeley Hills. (Speaking of the Berkeley Hills, there were a number of sites I wanted to visit in the Berkeley Hills, but there wasn’t enough time. So I made a return visit to Berkeley in 2019 to visit the sites up in the hills.) I actually lived in Berkeley during the summer of ’86, a year after I graduated from Cornell. I lived right across the street from the campus as a matter of fact, in the Berkeley chapter of my fraternity. I never stepped foot on campus though. So my visit was long overdue.

Public postings outside the Free Speech Movement Cafe, a campus outlet commemorating Berkeley’s significant contribution to the counterculture of the ’60s.

One of the origins of the ’60s counterculture was the Free Speech Movement, a massive student protest that took place on the Berkeley campus during the ’64-’65 school year. The protest began as students were thwarted in their efforts to organize on campus to participate in the Civil Rights Movement. The Free Speech Movement was the origin of the immortal phrase, “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” (The phrase was actually said sarcastically by a protester who was annoyed by a journalist’s questions to him.)

Sather Tower, affectionately known as the Campanile, is the symbol of Berkeley. At over 300 feet, it’s one of the tallest bell towers in the world. Unfortunately it was closed, so I didn’t get to go to the top.

Built in 1873, South Hall is the oldest building on campus and the only remaining building from when the campus was originally built. (North Hall is long gone.) It is a prime American example of the Second Empire style of architecture.

A bust of Abraham Lincoln on the base of Sather Tower. The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, created a larger sculpture of Lincoln and 3 other US presidents on Mount Rushmore.

Berkeley has a series of bear sculptures installed around campus. Each one is unique. Berkeley athletics teams are called the Golden Bears, referring to the extinct California grizzly bear, the state symbol of California.

Wow! Cornell doesn’t even have designated parking for Nobel laureates. 114 Berkeley faculty and alumni have won Nobel prizes.

The Classical Revival Hearst Memorial Mining Building was built in 1902 to house the College of Mines. The building is named for George Hearst, a successful miner who became a U.S. Senator. He was the father of William Randolph Hearst (aka “Citizen Kane”) and great-grandfather to Patty. An actual mine tunnel was built, for educational purposes, under land adjacent to the building and into the Berkeley Hills.

A peek inside the Hearst Greek Theater. The amphitheater, built in 1903, was named after William Randolph, not George.

California Memorial Stadium, home of the Golden Bears. I’d hope to get a tour of the stadium, but I arrived too late. Alas!

California Memorial Stadium was built in 1923 directly over Hayward Fault, which caused a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in 1868. The neoclassical stadium was built in 2 separate halves, joined by expansion joints intending to allow each side to move independently during an earthquake.

As Berkeley’s campus is located on the western slope of the Berkeley Hills, you can get views across San Francisco Bay from the elevated eastern side of campus. And there’s that beautiful Golden Gate Bridge!

A rustic log cabin on campus! Senior Hall was built in 1906 as a student union and is home to a campus honor society, the Order of the Golden Bear.

*The Last Dryad* by Alexander Stirling Calder, 1921. (Guess what. We saw mobiles by Calder’s son Alexander at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.)

The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, named for George’s wife, was closed when I stopped by. But I got to see the Kwakwaka’wakw House Posts. Each post was carved out of a single log of red cedar. They were part of the frame of a large house in a Native American village in British Columbia.

Sather Gate–built in the Classical Revival Beaux-Arts style in 1910–is a well known sight on campus.

Sproul Plaza–along with the steps of Sproul Hall–was the center of the Free Speech Movement.

Strawberry Creek runs through the center of campus after flowing down through Strawberry Canyon.

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

A number of temporary exhibits are always on display at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. The museum is small, but I was impressed by the breadth of the exhibitions. I returned at a later date to catch a movie.