Berkeley, a Look Back: Manufacturers ask to extend Seventh Street in 1924

Westside residents objected to and resisted the group's plan for converting the roadway into an industrial thoroughfare.

A century ago, on July 10, 1924, the Berkeley Manufacturers Association made a presentation to the city Planning Commission to ask that the city extend Seventh Street south of Folger Street into Emeryville.

This would, “provide a second artery of travel parallel to San Pablo Avenue in the heart of the manufacturing district,” according to the Berkeley Daily Gazette. I think this foreshadowed a bitter struggle in West Berkeley over land use.

By that date, Berkeley’s manufacturing magnates and investment “capitalists” mainly lived in East Berkeley or the city’s hills, a substantial departure from the 19th century, when they lived close to their factories in West Berkeley.

That meant many of Berkeley’s rich movers and shakers came to see West Berkeley as a place for industrial development, not homes. They were fiercely protective of their own residential neighborhoods but could be quite indifferent to the impact on people living near their factories elsewhere in town.

In contrast, thousands of less prosperous West Berkeley residents made the neighborhood their home and resisted their properties being regarded just as sites for investment and development.

Making Seventh Street into a commercial and industrial roadway may have made sense for factory owners but not for people who lived along the street and on nearby blocks. The battle would play out in zoning and other disputes for years.

The evidence is seen today at Dwight Way and Seventh, where Dwight Crescent extends one block diagonally to the westto Sixth Street, which then becomes the main thoroughfare instead of Seventh.

Park offer: On July 11, 1924, William H. Rees, the manager of the El Dorado Oil Works, offered the city of Berkeley a “willow grove and adjoining land which will make a pond park as large as Lake Orinda.”

The property was described as being “a natural hollow surrounded by trees a little to the south of Pinnacle Rock on Keeler Avenue, Cragmont.” The idea was enthusiastically received by Berkeley Chamber of Commerce Secretary Charles Keeler and by City Manager John Edy.

The donation would have fit well with Keeler’s idea of a series of ponds in the Berkeley hills to provide park space and a water supply to fight fires. Today, Remillard Park is in that vicinity, which includes Pinnacle Rock, but that park land seems to have been donated to the city by other parties in 1963. What happened to the proposed gift in 1924? I’m not sure.

Jewish center: On July 7, 1924, the Gazette reported that a cornerstone would be laid the following July 20 for “the Jewish synagogue and community center being built at Bancroft Way and Jefferson Street.”

The facility would include a space that could seat 300, a room for “educational purposes” and a social room with an adjacent kitchen.

Accidents: I.H. Field, of 1812 Fairview St., was “severely burned about the face and hands” on the evening of July 10, 1924. Field was working on a gas tank problem in his car in front of his house, and a friend was helpfully holding an unshielded candle to illuminate the scene. This did not turn out well.

Harry Bellamy, 51, of Oakland, died July 9, 1924, when he was electrocuted while painting a switch box at the PG&E power substation at McGee and Hearst avenues. He was survived by a widow and children.

The Tilden Lumber Co. facility at the foot of University Avenue caught fire, possibly from arson, on July 9 that year. Fire crews fought the blaze for more than 10 hours.

The fire began under the raised wooden floor and erupted into the structure in several spots. Firefighters had to wade in seawater and muck underneath to extinguish smoldering timbers.

Bay Area native and Berkeley community historian Steven Finacom holds this column’s copyright.