What to See in Berkeley - Top Sights and Attractions

Street in Alameda County, California. 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 in length.

Among some Berkeley residents, especially University of California students, Telegraph refers mainly to a four-block section just south of the university, from Bancroft Way (which borders the campus) to Dwight Way. As a center of campus and community life, this section of Telegraph Avenue is home to many restaurants, bookstores, and clothing shops, along with street vendors occupying its wide sidewalks. Here Telegraph Avenue attracts a diverse audience of visitors, including college students, tourists, artists, street punks, eccentrics, and the homeless.^[2]

Well-known campanile at a university. Sather Tower is a bell tower with clocks on its four faces on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. It is more commonly known as The Campanile for its resemblance to the Campanile di San Marco in Venice. It is a recognizable symbol of the university.

Given by Jane K. Sather in memory of her husband, banker Peder Sather, it is the third-tallest bell-and-clock-tower in the world. Its current 61-bell carillon, built around a nucleus of 12 bells also given by Jane Sather, can be heard for many miles and supports an extensive program of education in campanology.

Sather Tower also houses many of the Department of Integrative Biology's fossils (mainly from the La Brea Tar Pits) because its cool, dry interior is suited for their preservation.^[4]

The Berkeley Marina is the westernmost portion of the city of Berkeley, California, located west of the Eastshore Freeway at the foot of University Avenue on San Francisco Bay. Narrowly speaking, "Berkeley Marina" refers only to the city marina, but in common usage, it applies more generally to the surrounding area.

There are several restaurants, a hotel and a yacht club in the Berkeley Marina. There are also several walking and bicycle paths. The area is accessible from the rest of Berkeley by foot or bike over the Berkeley I-80 Bridge at the foot of Addison Street (one block south of University Avenue), and is traversed near Interstate 80 by a segment of the San Francisco Bay Trail. In addition, it is the western terminus of AC Transit Route 51B (University Avenue-Rockridge BART) on select trips only.

The easternmost portion of the Marina, running parallel to I-80/580, is now a part of the Eastshore State Park.^[5]

Playground in Berkeley, California. Adventure Playground is an urban park and adventure playground in Berkeley, California, located at the Berkeley Marina. The park opened in 1979 based on the ideas of Danish architect Carl Theodor Sørensen, who had made use of scrap junkyards for playgrounds when Copenhagen was under occupation during World War II. The adventure playground model, sometimes referred to as a "junk playground," is to provide children with the resources to build. The available tools include saws, hammers, workbenches, and nails. The legal liability raised by giving children relatively unrestricted access to these tools has made adventure playgrounds rare in the United States, with the Berkeley Adventure Playground being one of only four in the country.^[6]

Stadium in Berkeley, California. California Memorial Stadium also known as FTX Field at California Memorial Stadium, and simply and commonly known as Memorial Stadium is an outdoor football stadium on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California. It is the home field for the University of California Golden Bears of the Pac-12 Conference. The venue opened in 1923 and currently seats around 63,000 fans for football. The playing field runs NW-SE, at an elevation of 410 feet above sea level. It has been named one of the top college football stadiums by various publications, and it was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on November 27, 2006.

Memorial Stadium was funded from public contributions, as a memorial to Californians who lost their lives in World War I (1917–18). The chair of the architectural committee was John Galen Howard, the university's chief architect, and his influence is evident in the stadium's neoclassical motif. In addition to its unique architecture, the stadium's position at the foot of the Berkeley hills provides top row spectators with panoramic views of San Francisco Bay and west side viewers with views of the Berkeley Hills and Strawberry Canyon. This has earned it a reputation as one of the most scenic venues in college football.

Traditionally, during all football games and especially during the Big Game against Stanford, the hill overlooking the eastern side of Memorial Stadium attracts spectators hoping to watch a game for free, earning the nickname "Tightwad Hill".^[10]

Park in Berkeley, California. People's Park in Berkeley, California is a park located just east of Telegraph Avenue, bounded by Haste and Bowditch Streets, and Dwight Way, near the University of California, Berkeley. The park was created during the radical political activism of the late 1960s.

The local Southside neighborhood was the scene of a major confrontation between student protesters and police in May 1969. A mural near the park, painted by Berkeley artist O'Brien Thiele and lawyer/artist Osha Neumann, depicts the shooting of James Rector, who was fatally shot by police on May 15, 1969.

While legally the land is the property of the University of California, People's Park has operated since the early 1970s as a free public park. The City of Berkeley declared it a historical and cultural landmark in 1984. Although open to all, it is often viewed as a sanctuary for Berkeley's low income and large homeless population who, along with others, receive meals from East Bay Food Not Bombs regularly. Many homeless outreach organizations, like the Suitcase Clinic, also visit the park regularly. Nearby residents, and those who use the park for recreation, partake in activities around the park like gardening, musical performances, and movie nights. Many of these events are planned and executed by the People's Park Committee.

In response to UC Berkeley's renewed plan to build student housing on the site, the Defend People's Park coalition has formed to organize events, direct actions, mutual aid, and classes at the park since a student occupation began in early 2021. A People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group also formed and pursued national recognition for the park. The California State Historical Resources Commission voted unanimously on November 5, 2021, to recommend the site for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.^[13]

Land-grant university in Berkeley, California. The University of California, Berkeley is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant university and the first campus of the University of California system. Its fourteen colleges and schools offer over 350 degree programs and enroll some 31,000 undergraduate and 12,000 graduate students. Berkeley is ranked among the world's top universities.

A founding member of the Association of American Universities, Berkeley hosts many leading research institutes, including the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and the Space Sciences Laboratory. It founded and maintains close relationships with three national laboratories at Berkeley, Livermore and Los Alamos, and has played a prominent role in many scientific advances, from the Manhattan Project and the discovery of 16 chemical elements to breakthroughs in computer science and genomics. Berkeley is also known for political activism and the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s.

Berkeley's athletic teams, which compete as the California Golden Bears primarily in the Pac-12 Conference, have won 107 national championships, and its students and alumni have won 223 Olympic medals (including 121 gold medals).

Berkeley alumni, faculty and researchers include more Nobel laureates, Turing Award winners (25), Fields Medalists (14), Wolf Prize winners (30), and MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipients (108) than those of any other public university in the nation; they have also won 30 Pulitzer Prizes and 19 Academy Awards. The university has produced seven heads of state or government; six chief justices, including Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren; 22 cabinet-level officials; 11 governors; and 25 living billionaires. It is also a leading producer of Fulbright Scholars, MacArthur Fellows, and Marshall Scholars. Berkeley alumni, widely recognized for their entrepreneurship, have founded numerous notable companies, including Apple, Tesla, Intel, eBay, SoftBank, AIG, and Morgan Stanley.^[20]

Hill in California. Albany Hill is a prominent hill along the east shore of San Francisco Bay in the city of Albany, California. Geologically, the hill is predominantly Jurassic sandstone, carried to the western edge of North America on the Pacific Plate and scraped off there in the course of subduction. Albany Hill is part of a range of hills uplifted long before today's Berkeley Hills. These hills include Fleming Point and Point Isabel, Brooks Island, the Potrero San Pablo, and the hills across San Pablo Strait.

Albany Hill's indigenous Ohlone name is unknown. The 1772 Fages expedition referred to the landmark as "El Cerrito," and it was named Cerrito de San Antonio by the Luís María Peralta family after the name of their ranch, Rancho San Antonio, a Spanish land grant which encompassed much of the East Bay. The name was changed to Albany Hill shortly after the city incorporated as Ocean View changed its name to Albany in 1909. The adjacent city of El Cerrito was named after the hill's original Spanish name.^[22]

Non-profit organization in Berkeley, California. Berkeley Zen Center, temple name Shogakuji, is an Sōtō Zen Buddhist practice centre located in Berkeley, California currently led by Hozan Alan Senauke. An informal affiliate to the San Francisco Zen Center, BZC was founded in 1967 by Sojun Mel Weitsman and Shunryu Suzuki as a satellite group for the SFZC. Despite founding the centre, Weitsman was not installed as an abbot there until 1985, one year after receiving Dharma transmission from Hoitsu Suzuki. Weitsman's Dharma heir, Alan Senauke, lives on-site with his wife Laurie Senauke and also works for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Another former teacher at BZC was Maylie Scott, who died in 2001. In 1969 Zenkei Blanche Hartman began sitting zazen at BZC, receiving Dharma transmission from Weitsman in 1988. In 1979 the centre relocated to its current location on Russell Street—and today houses a small group of residents who live on site. BZC has an active community and a full schedule of zen service, student talks, dharma talks, and zazen.^[23]

Botanical garden in Kensington, California. Blake Garden is a 10.6 acre landscape laboratory and public garden located at 70 Rincon Road in Kensington, California, United States. It is a teaching facility for the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning of the University of California, Berkeley. It is also the site of Blake House, formerly the residence of the President of the University of California. The garden is open to the public during weekdays; no admission fee is charged.

The Blakes' original family home was on Piedmont Avenue, where Memorial Stadium now stands. The building of the stadium prompted the building of two homes in the Kensington hills, Anson Blake's house, now Blake Garden, and the Edwin Blake house, now the Carmelite Monastery. The garden was deeded to the Landscape Architecture Department in 1957 by Anson and Anita Blake, and title passed to the University upon Anita Blake's death in 1962. Five years later, Blake House became the UC President's official residence, until 2009.

The siting of Blake house is integral to the garden's design: it shelters the Formal Garden from the strong prevailing winds off the Golden Gate. The grounds for both estates were designed by Mrs. Blake's sister, Mabel Symmes, who graduated from the university's Landscape Architecture Department in 1914. Ms. Symmes' original plan showed great sensitivity to the site. Much of her original plan can still be seen in the design of the Pink and Yellow Gardens with its grotto, inspired by the Villa Tusculana at Frascati, Italy and the reflecting pool which was part of a system to take advantage of underground water. The Redwood Canyon, with redwood cuttings brought from the Blake's property in Berkeley and St. Helena, is planted along a natural waterway. The original plan also shows a lake in the Australian Hollow, taking advantage of the high water table in that part of the garden. In 2010 this area was restored to a native wetland by UC students, volunteers and Blake Garden staff. The wetland now provides habitat to a community of Pacific chorus frogs and area birds.

Other parts of the garden include the Mediterranean Garden on the western side of house, a showcase of drought-tolerant plants from the world's Mediterranean climates; the Cottage Garden, full of roses, flowers for cutting, vegetables and herbs; the Square, with its water lily-filled pond, and beds brimming with low-water perennials; and the Event Lawn and surrounding beds, another example of water-smart gardening.

The garden is home to nearly 1500 plant species, over fifty bird species, as well as raccoons, frogs, salamanders, and the occasional fox. The garden is all organic, with many sustainable practices including four kinds of composting, rainwater harvesting, and hives of honeybees. Additionally, the Create with Nature Zone offers a space for visitors of all ages to experiment and build with materials collected from the garden.^[24]

Fraternal organization in Berkeley, California. The William R. Thorsen House, often referred to as the Thorsen House, is a historic residence in Berkeley, California. Built in 1909 for William and Caroline Thorsen, it is one of the last of four standing ultimate bungalows designed by Henry and Charles Greene of the renowned architectural firm Greene & Greene and the only one located in Northern California.

Since 1942, it has been home to the Sigma Phi Society of the Thorsen House (alternatively Thorsen or the Sigma Phi Society of California), which hosts communal dinners, organizes small concerts, and offers tours for other students and members of the public, welcoming thousands of visitors a year.

Thorsen can be toured throughout the week on an informal basis; one can simply knock on the door to visit.^[28]

The campus of the University of California, Berkeley and its surrounding community are home to a number of notable buildings by early 20th-century campus architect John Galen Howard, his peer Bernard Maybeck, and their colleague Julia Morgan. Subsequent tenures as supervising architect held by George W. Kelham and Arthur Brown, Jr. saw the addition of several buildings in neoclassical and other revival styles, while the building boom after World War II introduced modernist buildings by architects such as Vernon DeMars, Joseph Esherick, John Carl Warnecke, Gardner Dailey, Anshen & Allen, and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Recent decades have seen additions including the postmodernist Haas School of Business by Charles Willard Moore, Soda Hall by Edward Larrabee Barnes, and the East Asian Library by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects.^[29]

Church building in Berkeley, California. The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd is an historic Carpenter Gothic style Episcopal church building located at 1001 Hearst Street at Ninth Street in Berkeley, California. Built in 1878, it was designed in the Carpenter Gothic style of architecture by architect Charles L. Bugbee who was associated with his father Samuel C. Bugbee in the San Francisco firm of S. C. Bugbee & Son. Charles L. Bugbee patterned it after the Carpenter Gothic style Mendocino Presbyterian Church, which the firm had designed in 1867. While all of the Mendocino church's exterior walls are of board and batten siding, only the upper walls of Good Shepherd are board and batten while the lower walls are of Dutch lap weatherboarding. Both churches feature tall side-entrance bell towers, steep gabled roofs and lancet windows, but according to writer Daniella Thompson: "...the Church of the Good Shepherd is considerably more ornate and playful than its severe Presbyterian model,..." On December 15, 1975 Good Shepherd became the second building in Berkeley to be named an Historic Landmark. On December 1, 1986, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Church of the Good Shepherd-Episcopal.^[30]

Housing. The Berkeley City Club was commissioned as the club house of the Berkeley Women's City Club organized in Berkeley, California in 1927 to contribute to social, civic, and cultural progress. This private club is no longer restricted to women, and the club house building is available to the public at large for overnight stays, weddings, and other occasions. On the second floor, the Club also houses Julia's Restaurant and Morgan's Bar & Lounge, led by Executive Chef Fabrice Marcon, MCF.

The building, constructed in 1929 and officially opened in 1930, is one of the outstanding works of noted California architect Julia Morgan. The San Francisco-born Morgan was the first woman to gain admission and earn a certificate from the Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris (1902) and the first licensed female architect in California. She designed nearly 100 women's-organization buildings throughout her career.

Her interpretation of Moorish and Gothic elements in the Berkeley Women's City Club created a landmark of California design. It is registered as California Historical Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NPS-7700028). The Berkeley City Club Conservancy cares for the building itself. Along with many other stewards of Julia Morgan properties, BCCC joined in the California Cultural and Historical Endowment's Julia Morgan 2012 Project.^[33]