Tag Archives: Shattuck Avenue
Shattuck Avenue police action ties up traffic in Berkeley
Update, 7:40 p.m. KGO-TV reported just before 7 p.m. that police had “stormed the building” where the suspect or suspects were believed to be barricaded, but no one was inside. According to several people on Twitter who identified themselves as local residents, police set off a flash-bang grenade at about 6:30 p.m. as they moved in on the apartment building. As of about 6:49 p.m., police were “dispersing somewhat” from the area, according to a user named BehemothBullTerrier. At around 6:55 p.m. “Behemoth” wrote: “It’s over. No one was in the apt unit. That’s a cop w/ the bomb robot.”
Original post, 5:22 p.m. A police action on the south Berkeley border at Shattuck Avenue has been tying up traffic for hours and may not be resolved for many more.
According to the Oakland Police Department, at least one suspect in a shooting earlier in the day is barricaded inside an apartment on Shattuck. Thus far, police have been unable to establish communication.
Officer Johnna Watson, Oakland Police spokeswoman, said the incident began Friday afternoon at 12:26 p.m. when dispatchers started getting calls about a shooting at MacArthur Boulevard and Broadway. … Continue reading »
Family rallies to save Berkeley restaurant Giovanni
By Ted Friedman
Giovanni Schipani, 81, has been fighting the past two years to save the restaurant he launched in 1962. Now, according to Anna Schipani, 63, the bookkeeper at Giovanni, “we could be boarded-up at the end of the month if we don’t pay back taxes to IRS.”
Giovanni, at 2420 Shattuck Ave., is “probably” the oldest restaurant on Shattuck, according to Steve Finacom, vice president of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Schipani, known as Johnny to friends, had been wildly successful in Berkeley’s flourishing south side restaurant scene, earning enough money from his first restaurant, Mr. Pizza, to buy a muffler shop and convert it to an upscale Italian family restaurant seating 200. … Continue reading »
12 drinks a drinking: Reasons to rejoice at FIVE
Some may say that chocolate has no place in a cocktail. We beg to differ. Particularly at this time of year, a little extra sweetness helps reduce pre-holiday stress, and increases the ability to enjoy the spirit of the season.
We gave ourselves an early present by sampling from the Twelve Cocktails of Christmas featured during December at FIVE Bistro & Bar. Listed between the Eight Maids a Milking (chili vodka, chocolate liqueur, sugar and cayenne rim) and Ten Ginger Lords (vodka, ginger liqueur, apple cider, gingerbread cookie rim), the Nine Ladies Dancing leapt into a clear lead in a very competitive field.
Since it’s early in the month, bartender Victoriano had yet to tackle the Nine Ladies. This proved not to be a problem for the chemist-by-day, bartender-by-night, however. “Bartending is just like chemistry,” he assures us, as he reviews the ingredients and mixes the requested drink, which he then served in a glass with a cocoa-coated rim. … Continue reading »
Big Screen Berkeley: The Central Park Five
Throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, New York City was the country’s Sodom and Gomorrah, a place shunned and feared by Middle America. Near bankrupt, its school system in a state of collapse, and riddled with crime, crack cocaine, and urban decay, the city had lost the sheen acquired during the glory days of Fiorello La Guardia and Robert Moses.
On April 19, 1989, a 28-year old investment banker was brutally attacked and left for dead in the northernmost reaches of Central Park. Within days, the New York Police Department claimed they’d found the monsters responsible: five African-American teenagers. The case, and the horrendous miscarriage of justice that followed, is examined in a new documentary, The Central Park Five, opening at Landmark’s Shattuck Cinemas on Friday, December 14. … Continue reading »
Large downtown Berkeley property changes hands
A Los Angeles real estate group has snapped up the 92,000-square foot building that holds the Shattuck Cinemas, according to the San Francisco Business Times.
Hill Street Realty paid about $20 million, or $217 a square foot, for the property, formally known as Berkeley Center. In addition to the cinemas (which used to hold Hinks Department Store) the property houses Habitot Children’s Museum, a Starbucks, and various offices. The Hotel Shattuck Plaza sits on the block, but was not included in the transaction. … Continue reading »
Big Screen Berkeley: “Wake in Fright”
Studies show that Australian beer consumption is in a death spiral. Recent research by the Japanese brewery Kirin indicates the land down under has slipped from 4th to 8th place in worldwide per capita ale imbibing since 2004 — in fact, it’s been nothing but bad news for Aussie brewers since the late 1970s, when the locals began switching to wine.
It was a much different story during the 1960s and early ‘70s, a Golden Age of Australian wrist raising during which suds consumption soared to all time highs. The era is captured in all its lager-soaked glory in 1970’s Wake in Fright, an existential drama beginning a revival run at Landmark’s Shattuck Cinemas on Friday, October 26.
Set in remotest New South Wales during a sweltering mid-summer, Wake in Fright stars English actor Gary Bond as John Grant, a primary school teacher desperate for the Christmas holidays to arrive. Grant has six weeks’ leave (the Australian school year begins at the end of January and ends in mid-December), a sweetheart in Sydney, and just enough cash to have a good time. … Continue reading »
Shattuck Avenue goes car-free for 17 blocks on Sunday
More than a mile of Berkeley’s Shattuck Avenue will be open to pedestrians, cyclists, roller-skaters, dancers, and kids on Sunday Oct. 14 — but not cars — as the city holds its first Sunday Streets event from 11 am through 4 pm.
Seventeen blocks, from Rose to Haste streets, will also be a hive of activities as merchants, musicians and community organizations take the opportunity to engage with and perform for local residents. The offerings run the gamut from free free bike repairs courtesy of Mikes Bikes, Missing Link Cooperative and the Bike Station, to street soccer games, free yoga classes, belly dancing, hands-on science activities for kids, and a performance by the UC Berkeley Gospel Choir.
The idea of Sunday Streets, or Open Streets as they are also known, originated in Bogatá, Colombia and has spread around the world, including to San Francisco where it has been a regular occurrence in different neighborhoods for a couple of years. … Continue reading »
Revamped Safeway opens in heart of Gourmet Ghetto
Today sees the re-opening, after nearly one year of construction work, of the Safeway on Shattuck Avenue, right in the heart of Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto.
For one loyal customer, the unveiling of what the grocery chain refers to as one of its “lifestyle” stores is, as she put it, “mind boggling.” When Claire Alvarez moved to Henry Street in 1962, the spot now occupied by Safeway was a vacant lot. Alvarez watched the original store go up, and was first in the door when it opened in 1965. Yesterday, she was designated the new store’s official first customer and was asked to help cut the ceremonial ribbon.
Alvarez, like may Berkeley residents, and even Safeway employees, agreed the old store was in dire need of a makeover. “But I never dreamed it would be like this,” she said, after being presented with a bouquet of flowers by the store’s manager, Kimberly Davis. “I’ll be coming in every other day.”
The revamped store has been a long time in the making, and not without complications. What started out as a plan to rebuild — and at one point included first-story housing — turned into an extensive remodel, albeit one that saw all but one original wall maintained. And the community expressed many concerns about the project along the way. … Continue reading »
Big Screen Berkeley: Stars In Shorts
Ever wonder what Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench might look like in shorts? Wonder no longer: the two thespians appear together (but separately) in Stars In Shorts, a program of seven short subjects opening at Landmarks’ Shattuck Cinemas on Friday, September 28.
As you’ve probably guessed, Dench and Branagh aren’t alone — each of the program’s seven films includes at least one cinema big-shot within its cast. One might suspect such larger-than-life personalities would overwhelm the small-scale proceedings in which they’re involved, but thankfully that’s never the case.
Best of show is clearly Not Your Time, a very funny comedy headlined by former ‘Seinfeld’ star Jason Alexander. Alexander plays Sid Rosenthal, a film editor whose job it is to remove expletives from movies prior to their airline bookings. A frustrated musician with a thankless day job, Sid pitches a remake of Babes In Toyland entitled Babes in Toys R Us to some Hollywood bigwigs, who are immediately enamored with the gruesome concept. … Continue reading »
Berkeleyan explores identity in China adoption film
By Peggy Lee Scott
Personal identity has been discussed since philosophy began, and for most of us, the answer evolves as we grow. How did I get to be who I am, and what am I doing here? Nature versus nurture? We ponder these questions ourselves, and for those of us with children, the wild ride of watching them become their own persons is an adventure all its own. We get myriad clues that we cannot control much, and it makes us wonder even more how the heck we ended up who, and where, we are.
Such are the questions raised by four teenagers in Linda Goldstein Knowlton‘s thoughtful, sometimes heart-wrenching documentary “Somewhere Between,” opening for a one-week run at Berkeley’s Shattuck Landmark Theatre (and at the Opera Plaza in San Francisco) on Friday, Sept. 21. … Continue reading »
Shop Talk: The ins and outs of Berkeley businesses
COFFEE NO MORE Tully’s, which has operated at the corner of Shattuck and Center Streets for 11 years, shut its doors abruptly on Sunday. Brown paper covers the windows and a sign asks patrons to visit at their San Francisco or Pleasanton stores. The Seattle-based chain has also been in financial straits for several years, according to media reports, and the Berkeley store isn’t the only closure. As part of a restructuring, stores have been shuttered across the country.
THE DAY … Continue reading »
North Berkeley merchants want parklets for the people
Businesses in the Gourmet Ghetto are keen to jump on the parklet bandwagon — bringing outdoor seating to the streets for espresso sippers, pizza eaters, and world watchers in lieu of parking spots — but must first wait for the city to come up with a process for making the spaces available.
So-called parklets — slivers of open space sprouting in cities around the globe — are a big trend in urban design, with San Francisco’s Pavement to Parks leading the way locally, and Oakland following suit (a pilot program is under review there.) Berkeley is a little late to the take-back-the-public-space movement but eager to come up with its own ideas to beautify public areas where community members can congregate. Leading the charge is the North Shattuck Association, which is helping businesses in its café- and restaurant-heavy district organize around the concept.
“The parklets pilot project was conceived by the association based on our experience with hosting temporary parklets during past years on Park(ing) Day and the Spice of Life Festival,” said Heather Hensley, executive director of the association.
Park(ing) Day is an international movement conceived to help city residents around the world reimagine the humble parking space. One day each fall, D.I.Y., creative urbanistas are encouraged to transform parking spots into parks, playgrounds, pop-up cafés — anything other than a lowly (though coveted) place for cars. Park(ing) Day parklets have sprouted in Berkeley in past years in front of the Cheese Board Collective and the late Amanda’s Feel Good Fresh Food. … Continue reading »
Review: The Expendables 2, Red Hook Summer
A few weeks ago I reached (and, thankfully, passed) one of those horrific chronological landmarks that remind us of our inevitable, coming-soon-to-a-crematorium-near-you demise. About the same time, The Expendables 2 – the sequel to 2010’s unforgettable muscle-fest The Expendables – opened in cinemas nationwide. Coincidence? I think not.
The characters in the series are, after all, played by long in the tooth, well past their prime action stars that should be collecting Social Security instead of truckloads of stolen plutonium. As for me, I’m an over the hill film critic who should probably be spending his golden years watching old Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald musicals instead of over the top shoot ‘em ups. (Anyone wanna buy me a ticket for the next TCM Classic Cruise? Mickey Rooney’s gonna be there!)
One horrific thought festered in my mind as The Expendables 2 began: I could succumb to a fatal heart attack at any moment. Could there be a less dignified death than popping one’s clogs during a matinée screening of a film in which the bad guy’s last name is ‘Vilain’? Dear Lord Baby Jesus, Great Tree Spirit, or Ever Expanding Black Hole of Nihilistic Non-Belief, I silently begged, please don’t let it happen to me! … Continue reading »
