Berkeleyside’s revelation that all the seating removed from UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium before its renovation had been saved by a local wood specialist — and was now available to buy in the form of carefully crafted tables and benches — came as welcome news to many. Those numbered bleachers (above) surely have stories to tell…
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By Dave Campbell
This is a partial list of recent crimes in Berkeley based on information from the Berkeley Police Department and the UC Police Department. The calls for service spreadsheet is available on Google Docs. See also the San Francisco Chronicle’s regularly published list of arrests in Berkeley. For other sources of information on crime in Berkeley see BPD’s Community CrimeView and Crimemapping.com.
A car went off the road at Grizzly Peak Blvd on the evening of Friday June 8 and plunged 200-300 feet down the embankment. The car’s three occupants survived with relatively minor injuries.
Ann O’Brien was visiting from Iowa when she spotted what she thought was a coyote sunning itself on a deck in north Berkeley on Thursday. Clearly, the local wildlife is feeling comfortable in the urban environment — some would say making itself a little too much at home. Here at Berkeleyside, we’re not naturalists enough to provide a definitive identification of the animal. Is it a coyote or a fox? Let us know. (more…)
Sameer Gupta is on a mission to bring classical Indian music into places where it rarely ventures. A percussionist who plays tabla and trap drums, Gupta was a mainstay in Bay Area creative music circles until his 2008 move to Brooklyn, where he’s helped kindle a thriving Indian music scene with a weekly jazz-style jam session in a Prospect Park cowboy bar. He returns to California this weekend for a performance Sunday at the Subterranean Art House with Rohan Krishnamurthy , a master of mridangam, the drum that plays a central role in South Indian music.
Demolition work began this week on Berkeley High’s Old Gym on Milvia Street. The building has not been in use by students since October 2011 when it was abruptly closed by the school district. Its removal has been on the cards for a while, however.
For almost 70 years, there has been a Jim the Tailor in Berkeley.
On a recent Friday evening, City Councilmember Susan Wengraf put on a heavy bulletproof jacket and went on a ride-along with a Berkeley Police patrol officer. By the end of a thoroughly exciting night, Wengraf was talking enthusiastically about a second career in law enforcement — she had also been instrumental in solving a crime.
Last year, we tried a July 4th experiment on Berkeleyside. We encouraged readers to tweet, Facebook, blog, take photos and send us comments on what makes a Berkeley July 4th. We want to do it again this year, except make it even bigger and more inclusive.
A comparatively quiet City Council meeting sprang into life late last night as councilmembers discussed whether to prioritize street repair over watershed improvements in a November ballot bond measure. The council also approved unanimously to put a $19.4 million pools bond measure on the ballot, along with a parcel tax to pay for pools’ operational costs.
Cal fans might describe Eric Gellerman as a hero. Gellerman is a wood aficionado who owns Berkeley’s salvaged wood furniture store, The Wooden Duck. A few weeks ago, he discovered that all the bleachers that had been torn out of Memorial Stadium as part of its major retrofit were sitting in a warehouse in Oakland bound for an uncertain future in Mexico.
Know where this is? Take a guess and let us know in the Comments.
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