East Bay: Berkeley Archives
Rendering Reveal: Berkeley's New "Highrise"
Some new details have emerged on the Arpeggio, the new Berkeley mixed-use development and possible harbinger of a new vertical growth trend in the city — or at least as vertical as things are likely to get in Berkeley. The nine-story building, located at 2055 Center Street, will include 143 condos, 5,000 square feet of retail space, and 10,000 square feet of rehearsal space for the Berkeley Repertory Theater. It's this theater space, as well as the included affordable units, that helped persuade the city to permit developers to build the Arpeggio higher than the current five-story restriction allows. Some Berkeley officials—and surely many Bay Area developers—think the city will be easing height limits and building restrictions in the near future. Berkeley, we didn't know you had it in you.
· New Berkeley tower will be 1st in decades [SF Business Times]
· Building in Berkeley?! [Curbed SF]
[image via SNK Realty Group]
Tree Sitters, Meet Chainsaws
Forget the trees — the Berkeley tree-sitters are an endangered species living in a shrinking habitat. One by one they drop out of the foliage, yet in this precarious state they still manage to multiply, with the latest count at four (it was three last time we checked). At their wit's end, Berkeley had their chainsaws roll in yesterday for some tree prunage, "for one reason and one reason only ... to ensure that we can keep the tree sitters contained to a single tree." Get cozy, tree critters. [ABC 7]
Three Tree-Sitters Left. Again.
Continuing the countdown as Berkeley's tree-sitters drop unconscious from their tree voluntarily surrender, the latest to go is one 30-year-old, moniker-less Jeffrey Musgrave — leaving three remaining in a single tree. Wait a minute— at last count (when Dumpster Muffin departed, as you may recall), there were three remaining. So where did this mystery guy come from? If the tree-sitters keep multiplying in the face of adversity, Berkeley's gonna have to re-strategize. [NBC 11]
Cal Treesitter "Dumpster Muffin" Retires
Following in the footsteps of her esteemed colleague "Squirtle," Berkeley tree-sitter "Dumpster Muffin" gave up the good fight yesterday to join the rest of the earthbound. Cal's two-week war of attrition on the protesters leaves only three remaining now in the trees. Perched in the "God pod," the tree-sitters were denied a grandmother's love and all but four energy bars each and 10 gallons of water a day. The remaining sitters are expected to soldier on for at least another two weeks, when Cal's lawyers go to court again. [ABC 7]
"Squirtle" Alights from Berkeley Trees
Two of the Berkeley treesitters, one of whom goes by the alias "Squirtle," are on lock down in the Berkeley City Jail after finally coming down from the trees— to smoke a cigarette. There's one for the grandkids. [Oakland Tribune]
Greener Than Thou: Berkeley (Finally) Cuts Down Treehuggers
Greener Than Thou is our report on San Francisco’s obsession with all things green, giving credit where credit is due and calling bullshit when the need arises. Feeling morally superior on the green front? Testify!
Cal has made its most decisive move in an eighteen-month standoff with the group of up to 11 environmental activists bunkered down (err, up) in the trees outside Memorial Stadium: Today, 40 police officers cordoned off the sidewalk on Piedemont Avenue, where arborists, a crane, and a cherry picker have been hauled in to literally cut the treesitters out of their aerial encampment. "We are removing gear and removing lines. We are not removing people," said a university spokesman in a dubious statement that prompts us to wonder where, exactly, the protesters have relocated to. Up, up, up! The surprise ambush comes a day before a Alameda County Superior Court judge rules to rule on a lawsuit filed by those protesters, city and a neighborhood groups against the University, which plans to raze the area in order to construct a new, $125 million sports training center. In a tactical maneuver designed to make said judge take their petition extra super seriously, protesters have taken to throwing human waste at the team of arborists charged with their removal. Savages!
· UC cutting tree-sitters' lines in grove outside Memorial Stadium [SF Gate]
· Will Break Bones for Trees [Curbed SF]
· Tree Huggers be damned [Curbed SF]
[Image courtesy the Chron]
Berkeley Art Museum: Game On for Toyo Ito
New deets are out on Japanese architect Toyo Ito's new building for the Berkeley Art Museum, the plans for which first dropped a few months back. Ito bases many of his designs on the grid, and the new BAM-to-be is no exception: the gallery walls form a grid-like pattern, undulating to form several floors' worth of variegated spaces, which should suit a collection that ranges from the traditional to the ephemeral. (Did you know that BAM was one of the first institutions to collect conceptual art in the 1960's? Well, you do now.)
Note that the existing Mario Ciampi-designed museum won't get the wrecking ball— it will undergo a seismic retrofit and be put to alternate use. As for the current space, Chron's John King considers it an inflexible one: "the wide-open form and stone-hard structure limits its adaptability to new forms of art, such as video installations." A simple read, if we do say. Sure, the space is far from perfect, but anyone who caught Tomás Saraceno's installation of floating "inhabitable spaces" a few months back (suspended from the ceiling, no less) might agree that it's not that rigid an exhibitions space. Hell, we've even seen a painting or two hang from time to time. Back to Ito ...
Hard-hitting analysis, and a prediction or two >>Berkeley: On the Cutting Edge?
No really, it has been for a long time! Says Mayor Tom Bates in today's Chron: "Any time you're cutting edge, you're sometimes going to make a mistake or go too far," he said. "Eighty percent of our ideas don't go anywhere, but 20 percent have some real wisdom and vision. What works in Berkeley happens elsewhere in three to five years." Berkeley as trend setter? Yeah or nay? [SF Gate]
Back on the Market: Fam Can't Hack the Green Day House
Back in November, Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt flipped his Oakland/ Berkeley (whatevs) home for $1,550,000, well below his initial asking price of $1,699,000; the house (and its 45-foot diameter hot tub) had languished on the market since the previous May. And now it's back on the block (For an undisclosed price. Anyone?). Looks like the fam who purchased the place just can't hack it. Reports a reader from the nabe:
Just thought you might want to know for yo' blog that the green day house is once more back on the market as of last week. While the shouts and screams of children were heard for several months, it appears the new family/owners didn't care for Roble Road— or more likely couldn't hack the mortgage...· Bye Bye Green Day: Dirnt Sells Oakland Home (finally) [Curbed SF]
36 Hours in Berkeley: NYT Gets its Snob on, Left Coast Style
[ (insert dry sarcasm here) Iconic image of Telegraph Avenue courtesy Peter DaSilva for The New York Times]
The New York Times sent its intrepid travel critic to Berkeley for it's regular "36 hours in ..." feature. Our visitor hit some of the obvious spots— Moe's Books, the Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley Bowl, what have you— dropping more than a few oh-so-astute observations along the way. Oh Gulliver, you amuse us so:
· "College Avenue, the town’s main drag, is packed with more hipsters with BlackBerrys than hippies with beards ..." Let's try "Cal" swag and L.L. Bean backpack-sporting engineering majors squinting over graphing calculators. OK, so there is an American Apparel in the 'hood, but it's Friday— let us have our fun.
· On the Saturday Farmers' Market: "The Berkeley market is run by actual farmers and has a workingman’s vibe." On Berkeley Bowl: "grab a roasted chicken and fresh beet salad at the deli counter, and snack on it while arguing with the various activists who congregate outside the Bowl’s doors."
· "Skip the Berkeley Art Museum, which has only a middling collection." Note that the BAM was the first institution in the United States to actively collect conceptual art. So ...
Mentions of hippies, activists, and "grungy-looking graduate students": 5 or so, depending on how you count. Mentions of Alice Waters: 0. Adjectives used: hipsters, hippies, crusty purple-haired free love followers, little folks, middling, eclectic, bookish, know-it-all
· 36 Hours in Berkeley, Calif. [NYT]
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