on campus

So first I was listening to Rachel Maddow's podcast on the mysterious death of Senator Ernest Lundeen in 1940 and his connection to Nazi propagandists, and then I read Wikipedia's article on the America First Committee - which wasn't founded until just after Lundeen died - and saw a photo labeled "Students at the University of California (Berkeley) participate in a one-day peace strike opposing U.S. entrance into World War II, April 19, 1940."

I attended UC Berkeley myself 35 years later, so I was curious as to exactly where that photo was taken. I couldn't enlarge it more than this, but that was almost enough to read the signs on the shops at the far side of the photo. The sign on the corner building reads "Sather Gate Inn."

Aha. Sather Gate is a symbolic gateway on the bridge over Strawberry Creek. It's now well inside campus, but I knew that it was once the entrance to campus. Before 1960, Sproul Plaza, which leads from the edge of campus at Bancroft Way up to Sather Gate, was an additional street block of Telegraph Avenue, which now terminates at Bancroft. And the west side of that block, where the Student Union and Student Center which now stand there were built in 1960, had shops. This must have been the Sather Gate end of that block.

But wait! There's a street sign reading "Allston Way." Allston? Allston is a street in downtown Berkeley off to the west. It's that far north of Bancroft, but it didn't go up to Telegraph. Or did it?

With a little searching, I found a 1942 map of campus online (click on the image to enlarge it). And sure enough, what is now a pedestrian pathway tucked between the Student Center and the creek was then a street which bore Allston's name. The low-slung building behind the cars parked on the street must be the university YWCA shown on the map.

So this photo must have been taken from a perch up on Sather Gate (on the right side of the photo above), facing southwest (the map has east at the top). Here's a current photo taken from within where the crowd was in 1940, probably from about where the flag is, facing in the same direction. That's the Student Center cafeteria, The Golden Bear, in front, where Sather Gate Inn used to be, with the Student Union looming over to the left.

I find it fascinating to compare the 1942 map with a current map of campus. Many buildings built, some demolished (including the old Chemistry Building whose cupola is the only surviving relic). The chemists who were creating plutonium at about the time of the old map were working in the then-new chemistry building, Gilman Hall, which still stands: there's a plaque by the door of their lab.

The other thing I should note about the current map is the note "Closed for Construction" just below Bowditch Street near the right-side middle of the map. That's where People's Park used to be.