History
Southside began in the 1860s as real estate development by the private College of California, the predecessor to the university. The trustees of the college hoped to raise money for their new campus by selling plots of land adjacent to the campus. The trustees initially hired Frederick Law Olmsted to plan the new town, but eventually decided to go for a more traditional grid layout. Except for a small area around Piedmont Avenue designed by Olmsted, the streets were laid out in a 1/8 by 1/8 mile grid, and named alphabetically for prominent academics.
The east-west oriented streets were named in order from the northernmost to the southernmost street: Allston, Bancroft, Channing, and Dwight, all of which retain their old names. The north-south oriented streets were named from easternmost to westernmost: Audubon (now College), Bowditch, Choate (now Telegraph), Dana, Ellsworth, and Fulton. These initial blocks have been subdivided by the insertion of Durant Avenue, and Haste, Kittredge, and Atherton Streets.
The neighborhood didn't begin to grow until after 1873, when the university moved to Berkeley from Downtown Oakland. The neighborhood was connected to Oakland by a horsecar (then streetcar) line along present-day Telegraph Avenue. It grew steadily over the next few decades, with a business district along the streetcar line, and farmhouses and mansions, then rooming-houses, apartments, hotels, churches, and new streets filling the large blocks.
By the 1920s the area was a dense urban neighborhood extending as far north as Strawberry Creek. In the 1930s the university campus began expanding southward into the neighborhood, beginning with Edwards Stadium and Harmon Gym. In the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, the entire area north of Bancroft Way was acquired by the university and demolished for new campus buildings and Sproul Plaza. During this time the university also greatly expanded its student housing, taking several city blocks within Southside by eminent domain to construct high-rise dormitory "units". One of the blocks acquired and demolished during this wave of expansion became the centerpiece of a conflict with people who wanted it to become a neighborhood park. The protests and riots over People's Park became one of the symbolic events of the 1960s, and the park remains a source of controversy and conflict today.
Read more about this topic: Southside, Berkeley, California
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