A narrow alley runs between Ridge Road and Hearst Avenue behind the stores on the west side of Euclid Avenue. On business days it is filled with parked cars, some pointed south, some north. There are many overflowing trash cans. There are often homeless people camping or spending the day out of sight. There are odors of cooking from the Euclid restaurants, garbage from the overflowing bins, and urine. It is not entirely pleasant.
On the southern half of the block there is a chain-link fence separating the alley from a parking garage. Meticulously and firmly attached to that fence are hundreds, probably thousands, of lost/found objects. Many are Cal-themed and sports-themed. But there are also stuffed animals, worse for the wear and the elements. There are toys and advertisements and promotional objects and paintings and beads.
There is no plan. It is pure chaos, pure artistic anarchy. If any Berkeleyside readers can shed further light on this collection of lost and found objects, please let us know in the comments.
Tom Dalzell, a labor lawyer, created a website, Quirky Berkeley, to share all the whimsical objects he has captured with his iPhone. The site now has more than 8,600 photographs of quirky objects around town as well as posts where the 30-year resident muses on what it all means.
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