Photo: Nacio Jan Brown For decades, Telegraph Avenue has been the Boulevard of Unconventional Berkeley — a Bohemian enclave, then the Free Speech Movement, anti-Vietnam War, People’s Park, hippies, punks, street people. Before the Big Changes of the late 1960s, on Telegraph you could buy out-of-town and foreign-language newspapers, croissants, espresso drinks, Turkish cigarettes and Gauloises. You could […]
Tom Dalzell
Freelancer Tom Dalzell has lived in Berkeley since 1984. After working for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers for 10 years as a legal worker and then lawyer, he went to work for another labor union in 1981 and has been there since, first as an attorney, and, since 2006, as its elected leader. In his free time he walks the streets of Berkeley, street by street and block by block, recording and photographing the quirky material culture that he finds. Dalzell, who is an expert on slang, writes the Quirky Berkeley blog and contributes to Berkeleyside about his finds, both in the present tense and with an occasional foray into Berkeley’s non-conformist past.
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How Quirky is Berkeley? Frank Moore’s Curtis Street home
1231 Curtis St. Photo: John Storey The front yard of 1231 Curtis Street is ultra-Berkeley Quirky — peace signs, bright colors, tie-dye motif, happy words. 1231 Curtis St. Photo: John Storey 1231 Curtis St. Photo: Colleen Neff 1231 Curtis St. Photo: Colleen Neff 1231 Curtis St. Photo: Colleen Neff As things now stand, the door is […]
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How Quirky is Berkeley? Berkeley rocks quirky
815 The Alameda. Photo: John Storey In 2007, Ten Speed Press published Jonathan Chester’s Berkeley Rocks: Building with Nature. It is a beautiful and insightful book about how we in Berkeley have built our homes and landscaped around the large rock formations that are part of our geological heritage. This post is not about that. Here, […]
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Quirky Berkeley: Will Squier’s sufficiently strange kitsch
Will Squier’s apartment. Photo: John Storey Will Squier’s apartment. Photo: John Storey One of my original rules of engagement for the Quirky Berkeley project was that the material culture (a.k.a. “stuff”) that I recorded and photographed and presented, be visible from the street, public path, or alley. Seeing Will Squier’s South Berkeley apartment and his […]
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How Quirky is Berkeley? OMG quirkiness on McKinley
2233 McKinley Ave.. Photo: John Storey In the beginning, 2233 McKinley Ave. was part of a 1960s commune, Dragon’s Eye. Michael Rossman, of Free Speech Movement fame, and Karen McLellan were central figures within the commune. The focus of the commune was educational reform. Howie Gordon first came to the house on McKinley in 1969. […]
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How Quirky is Berkeley? Arlene Mayerson and Allan Tinker
The home of Arlene Mayerson and Allan Tinker: a treasure trove of art and quirk. Photo: John Storey In the hills behind the Claremont, within a Berkeley zip code, is the home of Arlene Mayerson and Allan Tinker. For what they do, what they collect, and what they make, sculptor/gardener Marcia Donahue has crowned them […]
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Elio De Pisa’s photographs capture Berkeley as it was
Berkeley Then is a collection of photographs by Elio De Pisa with text by his wife, Diane De Pisa There exist several photographic records of Telegraph Avenue in the 1960s: Rag Theater by Nacio Jan Brown (1975) and Telegraph 3 a.m. by Richard Misrach (1975). There now is a third, Berkeley Then, photographs by Elio de Pisa, text by Diane […]
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How Quirky is Berkeley? Jana Olson’s lamps and garden
Anakroid lamp by Jana Olson. Photo: John Storey Jana Olson is equally at home in her Panache Lighting studio in West Berkeley (2743 Ninth St.) as she is in her house in a ravine on Shasta Road in the hills, which comes with an art-filled garden and 350 tons of rocks and granite stabilizing the hillside. […]
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How Quirky Was Berkeley? Bye Bye Birdie
Remnants of rustic birdhouses, 1733 Sacaramento St. Photo: John Storey Berkeley is less quirky today than it was a week ago. The gods and goddesses of quirk shed a tear. Three years in the leaving, Mike Parayno has now completed his move from Berkeley to the Philippines, maintaining Bay Area ties with the Birdland Jazzista […]
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How Quirky is Berkeley? Fredric Fierstein’s gifts to the city
The Guardian, base of University Avenue. Photo: John Storey Fredric Fierstein is responsible for two quirky gifts to the people of Berkeley, the Guardian statue at the base of University Avenue and the Buddhist shrine in front of his house on Arch Street. 1175 Arch St. Photo: John Storey Fredric Fierstein. Photo: John Storey Fierstein […]
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How Quirky is Berkeley? Dick and Beany Wezelman’s love for Africa
African mud hut at 1026 Shattuck Avenue. Photo: John Storey On the residential leg of Shattuck Avenue, in the block just south of Los Angeles Avenue, tucked among the stately homes is a stucco house with African-themed designs. And an African mud hut in the backyard. 1026 Shattuck Avenue. Photo: John Storey Mark Bulwinkle steel […]
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How Quirky is Berkeley? Peter Mitchell’s car-part bugs
Peter Mitchell with bug. Photo: John Storey From 1970 until sometime five or eight or ten years ago, Peter Mitchell ran Peter’s Automotive, first on San Pablo Avenue, and then at 1745 Cedar at Grant, kitty-corner from Fatdawg’s Subway Guitars. In his spare time, he used welding skills he picked up from a childhood on […]
