Telegraph Avenue

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On a normal day, street vendors line Telegraph Avenue near the UC Berkeley campus. Pictured above: Several blocks of Telegraph are closed on Sundays for a street fair.

Telegraph Avenue (colloquially Telegraph or The Ave for short) is a street which begins, at its southernmost point, in the midst of the historic downtown district of Oakland, California and ends, at its northernmost point, at the southern edge of the University of California, Berkeley campus in Berkeley, California. It is approximately 4.5 miles (7 km) in length. Most popularly, Telegraph refers to a four-block section just south of the university, from Bancroft Way (which borders the campus) to Dwight Way, and is often remembered as a setting for riots or protests dating from the 1960s. As a staple of campus and community life, Telegraph Avenue is home to many restaurants, bookstores, and clothing shops, along with street vendors occupying its wide sidewalks. Telegraph Avenue attracts a diverse audience of visitors, including college students, tourists, street punks, eccentrics, and the homeless.

As a result of heavy foot traffic, the area near the Berkeley campus is designated as a one-way street by the city for the purposes of traffic calming, and there have been talks of completely eliminating car access, a topic still hotly debated in the city council.

History

The Fox Theatre is located on the southern end of Telegraph Avenue, in Downtown Oakland.

Telegraph Avenue originated as two separate streets.

In 1858 a telegraph line was constructed between Oakland and Martinez, and the existing roads which ran alongside it were then re-named The Telegraph Road. (The segment which ran from downtown Oakland out to the Peralta estate in Temescal was first known as the "Peralta Road". The segment which ran to and up Haywood's (now Claremont) Canyon was first known as "Haywood's Road".)

The Telegraph Road followed the route of present day Telegraph Avenue from Downtown Oakland to Temescal, then ran along what is now Claremont Avenue over the hills into Contra Costa County, where it followed the path that Highway 24 now takes.

In Berkeley, the trustees of the private College of California (the predecessor of the university) laid out a residential subdivision south of their new campus in order to finance its construction. The streets were named alphabetically from east to west; the third street was named Choate Street, after Rufus Choate. Oakland subsequently extended a road to connect with Berkeley's Choate and used the same name for it.

Oakland's first horsecar line was built in 1869 and ran along Telegraph Road to 36th Street. It was extended to Temescal a year later, then to the university campus via Choate Street after the university relocated from Oakland in 1873. A business district grew up along Choate Street. The horsecar line stimulated the development of neighborhoods along its route, as well as an amusement park (Idora Park, between 56th and 58th Streets), and was eventually upgraded to an electric streetcar when the technology became available.

When the segment of the Telegraph Road leading up to Haywood's Canyon was re-named "Claremont" to suit the interests of a developer of the district, the cities of Berkeley and Oakland opted to change the name of Choate to Telegraph since Oakland's portion of Choate was already aligned with what remained of the old Telegraph Road between the new Claremont and downtown Oakland.

In 1910 Sather Gate was built at the northern end of Telegraph Avenue. The university built Sproul Hall on Telegraph in the 1940s. In the 1950s the campus expanded south to Bancroft Way; Telegraph Avenue was shortened by 1½ blocks and buildings were demolished to make room for Sproul Plaza and several other new buildings including the new student union building.

The 1960s saw the construction of the Grove Shafter Freeway, which parallels Telegraph Avenue half a block west, between Downtown Oakland and 56th Street. The freeway created a wall between Telegraph Avenue and present day Martin Luther King Jr. Way, and sliced the Temescal District in half.

The Berkeley end of Telegraph Avenue, along with Sproul Plaza, has been the site of numerous protests and riots beginning in the 1960s.

In 1969, Telegraph was the site of massive confrontation between police and demonstrators during the conflict over People's Park. Alameda County Sheriff's deputies killed one man (James Rector) and permanently blinded another (Alan Blanchard) when they fired buckshot loaded shotguns at people sitting on the roof above Telegraph Ave. At one point, protestors were chased down Telegraph as far as Willard Junior High School (now Willard Middle School) at Derby Street, with Sheriff's deputies firing shotguns into the backs of fleeing protestors.

Over the next couple of decades the Berkeley end of Telegraph became home to increasing numbers of homeless people and panhandlers, and by the 1990s had become a destination point for runaways from around the United States.

More recently, a Korean business district has emerged between Temescal and Downtown Oakland.

A large Ethiopian and Eritrean population in Oakland has also turned a good deal of Telegraph Avenue in Oakland (around 30th St.) into a string of related restaurants, cafes and social clubs for people from Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Telegraph Avenue

History

See also