Lake Anza

The 1923 Berkeley Fire was a conflagration that consumed some 640 structures, including 584 homes in the densely-built neighborhoods north of the campus of the University of California in Berkeley, California on September 17, 1923. Although the exact cause was never determined, the fire began in the undeveloped chaparral and grasslands of Wildcat Canyon, just east of the ridgeline of the Berkeley Hills, and was propelled over the ridge and southwestward just south of Codornices Creek by a strong, gusty, and intensely dry northeasterly wind. The fire quickly blew up as it swept through the La Loma Park and Northside neighborhoods of Berkeley, overwhelming the capabilities of the Berkeley Fire Department to stop it. A number of UC students fought the advance of the fire as it approached the north edge of the University of California campus, at Hearst Avenue. The other edge of the fire was fought by firefighters as it advanced on downtown Berkeley along the east side of Shattuck Avenue north of University Avenue. Firefighters were rushed in from neighboring Oakland, and San Francisco sent firefighters by ferry across the bay. Firefighting efforts were hampered by the inadequacy of water mains in northern Berkeley, where rapid development after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake had outgrown the water supply in the fire area. Firefighters trying to fight the fire connected to hydrants in the area that hissed dry and were hampered also by the predominance of cedar shake roofs. The strong and dry wind lifted burning shakes off burning houses and quickly spread the fire. The fire was halted only when the northeasterly winds died down and were replaced by the cool, humid afternoon sea breeze. The fire lines were established at Hearst and Shattuck Avenues, where larger diameter water mains delivered a reliable water supply for firefighting. Building styles in North Berkeley changed dramatically after the 1923 fire, with stucco and tile roof homes largely, but not entirely, replacing the wood-sided and cedar-shaked construction styles popularized by the Berkeley Hillside Club before the fire.As a belated result of the fire, the City of Berkeley constructed a fire station in the hills at 2931 Shasta Road (at Queens Road) just below Grizzly Peak Blvd, in 1948. In the early 2000s, this station was replaced and relocated to a nearby site just above Grizzly Peak Blvd. at 3000 Shasta Road, on the interface between the residential area and Tilden Regional Park, very close to the putative origin of the 1923 fire.

The Tilden Park Merry-Go-Round is a menagerie carousel located in Tilden Regional Park near Berkeley and Oakland, in unincorporated Contra Costa County. It was built by the Herschell-Spillman Company of Tonawanda, New York in 1911, and it is one of the few antique carousels left in the United States. Before arriving at Tilden in 1948, the carousel had seen service at amusement parks in San Bernardino, Ocean Beach, and Los Angeles. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Merry-Go-Round is owned by the East Bay Regional Park District.

The Regional Parks Botanic Garden is a 10-acre (4 hectare) botanical garden located in Tilden Regional Park in the Berkeley Hills, east of Berkeley, California, in the United States. It showcases California native plants, and is open to the public in daylight hours every day of the year except New Year's Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The Garden was founded on January 1, 1940.

Tilden Regional Park, also known as Tilden Park or Tilden, [tɪldɨn], is a 2,079-acre (841 ha) regional park in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. It is between the Berkeley Hills and San Pablo Ridge. Its main entrance is near Kensington, Berkeley, and Richmond. The park is contiguous with Wildcat Canyon Regional Park. The park is managed by the East Bay Regional Park District, created from the first land the District purchased in 1936. Tilden Regional Park was named in honor of Charles Lee Tilden, a Bay Area attorney and businessman who served on the first Board of Directors of the East Bay Regional Park District.

The Tilden Park Golf Course is a public golf course in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Cragmont area of Berkeley is a residential district located in the northeastern section of the city, occupying most of the hill area north of Codornices Creek. It lies at an elevation of 755 feet (230 m). The Cragmont area was mostly grassland with oak and bay laurel trees in the canyons until the beginnings of the American era. The area was named for the various rock outcroppings which occur throughout the district. It was first developed as grazing land in the late 19th century. When a one-mile (1.6 km) exclusion zone for the sale of liquor was imposed with respect to the campus of the University of California, a local farmer opened up a saloon at what is now the corner of Spruce Street and Marin Avenue. Today, there are no commercial areas in the district. In the early 20th century, a streetcar line operated by the Key System was opened up along Euclid Avenue to Hilgard Street near the University campus. It was soon extended up Euclid as far as Regal Road, one block south of Marin Avenue. The area was immediately put up for sale for residential development. Many homes in the Cragmont area command an outstanding view of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate. On the other hand, houses are closely spaced and there are many trees, posing a very high fire hazard during episodes of warm, dry and windy weather. There are also a number of active slides, and the Hayward Fault, a major branch of the San Andreas Fault, cuts right through the district, roughly along the alignment of (from south to north) La Loma-Euclid-Spruce streets.

La Loma Park is a tract of land located in the Berkeley Hills section of the city of Berkeley, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Spanish word loma means "rise/low hill". It was the property of Captain Richard Parks Thomas, a veteran of the Civil War and Berkeley businessman. Today, it is entirely a residential area. Although hilly throughout, its average elevation is about 614 feet (187 m).Captain Thomas' home was located on the site of what is today Greenwood Terrace. Some of the large trees here were originally planted by Captain Thomas and managed to survive the devastating fire of 1923 which swept through this part of Berkeley. Thomas enclosed his vast property with a low, whitewashed fence on its north, west and south sides, leaving the east side — the upper hillside — open.Captain Thomas was the owner of the Standard Soap Company in West Berkeley, president of the California National Bank of San Francisco, and owner of the Berkeley Ferryboat Line. He had a reputation as a friend of the working man and an eccentric character, and was probably the first person who inspired the nickname for the district: "Nut Hill". An old map includes a notation that he kept an illegal still on his property. He devised a scheme for an aerial tramway running from the Berkeley flatlands to the hills. Every Fourth of July, he fired off an old civil war cannon from "Fort La Loma", a plaza he constructed up the hill from his home. The site is today occupied by "Hume Cloister," also known as "Hume Castle" on Buena Vista Way, named for Samuel James Hume and his wife, who had architect John Hudson Thomas design a reduced-scale replica of a cloister in Toulouse, France.In the 19th century, a stone quarry was opened at the head of Codornices Creek, abutting the north boundary of the La Loma Park tract. Some of the rock quarried here had a pinkish hue and was used to tint the concrete sidewalks and pathways throughout parts of North Berkeley, a practice that has been maintained by the City to this day, albeit using tint from other sources. The quarry was closed by the 1940s. In the late 1960s the quarry was made into a public park, "Glendale-La Loma Park".A number of notable people have lived in the La Loma Park/Nut Hill area over the years, including many professors from the University of California, Berkeley, among them, J. Robert Oppenheimer and his nemesis-colleague, Edward Teller. Famed San Francisco Bay Area architect Bernard Maybeck made his home here, as well as the homes of several others in the neighborhood, a fact memorialized by Maybeck Twin Drive off of Buena Vista above La Loma. Further up Buena Vista is a structure known as the Temple of the Wings with its Grecian columns, an early 20th-century bohemian hangout.A former public school, Hillside Elementary School is located in the La Loma district on the block bounded by Le Roy Avenue, Buena Vista Way and La Loma Avenue. It is registered as a local historic landmark. The present structure was built after the 1923 fire destroyed its predecessor, located on the southwest corner of Le Roy and Virginia Street. Hillside was closed as a public school both because of a declining school-age population and because it sits immediately adjacent to the Hayward Fault, which runs directly behind it on La Loma Avenue.Upon being subdivided and developed, some residents of the district formed the La Loma Improvement Club. One of their efforts included subsidizing the northward extension of the Euclid Avenue streetcar line from Hilgard to the Berryman Reservoir, which today is adjacent to Codornices Park and the Berkeley Rose Garden. The Euclid line was first constructed in 1903 as an extension of the Telegraph Avenue streetcar line, and originally terminated at Hilgard and Arch streets. The extension to the Berryman Reservoir (Rose Street, now Rose Walk) was completed in August 1910. A subsequent further extension was made in 1912, across Codornices Canyon, by means of a trestle for both streetcar and autos. The line was built to Regal Road and remained active until the end of all streetcar service in 1948.

Temple of Wings is a historic Greco-Roman style private estate located at 2800 Buena Vista Way in the La Loma Park neighborhood of Berkeley, California. The main structure was designed by Bernard Maybeck and completed by A. Randolph Monro. It was originally designed as an open-air private home dedicated to modern and contemporary dance. It has been listed by the city as a Berkeley Landmark (no. 173) since January 6, 1992, and is listed in the California State Historic Resources Inventory. It is sometimes known as the Temple of Winds, the Boynton House, and the Charles C. Boynton House.

The Andrew Cowper Lawson House is a historic private residence at 1515 La Loma Avenue in the La Loma Park neighborhood in Berkeley, California, U.S.. It has been listed as a Berkeley Landmark (no. 15) by the city since August 16, 1976.It was designed by Bernard Maybeck for British geologist Andrew Cowper Lawson. It is located directly on the Hayward fault, and was designed to withstand earthquakes (with the knowledge of the time). The house resembled a "Pompeian villa" made of reinforced concrete that was covered in colored stucco that has sgraffito and inlaid tiles. The Lawson house was only one of two houses to have survived the big fire in 1923 because of its materials.

The Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) is an Organized Research Unit (ORU) of the University of California, Berkeley. Founded in 1959, the laboratory is located in the Berkeley Hills above the university campus. It has developed and continues to develop many projects in the space sciences, including the search for extraterrestrial life (SETI@home).

The Lawrence Hall of Science is a public science center in Berkeley, California that offers hands-on science exhibits, designs curriculum, aids professional development, and offers after school science resources to students of all ages. The Hall was established in 1968 in honor of physicist Ernest Orlando Lawrence (1901–1958), the University of California's first Nobel laureate. The Hall is located in the hills above the University of California, Berkeley campus, less than a mile uphill from the University's Botanical Garden.

The Rose Walk, formerly known as Rose Street, is a historic pathway with landscaping designed by architect Bernard Maybeck in the La Loma Park neighborhood of Berkeley, California, U.S.. It is located in the 2500 block of Rose Walk, between Euclid Avenue and Le Roy Avenue. It is listed by the city as a Berkeley Landmark, since December 15, 1975. The Rose Walk has a historical marker erected in 1998 by Berkeley Historical Plaque Project.