Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life

The Claremont district is a neighborhood straddling the city limits of Oakland and Berkeley in the East Bay section of the San Francisco Bay Area in California, United States. The main thoroughfares are Claremont and Ashby Avenues. The name "Claremont" was adopted December 20, 1879 at a meeting convened by a real estate developer and local resident, Grant Taggert. Within a year or so of this, the name of the main thoroughfare was changed from Telegraph Road to Claremont Avenue. The Telegraph Road had been named for the first telegraph line into Oakland, strung by the Alta Telegraph Company in 1859. The line ran from Martinez across the hills and down what was then named "Harwood's Canyon" after an early claimant to grazing lands in the canyon above the Claremont neighborhood, retired sea captain and Oakland wharfinger William Harwood. With the advent of the telegraph line, it became "Telegraph Canyon", a name that persists for a side canyon near the summit of the hills. The creek which runs through the Claremont neighborhood was first known as the north fork of Temescal Creek. It later became Harwood Creek, and eventually, Claremont Creek. During the 19th century, a stage coach line ran up the canyon and over the summit into Contra Costa County. This became an early auto route over the Berkeley Hills even after the first tunnel (the InterCounty Tunnel/Kennedy Tunnel) opened up in 1903 to the south of Claremont Canyon, at the top of Temescal Canyon above where the Caldecott Tunnel is today. In 1905, Duncan McDuffie opened up the Claremont Park development, an upscale tract with racial covenants, which prevented property owners from selling or renting to non-whites.In 1909, the portion of the district which now lies within the City of Oakland was annexed to the city. Until then, it had been an unincorporated area of Alameda County. In the early 1900s real estate interests associated with the Key System built the Claremont Hotel at the mouth of Claremont Canyon. The Key System ran one of its commuter train lines directly to the hotel up Claremont Avenue until service ended in 1958. This train became the transbay "E" train upon completion of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. The principal west-east thoroughfare through the Claremont was at first Russell Street which led directly to the road up Claremont Canyon. With the opening of the first tunnel however, Ashby became the more direct approach to the Tunnel Road and was improved over the years to channel through traffic, especially during the 1930s when both the new Broadway (later re-named Caldecott) Tunnel and the Bay Bridge were constructed. Ashby and Tunnel Road were then designated State Route 24 and connected to the Eastshore Highway (now Freeway) to serve as an access route to the Bay Bridge and San Francisco. Upon completion of the Grove-Shafter Freeway in the 1960s, it was re-designated State Route 13 and connected to the new Warren Freeway. The Claremont district was one of the areas affected by the 1991 Oakland firestorm. The flames came within a few blocks of the Claremont Hotel, destroying much of the area northeast of Tunnel Road. The area has since been rebuilt.

The California School for the Blind is a public educational institution for blind children, K-12, located in Fremont, California. Its campus is located next to the California School for the Deaf.

Maybeck High School is a coeducational, independent, college preparatory high school located in Berkeley, California.

The Julia Morgan Theater, located in the former St. John's Presbyterian Church, is a historic building in Berkeley, California designed by architect Julia Morgan. The wooden building at 2640 College Avenue is built in the American Craftsman style with an exterior wood-shingle finish known as Berkeley Brown Shingle. The church building was desanctified and sold when the congregation moved to a new building in 1974. It now houses the Berkeley Playhouse. The structure is #8 on the city of Berkeley's list of historic landmarks. In 1975 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places (listing #74000507).

The Elmwood District is a neighborhood of the City of Berkeley, California. It is primarily residential, with a small commercial area. The district does not have set lines of demarcation, but is focused around College and Ashby Avenues. The most extreme definitions of the district's boundaries do not extend past Telegraph Avenue to the west, Dwight Way to the north, or the Oakland city limit to the south. Elmwood was a streetcar suburb that was developed in the 1900s housing boom following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and was the first Berkeley subdivision to be assigned single-family residential zoning.It has a small commercial corridor on College Avenue, centered on the intersection of Ashby and College Avenues, that spans College Avenue about one to two blocks in each direction. The commercial corridor consists of small shops and restaurants that cater to local residents. There is also a small movie theater and a bank near the intersection. There are also a handful of businesses near the intersection of College Avenue and Derby Street. Elmwood was developed as a de facto segregated neighborhood, reinforced by Federal Housing Administration–guaranteed mortgages, which were not issued to African Americans. Homes purchased with FHA-guaranteed mortgages were closely scrutinized to ensure segregation was maintained. In one noted 1958 incident, a white San Francisco schoolteacher, Gerald Cohn, purchased a house with an FHA-guaranteed mortgage in Elmwood. By the closing date, Cohn was not ready to inhabit the property; while continuing to pay the mortgage, Cohn rented the house to a fellow teacher, Alfred Simmons, who was African American. The Berkeley Police Department asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate Simmons moving in to an all-white neighborhood. Cohn was not prosecuted, but the FHA blacklisted Cohn and prevented him from ever obtaining another government-backed mortgage. Such policies ensured the ongoing segregation of the Elmwood district. As of the 2010 census, census tracts 4237 and 4238, which encompass the Elmwood district, have the highest percentage white residents of any Alameda County census tract, hovering at 63% and 77% respectively. The housing stock in Elmwood is similar to surrounding areas of Berkeley and consists mostly of detached houses and small apartment buildings. The houses are generally moderate to large Brown Shingle, Arts and Crafts and Colonial Revival homes, sometimes one or two stories, that are usually landscaped with gardens and generally well-kept. The apartment buildings tend to be newer, usually built between the 1950s and 1970s, and become more numerous towards the adjacent Southside neighborhood. Alta Bates Hospital is located in Elmwood near Ashby and Telegraph Avenues. Maybeck High School, Willard Middle School, the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, the Claremont Branch of the Berkeley Public Library, and Willard Park are also located within a few blocks of the center of the neighborhood.

Claremont Club & Spa, A Fairmont Hotel is a historic hotel situated at the foot of Claremont Canyon in the Berkeley Hills and located in the Claremont district which straddles the city limits of Berkeley and Oakland. At its elevation (400 feet), the location provides scenic views of San Francisco Bay. The hotel building is entirely in Oakland, as are the spa, the gardens and parking area. However, two small portions of the property, one just east of the Berkeley Tennis Club and the other near the intersection of Claremont Avenue and Russell Street, are within the city limits of Berkeley, and the resort has a Berkeley mailing address (41 Tunnel Road, Berkeley CA 94705).The Berkeley Tennis Club leased a portion of the hotel grounds from 1917 to 1945. In 1945, the Club purchased this section of the grounds, and remains located at 1 Tunnel Road, Berkeley next to the hotel. The club's property straddles the Oakland-Berkeley city limits, which run down the former Key System E-train right of way that now serves as a pathway between the sets of courts. The Claremont has 279 guest rooms, a 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m2) spa, 10 tennis courts, and 22 acres (8.9 ha) of landscaped gardens. Romantic stories tell that it was once won in a checkers game. The hotel was nominated and deemed eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003, but was not listed due to owner objection. It is a designated Oakland City Historical Landmark.

Lothlorien (Also known as "Loth") is a cooperative house consisting of two former mansions built next to the University of California, Berkeley, United States. It is located on 2405 and 2415 Prospect Street. Along with Kingman Hall, Casa Zimbabwa and Cloyne Court Hotel it is one of the well known houses in the Berkeley Student Cooperative system. Both buildings are considered to be significant for their architecture and location. The North House was built in the 19th century for American attorney and one of the initial water rights advocates in the United States George Hebard Maxwell. Beginning in 1910s both mansions were converted into group homes, hosting multiple fraternity and sorority organizations. In the early 1970s both became home to the One World Family Commune cult that practiced a New Age, UFO centered religion. In 1975 the complex was sold to Berkeley Student Cooperative to become Lothlorien the vegetarian themed house. Lothlorien has retained some principles of the previous residents - a communal culture that emphasizes vegetarianism and artistic creativity and rejecting individualism and conservative social norms. It is known for progressive activism and is considered to be one of the flagships of the organization. In 1984, events involving Lothlorien residents made national news. Roberta 'Bibi' Lee, a former member disappeared while jogging in Oakland hills with two Lothlorien members, one of whom was her boyfriend; during the co-op organized search effort over 2,000 people volunteered and over 3 million leaflets were distributed along the west coast of the United States. Her body was found five weeks later, leading to her boyfriend being charged with murder. He was acquitted, but found guilty of manslaughter.

The Berkeley Piano Club was founded in 1893 by Berkeley women. In 1912 the club built a clubhouse designed by William L. Woollett with an internationally known performance space. It was designated a city historical landmark in 2005. The designation also includes the house, final home of John Galen Howard (his wife was club president from 1911-1913), in an upstairs workshop of which a trigger was designed for the atomic bomb by a Manhattan Project scientist. The landmark designation made the property eligible for state funding and a restoration was also completed in 2005.Nicolas Slonimsky lectured at the clubhouse in 1971.The club published a history for its centennial, The Berkeley Piano Club: One Hundred Years of Harmony by Mary F. Commanday.

Piedmont Avenue is a street in the city of Berkeley, California. Originally known as Piedmont Way, is the major street through the University of California, Berkeley's fraternity and sorority area. The street was originally named Piedmont Way. Piedmont Way was conceived in 1865 by Frederick Law Olmsted, America's foremost landscape architect. As the centerpiece of a gracious residential community close beside the College of California, Olmsted envisioned a roadway that would follow the natural contours of the land and be sheltered from sun and wind by "an overarching bowery of foliage." This curvilinear, tree-lined parkway was Olmsted's first residential street design. It has served as the model for similar parkways across the US. This original portion, now located between Gayley Road and Dwight Way, is designated as Berkeley Heritage and California Historical Landmark.

The Berkeley School of Theology (BST) is a theological school affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA and located in Berkeley, California. It is part of the Graduate Theological Union, a consortium of theological schools and centers in the Berkeley area. BST changed its name from the American Baptist Seminary of the West in July 2020. Prior to that it was called Berkeley Baptist Divinity School.

Panoramic Hill is a residential neighborhood of the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, California defined by the homes along and within the access corridor defined by Panoramic Way.

First Church of Christ, Scientist, Berkeley, now also known as Christian Science Society, Berkeley, is a Christian Science church, located at 2619 Dwight Way at Bowditch Street across the street from People's Park, in Berkeley, in Alameda County, California.The Christian Science Society, Berkeley continues to meet in their over-100-year-old church building.