The mid-1920s seem to have been an era of extensive church construction in Berkeley a century ago.
Not only was the economy generally prosperous, but the local population was growing and new neighborhoods were being populated. This was fertile ground for expanding or replacing the physical structures of older churches and building new ones in the city’s newer districts.
Two weeks ago I mentioned of the kickoff of fundraising for a massive new Trinity United Methodist Church along Dana Street between Bancroft Way and Durant Avenue. This week, we see that just two blocks away, on Durant east of Telegraph Avenue, the Epworth University Church dedicated its new building on April 4, 1925.
The “old” Epworth church stood at the northeast corner of Telegraph and Durant avenues and had just been torn down for a commercial building (last week’s column featured a picture of the previous church). According to the Berkeley Daily Gazette, the new building was “built of brick and steel along Gothic architectural lines,” and architect James Plachek helped design it.
The new church complex opened in April 1925 on the south side of Durant. It included not only a big sanctuary but, at the rear, four stories of Sunday school and educational spaces. The main sanctuary could accommodate 1,000 people.
The Gazette called it “a monumental house of God that will last a lifetime” — not quite. Less than half a century later, the building was sold, demolished and replaced in the 1960s by a three-level commercial mall that’s still there today. The congregation relocated to their current quarters at 1953 Hopkins St. in North Berkeley.
Huge fleet: The biggest single war fleet that had ever visited San Francisco Bay entered the Golden Gate on Sunday, April 4, 1925. A combined armada of the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific Fleets arrived, with many of the ships dropping anchor on “Battleship Row” off San Francisco’s southern waterfront.
The array had nearly 150 ships, from support vessels and submarines to massive battleships. In mid-April the fleet would sail for Hawaii and engage in maneuvers “to train both the Army and Navy forces in joint operations in order that they may become practiced in cooperating with each other.”
This turned out to be sensible planning for World War II, which would require such operations on a massive scale in the Pacific less than a quarter century later.
Tunnel road: Berkeley was looking at building “an impressive electrical archway over the Tunnel Road to welcome motorists to Berkeley” the Gazette reported April 4, 1925.
This was part of the boosterism of the 1920s. Today, of course, most residents along Tunnel Road, Ashby Avenue and adjoining streets would bristle at the idea of promoting the car-congested road as a way to enter Berkeley.
Bigger roads: Berkeley’s Bernard Maybeck had some thoughts on roadways the same day the Gazette reported on the Tunnel Road sign. Speaking at the Berkeley chapter of the Pen Women’s League, he advocated for “a boulevard 300 feet wide, extending from Carquinez straits to Niles and connecting all East Bay communities … .”
“This boulevard,” Maybeck said, “should be parked and planted so as to present at all times of the year an unequaled paradise of blooms” (“parked” in that era meant planted space, not vehicle parking).
Maybeck referenced the rebuilding of Paris by Napoleon III, with grand connecting boulevards. A 300-foot wide boulevard never emerged, but we did get giant freeways on a similar scale and route. That’s likely not what Maybeck had in mind, though.
Bay Area native and Berkeley community historian Steven Finacom holds this column’s copyright.
