The idea of what would become Grizzly Peak Boulevard took tangible form a century ago when a court approved condemnation proceedings against the East Bay Water Co. so that a strip 3 miles long and 70 feet wide could be acquired by Berkeley and Oakland and developed with a public “skyline boulevard.”
County Supervisor Redmond Staats said Alameda County could find $200,000 to build the road. It would provide “one of the finest motor drives in California. It will also act as a wonderful fire break along the ridge,” the Berkeley Daily Gazette reported Nov. 18, 1925, the day of the court ruling.
Open house: That telephone company open house that I mentioned in last week’s column was a popular destination in November 1925. On the first day, 600 residents visited and 1,100 on the second day came through the building at 2116 Bancroft Way housing a new modern telephone exchange between Shattuck Avenue and Fulton Street.
Visitors included city councilmembers, people from local service clubs, classes of Berkeley high school students and “a group of Berkeley’s early pioneers who have seen the city grow from a small hamlet” and “took occasion to be reminiscent over those early days and compared the Berkeley of that time with the present city of commerce, industry and residential beauty.”
Debate suppressed: In the third week of November 1925, UC President William Wallace Campbell shut down a planned debate between the women’s debating teams at Cal and Stanford. The topic of the debate was, “Resolved: that the family is an unnecessary element in the progress of civilization.”
Campbell wrote to the head of the student debating council saying he had revoked use of Wheeler Auditorium for the debate, because “I had received and duly considered the agreed upon definition of ‘the family’ from Professor E.Z. Rowell, coach of our debating team, reading as follows: ‘The family is a conditionally permanent social group based upon marriage and involving normally the birth and rearing of children and a common abiding place called the domicile.”
“The subject of debate as herewith officially defined by the coach is not, in my judgment, appropriate for public debate under the auspices of the University of California. Academic freedom does not involve the right of any one to discuss any subject of his or her choice upon a University of California platform before an invited general public audience.”
The women’s debating team manager replied that she understood Campbell’s view but “it is unfortunate that he must hold such an opinion which we cannot share as we believe anything can be discussed if it is done in a tasteful manner as we intended.”
She also pointed out that the debate topic had been suggested by students at Mills College, then a private, all-women’s institution.
Car crash: Residents of homes near Durant and Shattuck were woken up early on the morning of Nov. 19, 1925, by a huge crash that some thought was a streetcar overturning. Upon investigation, a completely wrecked automobile was discovered. It had knocked down a light pole and a power pole. Blood was on the ground, but no driver was present.
Police traced the car to the home of the owner, Sidney H. Ehrman who lived on Euclid Avenue. They woke him up, and he told them he had loaned the car to friends. One of those friends was found at home, also at a Euclid address, with cuts and bruises. He told police he had walked home after the accident. Police took him to the hospital, where “it was found he was more seriously hurt than he believed.”
Interestingly, the owner of the car, Sidney Ehrman, was the son of a UC Regent.
Bay Area native and Berkeley community historian Steven Finacom holds this column’s copyright.