A century ago, in June 1925, commercial development was accelerating in downtown Berkeley and a planned 12-story building at Shattuck Avenue and Center Street was soon to be built (today it’s the Wells Fargo Bank building).
“New buildings are being started, one for the Tupper and Reed Piano House and (another) where the former Pacific Telephone Co’s building stands, which was recently sold,” the Berkeley Daily Gazette reported. “The First National Bank is going to enlarge its building on Shattuck and Center, and the United Realty Co. is building on the corner of Shattuck and University that it just bought.”
In addition, a structure on Shattuck between Durant Avenue and Bancroft Way had just been sold to Oakland’s T.W. Corder Inc. for $300,000. According to the Gazette, it contained “a practically new and modern one-story business block … . The present structure is of reinforced concrete and is designed to carry three additional floors.
“The new owners, it is announced, will probably further develop the property at a later date by the erection of modern apartments above. The deal is regarded as again demonstrating the faith of Oakland and San Francisco capital in the future of this part of the fast-growing East Bay area.”
The real estate agent who handled the sale of the Shattuck building told the Gazette, “Berkeley has just started in its business and industrial development. Merchants and capitalists are awake to the opportunities offered in its substantial growth and progress.”
Heat wave: Berkeley experienced its first heat wave of the calendar year June 23-24, 1925. Temperatures hit 92.5 degrees at noon on Wednesday the 24th.
“Berkeley baked and blistered yesterday and today in an increasing heat wave which browned the hills, melted collars and threatened to deplete the ice cream and soda pop supply of the East Bay district,” the Gazette reported.
The Board of Education canceled its meeting because (as the Gazette claimed with tongue in cheek) they couldn’t find “a swimming pool or a refrigerating plant” to meet in.
“Evening automobiling in Berkeley in shirt sleeves is a rarity, but one could have been even more comfortable jogging along in a bathing suit.”
Fatal train crash: A Berkeley family of five, the Gregorieos of 1621 Dwight Way, was injured “when their automobile was struck by a Northwestern Pacific train on the Glenville branch between Guerneville and Monte Rio,” the Gazette reported June 18, 1925. The train, traveling 35 miles an hour, “struck the car, demolishing it and throwing the occupants in all directions.”
Mr. Gregorieo and one daughter were seriously injured; Mrs. Gregorieo was expected to die from internal injuries; and two other children were “cut and bruised.”
On the following June 22 the Gazette reported that Mrs. Gregorieo had indeed died and that her daughter, with a “broken back and fractured skull,” was not expected to survive.
Summer session: On June 20, 1925, the UC Berkeley campus began registration for summer classes. This followed six weeks of campus quiet after the close of the regular academic year.
“More than 5,000 are expected to enroll for the session, and present indications are that the total number will exceed that of last year.”
Students were expected to arrive from as far away as North Carolina and Kansas and from the East Coast “by way of the Panama Canal.”
Firehouses: Berkeley opened two new firehouses on June 22, 1925, at Arch and Spruce streets and at 2550 Virginia St. One of them replaced a firehouse that had burned in the city’s huge September 1923 blaze. City representatives praised the completion of the firehouses and “the installation of over $400,000 worth of larger and better water mains for the city of Berkeley during the present year.”
Bay Area native and Berkeley community historian Steven Finacom holds this column’s copyright.