Ohlone Park is a public

linear park A linear park is a type of park that is significantly longer than it is wide. These linear parks are strips of public land running along canals, rivers, streams, defensive walls, electrical lines, or highways and shorelines. Examples of linear p ...

in the city of

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

, United States. Directly underground is the subway used by the

Bay Area Rapid Transit Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves 50 stations along six routes on of rapid transit lines, including a spur line in eastern Contra Costa County which u ...

(BART) and . It is part of the

Ohlone Greenway The Ohlone Greenway is a pedestrian and bicycle path in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The path is named for the indigenous Ohlone, the first people who live in the area. Route The Greenway begins in Berkeley at the east en ...

Description

The park is divided into two pieces: the larger piece is a continuous strip of land approximately four blocks long, oriented east-west on the north side of Hearst Avenue, bounded by Sacramento (on the west) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (on the east). Three north-south streets dead end onto either side the larger part: California, McGee, and Grant. The smaller piece is approximately one block long, also oriented east-west along the north side of Hearst, bounded by Bonita (on the west) and Milvia (on the east). The park is just northwest of the main campus of the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

. It is mostly grass with a scattering of trees and includes pedestrian and bicycle paths, a dog park, a basketball court, and a small ball field. The dog park, established in 1979 when the park was dedicated, was one of the first off-leash dog parks in the United States. There are four play areas for children, two for school-age children at McGee and at Milvia, and two for toddlers at Bonita and at McGee. There is a mural depicting the history of the Ohlone people on the large concrete vent at Milvia, painted by Native American artist Jean Lamarr in the late 1990s.

History

The park was created ''

ad hoc Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning literally 'to this'. In English, it typically signifies a solution for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a generalized solution adaptable to collateral instances. (Compare with ''a priori''.) Com ...

'' by Berkeley citizens in connection with the People's Park controversy of the late 1960s. After Berkeley agreed to fund the cost to underground the BART lines through the city limits, the land, which was originally occupied by residences, was acquired then razed by BART during the cut-and-cover construction of its subway through Berkeley. After the trench for the subway was filled in, BART planned to construct apartment complexes on the strip. However, after the May 1969 protests and "Bloody Thursday" event over the People's Park site south of the main campus of UC-Berkeley, Berkeley citizens began planting sod and trees on the vacant strip and dubbed it "People's Park Annex". Although the Annex was the starting point for a protest march on May 31, 1969 and camps there were raided a week later, it was largely ignored by activists after the summer of 1969. After much haggling and public discussion, BART agreed to turn the Hearst strip over to the City of Berkeley, leasing the land for one dollar per year. The preservation of the park land and its formal name, "

Ohlone The Ohlone, formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the ...

Park" after the name of the local indigenous people, is credited to the efforts of a local couple, Alex and Martha Nicoloff. The park was dedicated on June 7, 1979. The non-profit Ohlone Dog Park Association (ODPA) was formed in 1983 to maintain the off-leash area, which is dedicated for Martha Scott Benedict, the leader of the ODPA founders.

References

External links

{{commons category * Bay Area Rapid Transit Parks in Berkeley, California