Aquatic Park is a public

park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...

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 Emer ...

, United States, located just east of the

Eastshore Freeway Interstate 80 (I-80) is a transcontinental Interstate Highway in the United States, stretching from San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey. The segment of I-80 in California runs east from San Francisco across the San Francisco� ...

(

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one o ...

) between Ashby and University Avenues. The

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

created the park in the 1930s simultaneously with the nearby Berkeley Yacht Harbor. Its centerpiece is an artificial mile-long

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') a ...

that was cut off from

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...

by the creation of a causeway for the Eastshore Highway, during the construction of the approaches to the

San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, known locally as the Bay Bridge, is a complex of bridges spanning San Francisco Bay in California. As part of Interstate 80 in California, Interstate 80 and the direct road between San Francisco and Oakland ...

, also in the 1930s. The lagoon still communicates with the Bay through

culvert A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe, reinforced concrete or other material. In the United Kingdom ...

s under the freeway (one in line with Ashby Avenue, the other in line with Grayson Street). The east shoreline of the lagoon used to be the original shoreline of San Francisco Bay.

Park features

Aquatic Park features picnic areas, "Dream Land for Kids"—a large children's playground, a pedestrian-bicycle path, and a

disc golf Disc golf, also known as frisbee golf, is a flying disc sport in which players throw a disc at a target; it is played using rules similar to golf. Most disc golf discs are made out of polypropylene plastic, otherwise known as polypropene, which ...

course. The lagoon is used by the Berkeley Paddling and Rowing Club year round, and by the Berkeley Water Ski Club during the summer months. The lagoon is also used by the nonprofit organization, Waterside Workshops, for their youth boating and sailing, and boat rentals to the general public on weekends. Waterside Workshops also houses a community bikeshop at the intersection of Bolivar Drive and Bancroft Way. Historically, the Aquatic Park lagoon was also a practice site for the University of California

crew A crew is a body or a class of people who work at a common activity, generally in a structured or hierarchical organization. A location in which a crew works is called a crewyard or a workyard. The word has nautical resonances: the tasks involve ...

teams.

References

External links

Aquatic Park official pageAquatic Park cleans up, tackles brackish reputationAquatic Park advocate wins conservation awardCruise Judgment: Berkeley takes tentative steps to limit public sex in Aquatic Park
{{coord, 37.856871, -122.298859, source:gnis-219063_region:US-CA, display=title Lagoons of California LGBT culture in the San Francisco Bay Area Parks in Berkeley, California San Francisco Bay Works Progress Administration in California 1930s establishments in California