Two Gifts from Northside

We call it Northside 'cause it's north of campus. I don't know what real people call it who live there. One gift from Northside is small, the other is pretty awesome. I did not know they existed before my morning jog a couple weeks ago. That's why they're gifts. Because there aren't enough surprises in life.

Here's the small gift, (on Berryman, I think...definitely on some street, but between Henry and Shattuck):

If this is your shrub giraffe, I just wanted to let you know that I love his little giraffe antennae. Don't know the technical name for those. Giraffe nubs.

The big gift is Live Oak Park, I think the prettiest park in Berkeley. It feels like a nature preserve. It feels far away. And hipster and family and community all at the same time. Not that those are mutually exclusive, I'm just sayin'. You know what I mean.

It's really impossible to show how the light filters in through the trees just the perfect amount...it's like something out of a Disney movie, it's so beautiful

I feel like I didn't actually see any Oak trees there. But I also wasn't looking.

I guess this last picture is the hipster part, but there's way cool graffiti at Live Oak. This isn't the half of it. It's of UC Berkeley. And it's super well done. I wish I could have it on an entire wall in my room. See the tower? I guess this last picture is the community part as well, unless you're anti-social like me and take pictures of parks at 8am on weekdays when there's noone there... 'cause usually this park is overrun with frisbees and little kids and barbeques.

Parks are really important pieces of urban cities, and this one fits Berkeley well, being creative, and different (no play equipment, just tall tall forest trees), and creek-y. It's one of those things that defines Berkeley, that emphasis on being different, and because you can name what's cool about Berkeley, you absorb that pride without even realizing it. It's in the self-deprecating stories we tell about the homeless people and crazy zealots that we encounter everyday. And you know when you tell the story that it wouldn't be funny unless you really loved it here and were proud that your town was quirky and had lots of gum on the sidewalks.

Berkeley Elementary Schools

One of the little houses at Rosa Parks Elementary

Some of my favorite walks in Berkeley have been to its elementary schools. The first one I ever visited was Thousand Oaks, nearby MLK and Solano. Ironically, I was there as part of a volunteer effort to clean up the school. The first thing I said when I got there was, "This is ridiculous. It's nicer than my school." And my school is one of the top-ten research universities in the nation.

The only other two that I've really scoped out have been Cragmont and Rosa Parks. Each of the three has its own feel.

Thousand Oaks feels bigger than the others, it's school garden is really far along and every single pole and every single wall is art or artfully crafted. They're big on displaying student art, in a way so you can tell little kids made it.

Cragmont, on the other hand, incorporates student art as well, but it's more subtle. You're not just noticing the purple stick figures and the animals with too-long legs. You notice the way the colors go together perfectly. The mosaic at Cragmont is something that should inspire whole cities. Not just little kids and their parents. And I don't know how those kids can feel like they're in school when they have that huge view of the bay right in front of them. It doesn't feel like school, it feels like it should be teeming with tourists and their cameras.

Mosaic wall at Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks is my favorite. The pictures are from Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks has a pond, a solar panel, and a mosaic wall. But my favorite part is that it feels like a little neighborhood. I held a series of short classes in one of the little house/ classrooms that make up the perimeter of the blacktop... and it's just sweet to walk into a little cottage that's really a school. Not to mention they're cute colors, reds and yellows. I wish malls and, actually, just everything was set up like a little mini neighborhood. Like Polly Pocket.

Another Polly Pocket classroom at Rosa Parks