People's Park - People's Park Annex/Ohlone Park

People's Park Annex/Ohlone Park

A lasting outcome of the confrontation over People's Park was the establishment of "People's Park Annex" on a strip of land called the "Hearst Corridor," located adjacent to Hearst Avenue just northwest of the university campus. People's Park Annex was eventually enlarged to become the City of Berkeley's Ohlone Park. At 9.8 acres (40,000 m2), Ohlone Park is several times larger than People's Park itself.

In the immediate aftermath of the May 1969 People's Park demonstrations, and consistent with their goal of "letting a thousand parks bloom," People's Park activists began gardening a two-block section of the Hearst Corridor, between McGee Avenue and Sacramento Avenue The Hearst Corridor was a strip of land along the north side of Hearst Avenue that had been left largely untended after the houses had been torn down to facilitate completion of an underground subway line by the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District.

During the 1970s, local residents, especially George Garvin, pursued gardening and user development of this land, which became known as "People's Park Annex." Later on, additional volunteers donated time and energy to the Annex, led by David Axelrod and Charlotte Pyle, urban gardeners who were among the original organizers of the People's Park Project/Native Plant Forum. The Forum is a student and community group of gardeners and park volunteers sponsored by the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) and dedicated to the principles of user development and community control.

As neighborhood and community groups stepped up their support for the preservation and development of the Annex, BART abandoned its original plan to build apartment complexes on Hearst Corridor. The City of Berkeley negotiated with BART to secure permanent above-ground rights to the entire five block strip of land, between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Sacramento Avenue. By the early 1980s, this land had become a city park comprising 9.8 acres (40,000 m2), which residents decided to name "Ohlone Park" in honor of the Ohlone band of native Americans who once lived there.

Today, the Berkeley Parks and Recreation Commission mediates neighborhood and community feedback concerning issues of park design and the maintenance, operation, and development of Ohlone Park amenities. These amenities—which include pedestrian and bicycle paths, children's playgrounds, a dog park, basketball and volleyball courts, a softball/soccer field, toilets, picnic areas and community gardens—continue to serve the people and pets of Berkeley.