NORTHBRAE PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS
CITY OF BERKELEY LANDMARK
designated in 1992
NORTHBRAE PUBLIC
IMPROVEMENTS
John Galen Howard, Architect,
R.E. Mansell, Landscape Architect, 1907
Berkeley’s Northbrae residential subdivision was opened in 1907 by
the Mason-McDuffie Company. John Galen Howard-- then Supervising
Architect of the University of California-- designed the Circle and the
stairways, benches, and stone pillars used as street markers. The landscape
plan of broad, curving streets and a network of pathways and staircases that
connected with streetcars and a commuter train was designed by University
of California professor and landscape architect R.E. Mansell. Many of the
streets in Northbrae were named after California counties as part of a nearly
successful effort to persuade the state legislators to move the capitol from
Sacramento to Berkeley. A number of parks sited around large natural
outcroppings near the Circle contain grinding stones that are evidence of
the area’s indigenous population.
The Circle, surrounded by Classical balustrades, is the focal point of
Northbrae. The adjacent Fountain Walk connected the Circle to a train
station at the south end of the Northbrae Tunnel, where neighborhood shops
and a bank were clustered. Dedicated in 1911, the original Circle fountain
was destroyed in a 1958 traffic accident. It was replicated through the
efforts of North Berkeley residents with City cooperation and rededicated
in 1996. More than 1,200 residents and friends contributed to the restoration
campaign organized by Friends of the Fountain and Walk. The bears on the
replacement fountain that recall the originals designed by Arthur Putnam were
sculpted by Sarita Camille Waite.
Berkeley Historical Plaque Project
2003