The North Berkeley Library

North Berkeley Library
Image from Jana Bouc's Flikr Page and used with permission

I happened across Jana's Journal and Sketch Blog this morning.... and clicked on it to see a charming sketch Jana Bouc did of the North Berkeley Library. It's a lovely sketch, and captures the character of the library.

She wrote "I hadn’t realized how beautiful (and extraordinarily complicated) the landmark building of the North Berkeley Public Libary is"

The Berkeley Public Library web site says it was "Constructed in the California Spanish style, North Branch Library was designed by renowned Berkeley architect James Placheck. The structure, which opened in September 1936"

It always struck me as being built earlier than 1936, but the concrete wall construction is a bit of a giveaway that it was a WPA project.

We have a bit of the library on our house.. we liked the color so much, we painted our Thousand Oaks home in similar colors.


The library is at 1170 The Alameda, on a triangular parcel, an island of its own It's at the south end of tree lined The Alameda, where it intersects with Hopkins.

The North Berkeley library is an easy walk to some of the nicest neighborhood shops in Berkeley:

West: Northbrae/Westbrae and the Hopkins Shops (Goia Pizza - most like NY Pizza), Monterey Market, Magnani Meats, the Fish Market


North: The top of Solano Avenue in Thousand Oaks

South: North Berkeley (yes, go south to reach North Berkeley)

And across the street is one of the more unusual gas stations in Berkeley... it looks like it belongs more in Amherst MA than Berkeley CA.