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Health & Fitness

A Hill of Signs, a Hill of History: a Photo Project By Alex Merenkov

Read about my explorations of the Berkeley hills you may learn something about the fine city of Berkeley you never knew.

I've been doing many sign projects for School at Berkeley City College and this project has been a proliferation of those projects.

Basically this is a composite done in photoshop of all the street signs in the Berkeley hills specifically I'm talking about all the signs within the Berkeley city limits that are immediately east of Arlington, Sutter, Henry and Shattuck and North of Hearst avenue in Berkeley.

I love living in Berkeley and doing these projects really reaffirms my love for this city specifically. I could live in SF or back in Walnut Creek but I choose Berkeley because of the charm it has.

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I love all the names we find in our city street signs and I think its fascinating because this project is so much more than street signs it is a glimpse into Berkeley's past.

Many streets were named after people or historic events. A lot of streets in Berkeley were named after states because Berkeley at one point in its history made a run to become the capital of California — thus why you will find many streets named after states. Of course Berkeley lost and never became the capital but the street names remain to this day.

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A lot of the street names in the Berkeley hills have a lot to do with the founding people of the University of California. One of the most interesting things is that rail was such a huge part of Berkeley's history. The F-bus which we all know and love used to be a street car. Francisco(St) Kittredge(St) Shattuck(Ave) had hoped to bring rail to Berkeley and was successful in doing so.

Rail helped develop Berkeley and its the reason why north Berkeley and Shattuck are such huge shopping districts today the same is true for college avenue which is possibly the most protected district of all.

The Keelers and the Boyntons both lived in the Berkeley hills and were very influential in Berkeley's history. The Keeler had a son and for the first five years of his life they called him "boy" feeling that giving him a name would stunt his growth and instead wanted to let him choose his own name.

So our city has always been quirky since day one.

This project is as much as a history project as it is a digital media arts project. I rode around the Berkeley hills on my bicycle with a Nikon D300 camera in my backpack from 12-3 a.m. taking pictures of Berkeley street signs in the hills.

This was not an easy project nor was it the last project in this series but it has been very interesting.

I started reading up on the city of Berkeley's history here http://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/community/berkeley_history/a_city_in_history/index.php.

That is where I got the majority of my information about the city's history.

Some of our city's history is a bit distasteful and also ironic. I felt upset knowing that racism had to play such a role in the early parts of Berkeley's history because I would like to think that Berkeley has always been a place of acceptance but thats sadly not the case.

Doing this project has been so eye opening because I have forced myself to explore parts of Berkeley that i would have otherwise stayed out of. The Berkeley hills arent exactly safe in the respect that there are more or less no side walks, no bus service and in some instances no cell service either so it can be some what scary fearing I'll be hit by a car or get hurt and be unable to call for help in Tilden.

Especially at night but because this project requires so much selecting in Photoshop taking the pictures in pitch black with a flash yields Better results and makes the selections easier.

Each one of these signs was at one point one picture but i painstackingly cut them out and merged them in Photoshop.

The next section of this project will take place in North Berkeley West of Arlington, Shattuck, Henry and sutter and North of University avenue it will also include what streets there are in the Berkeley marina.

I hope that this project can be seen not only as a piece of art but also a mirror of oneself and a glimpse into our history as a city. I think this is a neat project in its simplicity which is ironic in that this project is anything but simple to create and its meaning is multi-layered (sorry for the photoshop pun).

I know people will look at this and go "Ah, Glendale, I grew up on Glendale" I hope it will allow people to reflect on their past or what ever memories that they associate with any given street name. This project isn't entirely done just yet — I still have a few more signs to composite in like Oxford, Eunice and Codernices which I went out and took the other night.

Overall I spent probably about eight hours of bicycling/taking pictures of the signs and about four hours of compositing in Photoshop. Anyways I just wanted to share what I've been working on with the community.

Please feel free to leave comments on your thoughts or reactions about this project. If you dont find your street in this project dont worry, I'll be doing your neighborhood in Berkeley soon enough leaving no street sign uncomposited. 

Attached, you will also find a map of the city of Berkeley which shows which sections of the city's street signs will be in each project. Pink for the hills, gray for North Berkeley and blue for South Berkeley. I may cut South Berkeley into two halves i haven't decided we'll have to see how many signs I end up with and if I can fit them all in one project.

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