Reply to What's Berkeley Like These Days?

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[quote=Anonymous]Just curious.

I grew up on Grizzly Peak in the 70s and 80s, but except for family visits haven't been back since I left for college in 1987.

Berkeley was still very much Radical Left back when I was younger, though I distincty remember watching that activist spirit actively decline throughout the 80s; my dad participated in any number of activist causes.  In high school, my friends and I hung out on Telegraph on the weekends, Center & Shattuck or Provo Park after school during the week.  I did my Christmas shopping at the stands on Telegraph Ave.    Typical Berkeley parents were artsy (or tried to appear so), dressed in lots of black, with moms adding purple for color, practiced Zen.  Almost everyone smoked weed at least a little, and often got it from their parents.  Berkeley cops were rumored to smoke the weed they confiscated off of us. Restaurants were almost all independent - few to no chain joints and corporate "restaurant groups" like the ones that dominate the scene in/around DC.  Berkeley High offered Swahili as a language elective.

Is Berkeley still like that at all?  When I visit, I get the impression that much has changed.  Neighborhoods we knew to avoid are now lined with BMWs and Outbacks.  Ortman's is now a Starbucks (F U, Starbs!), McCullum's is gone.  Blondie's is gone (Arinell's had better pizza anyway).  I understand local businesses finally succeeded in driving out the Telegraph street vendors (and I sincerely hope their businesses suffered as a result).  All those awesome old movie theaters downtown (the California, UA) with the velvet curtains and gold-leaf plaster have either closed or been chopped up into shadows of what they once were.

So what's left?  What's new?  How is Berkeley different from the Berzerkeley that shaped my youth? :)[/quote]

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