Northside

The area just north of the Cal campus that goes up to Cedar is known as Northside. It is virtually the polar opposite of Southside. It is, to begin, an older demographic. Whereas, the median age in Southside is about 21, here it is closer to 31. Although you will find a number of undergraduate math and science majors at the eateries (like LaVal’s Pizza) on Euclid, the rest of the niegbhorhood feels much more like a graduate student or professor’s type neighborhood. In fact, you will find many professor’s homes here—I came to at least two of my own professors’ homes in this area for an end of semester party in one case, and to avoid crossing a graduate student picket line in another.

One of the attractions of this neighborhood is the architecture. Although there is a fair mix of drab Seventies style apartments in the area as throughout Berkeley—the Northside draws your attention away from such ugly decorated boxes to a variety of attention grabbing constructs. For example, on the winding Spruce street, about a block up from campus you come upon these chateau style homes with shingled gables and rounded towers. One of the two has an outdoor stairwell that snakes around the circular tower on the edge of the sidewalk. In fact, given the appearance of the buildings, you might expect that these buildings would be more comfortable in a non-urban setting.

Many of the buildings on Northside, like those on Southside are the distinctive dark shingled Colonials that Cal Students know to associate with the campus housing. Many others are in Mission styles and make up the sort of high end housing that often houses professors who like to be within a five minute walk of their campus offices. There are also a fair number of buildings that are taken up by classes and departments that moved outside of the grounds of campus as the University has continued to expand.

You will also find a number of churchs and a Catholic seminary in this area.

Overall the leafy inclined streets are quiet and pleasant and there is a great coffee house (Brewed Awakening) right on Euclid. There are also two rather esoteric bookstores there and an assortment of low-end restaurants. If you get tired of Bongo Burger, LaVal’s and Top Dog, you can get Japanese or Mexican. The best restaurant on that stretch however, is the Thai Place, a good place to go at night. There are always an assortment of students in the area so long as the restaurants are open and the streets are relatively safe for Berkeley.