Temescal is one of the oldest

neighborhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area, ...

s in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the ...

, located in North Oakland, and centered on

Telegraph Avenue Telegraph Avenue is a street that begins, at its southernmost point, in the midst of the historic downtown district of Oakland, California, and ends, at its northernmost point, at the southern edge of the University of California, Berkeley cam ...

. The neighborhood derives its name from Temescal Creek, a significant watercourse in the city.

History

Temescal was originally a separate unincorporated village that had built up around the estate of Vicente Peralta, which was located near the modern intersections of

and Claremont Boulevard. (Vicente's estate was part of the larger Peralta Grant that spanned 44,800 acres of land in the East Bay.) The name came from the creek upon whose banks Peralta had established his home. The word ''temescal'' derives from the word ''temescalli/temazcalli'' (various transliterations), which means "sweat house" in the

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have small ...

language of the

Mexica The Mexica (Nahuatl: , ;''Nahuatl Dictionary.'' (1990). Wired Humanities Project. University of Oregon. Retrieved August 29, 2012, frolink/ref> singular ) were a Nahuatl-speaking indigenous people of the Valley of Mexico who were the rulers of ...

("Aztec") people of

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

. It is surmised that the Peraltas or perhaps one of their ranch hands (

vaquero The ''vaquero'' (; pt, vaqueiro, , ) is a horse-mounted livestock herder of a tradition that has its roots in the Iberian Peninsula and extensively developed in Mexico from a methodology brought to Latin America from Spain. The vaquero became t ...

s) had seen local indigenous (

Ohlone The Ohlone, formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the ...

) structures along the creek similar to those in other parts of

New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the A ...

which were called ''temescalli''. A post office opened in North Temescal in 1877; the name was changed to Alden in 1899. The name commemorated S.E. Alden, farmer and landowner. In 1908, the Alden post office was designated as Station E of the Oakland post office. In 1897, the residents of Temescal voted to join the City of Oakland in an effort to gain access to higher quality public schools and police services. At the time that the City of Oakland annexed Temescal, Temescal was considered to consist of all land north of 36th Street (the northern bound of the City of Oakland at the time) between the Emeryville city limit to the west and Broadway to the east. Temescal has long been an important junction of several principal thoroughfares: Telegraph, Claremont, and

Shattuck Avenue Shattuck Avenue is a major city street running north–south through Berkeley, California, and Oakland, California. At its southern end, the street branches from Telegraph Avenue in Oakland's Temescal district, then ends at Indian Rock Park ...

s, and 51st Street. The earliest telegraph wire from Oakland to Sacramento went through the area, up Claremont Avenue and over the hills at Claremont Canyon. Temescal was the site of agriculture, cattle grazing and greenhouses when, in the 1890s, an opera house was built in parkland north of the creek crossing at 51st street. The area grew and was developed into

Idora Park Idora Park was a Victorian era trolley park in north Oakland, California constructed in 1904 on the site of an informal park setting called Ayala Park on the north banks of Temescal Creek. It was leased by the Ingersoll Pleasure and Amusement P ...

, the earliest "trolley park" in the East Bay. In 1929 the amusement park was closed and was razed in 1930. A plan to build mid-rise apartment blocks called the Midtown District fell through, and a tract of

storybook houses Storybook architecture is a style popularized in the 1920s in England and the United States. Houses built in this style may be referred to as storybook houses. Description The storybook style is a nod toward Hollywood design technically cal ...

was built on the site between 1930 and 1934. It is reported to be the first development in the American west with underground utilities. Until the early 20th century, a wide wooden bridge spanned Temescal Creek, carrying both road (Telegraph Avenue) and railroad tracks. The

horsecar A horsecar, horse-drawn tram, horse-drawn streetcar (U.S.), or horse-drawn railway (historical), is an animal-powered (usually horse) tram or streetcar. Summary The horse-drawn tram (horsecar) was an early form of public rail transport, w ...

line to the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, University of Califor ...

along today's Telegraph Avenue (then called Humboldt Avenue in Oakland and Choate in Berkeley) operated out of a horse barn at 51st and Telegraph. When the horsecar was replaced by electric

streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport a ...

s, the horse barn was replaced by a carbarn. The carbarn became the Western Carhouse of the

Key System The Key System (or Key Route) was a privately owned company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, California, Oakland, Berkeley, California, Berkeley, Alameda, California, Alameda, Emeryville, California, Emeryville, Piedmont, Ca ...

's streetcar division, the East Bay Street Railways. When the streetcars ceased operation in November of 1947, the car barn was remodeled to become ''Vern's'' market. Vern's closed in the 1970s and the building sat vacant for years. Eventually it was demolished and replaced by a strip mall, including a Walgreens store.

Geography

The neighborhood's boundaries have changed substantially over time and have often been considered different by different groups of people. The modern neighborhood's western bound is generally considered to be the Grove-Shafter Freeway (State Route 24), due to the visual divide of the elevated freeway. However, some consider Martin Luther King Jr. Way to be the western border. The eastern bound is generally considered to be Broadway. The northern bound historically is considered to end at Alcatraz Avenue & Shattuck (at the South Berkeley border), and the southern bound to be either 36th or 40th Street.

Demographics

Temescal is primarily a residential neighborhood. Most of the houses in Temescal are early twentieth century

bungalows A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is either single-story or has a second story built into a sloping roof (usually with dormer windows), and may be surrounded by wide verandas. The first house in England that was classified as a b ...

along tree-lined streets. There are also many multi-family homes and mid-size apartment complexes interspersed throughout the neighborhood. Temescal was an

Italian-American Italian Americans ( it, italoamericani or ''italo-americani'', ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, ...

neighborhood until the late 1960s. Temescal saw many changes in demographics in the past 10 years as new developments and upscale shopping and restaurants entered the neighborhood. Large numbers of young couples with children moved to Temescal as the real estate prices in nearby Rockridge grew too expensive for middle-class families. People of different racial and economic backgrounds live side by side in the neighborhood. Temescal is a diverse neighborhood with concentrations of

Ethiopian Ethiopians are the native inhabitants of Ethiopia, as well as the global diaspora of Ethiopia. Ethiopians constitute several component ethnic groups, many of which are closely related to ethnic groups in neighboring Eritrea and other parts of ...

and Eritrean immigrants.

Arts and culture

The commercial heart of Temescal is Telegraph Avenue, between the MacArthur BART Station and 51st Street. This area is known locally as the home to popular restaurants, such as North Light, Tara's Organic Ice Cream, Roses' Tap Room, Cholita Linda, Aunt Mary's, Bakesale Betty, and Burma Superstar. Another commercial zone runs along 40th Street, between Broadway and Telegraph. This area includes a mixture of food service and retail. Restaurants along this stretch of 40th ave include Oakland Yard Wine Bar and Tacos Oscar. There are many Ethiopian restaurants here, especially on Telegraph north of 51st Street. There are also many Korean establishments along Telegraph Avenue. Temescal Farmers' Market, begun in 2006, is held on Sundays in the parking lot of the Department of Motor Vehicles facility on Claremont Ave. Mama's Royal Cafe, locally famous for breakfast, and Clove & Hoof are located on Broadway, near the border of Temescal and the Piedmont Avenue neighborhood. Studio One, located on 45th Street, is home to art classes and workshops. Counter Culture Labs is a public laboratory and

hackerspace A hackerspace (also referred to as a hacklab, hackspace, or makerspace) is a community-operated, often "not for profit" (501(c)(3) in the United States), workspace where people with common interests, such as computers, machining, technology, ...

located in the Temescal neighborhood. Royal Nonesuch Gallery is an artist run art and event space located on Telegraph and 43rd. Temescal Pool, located next door, is open to the public. The neighborhood is also home to several public and private schools, including Park Day School and the architectural landmark

Oakland Technical High School Oakland Technical High School, known locally as Oakland Tech or simply "Tech", is a public high school in Oakland, California, United States, and is operated under the jurisdiction of the Oakland Unified School District. It is one of six compreh ...

on Broadway.

Temescal Tool Lending Library

Temescal is home to one of the few tool-lending libraries in the Bay Area—indeed, in the U.S. (The

Berkeley Public Library The Berkeley Public Library is the public library system for Berkeley, California. It consists of the Central Library, Claremont Branch, North Branch, West Branch, Tarea Hill Pittman South Branch—and the Tool Lending Library, which is one of the ...

also has a tool-lending library at their nearby South Branch.) The Temescal branch of the

Oakland Public Library The Oakland Public Library is the public library in Oakland, California. Opened in 1878, the Oakland Public Library currently serves the city of Oakland, along with neighboring smaller cities Emeryville and Piedmont. The Oakland Public Library h ...

operates this facility, which lends tools, free of charge, to library patrons for repairs and home-improvement projects. The Tool Lending Library also has instructional materials (books, videos, etc.) and gives "how-to" workshops.

References