Berkley Square was designed in 1949 by

Paul Revere Williams Paul Revere Williams, FAIA (February 18, 1894 – January 23, 1980) was an American architect based in Los Angeles, California. Most of the buildings he designed were in Southern California and included the homes of numerous celebrities, s ...

and is named after

Thomas L. Berkley Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...

, an attorney from

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

. The historic district contained 148 homes. It was built in the African American

West Las Vegas West Las Vegas is a historic neighborhood in Las Vegas, Nevada. This area is located northwest of the Las Vegas Strip and the "Spaghetti Bowl" interchange of I-15 and I-11/ US 95. It is also known as Historic West Las Vegas and more simply, ...

area of

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

. The district was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 2009. Terry and Jerry Holmes were born at 512 Byrnes Avenue in Berkley Square on March 3, 1951, to Canary and Clarence Holmes.

Description

Berkley Square is the earliest subdivision which was built in

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

by and for the

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

inhabitants of Las Vegas. The designer Paul R. Williams from Los Angeles is a globally acclaimed African-American architect; in the profession, he made huge progress for his race. Around one and one- half country miles from Las Vegas close t
Owens Avenue
and D Street, the Berkley Square Historic District is situated. And it is bound by Byrnes and Leonard avenues on the north and south, sequentially, and G and D Streets on the west and east, sequentially. The Historic District includes 148 houses built between 1954 and 1955 in the Contemporary Ranch style with 2 models which contrasted by roof type, veranda protuberance and

façade A façade or facade (; ) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loanword from the French language, French (), which means "frontage" or "face". In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important asp ...

home stretches and fenestration. The quarter was arranged according to

Federal Housing Administration The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), also known as the Office of Housing within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is a Independent agencies of the United States government, United States government agency founded by Pr ...

standards of the day, demonstrating concern for

traffic Traffic is the movement of vehicles and pedestrians along land routes. Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffic laws and informal rules that may have developed over time to facilitate the orderly an ...

and

pedestrian A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, by wheelchair or with other mobility aids. Streets and roads often have a designated footpath for pedestrian traffic, called the '' sidewalk'' in North American English, the ''pavement'' in British En ...

safety with limited access points and sidewalks disunited from the streets by a

lawn A lawn () is an area of soil-covered land planted with Poaceae, grasses and other durable plants such as clover lawn, clover which are maintained at a short height with a lawn mower (or sometimes grazing animals) and used for aesthetic an ...

strip.

History and Context

The African America
occupants
in Las Vegas had increased from 150 in the 1930s to over 3,000 when

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

ended. The requirement of high-grad
sheltering
became a major socio-political issue for the black community bound by law and custom to the segregated Westside. Around 16,000 people, most of whom were African Americans, lived in the 160-acre Westside area of Las Vegas by 1955. The District helped to develop the living conditions for the town's African-America
inhabitants
In the late 1940s and 50s, local activism demonstrated the advancements which were being made in th
community
Berkley Square also illustrated the massive structure smash which happened in Las Vegas and all over the country in the post-

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

period and reserves good integrity as a domestic exurb of that time.

References

Buildings and structures in Las Vegas National Register of Historic Places in Clark County, Nevada Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Nevada Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Nevada Houses in Clark County, Nevada {{Nevada-NRHP-stub