Solano Avenue
Encyclopedia
Solano Avenue in Berkeley
and Albany
, California
is a two mile (3.2 km) long east-west street. Solano Avenue is one of the larger shopping districts in the Berkeley area. Businesses along Solano Avenue cover a wide range, including grocery stores, coffee shops, drugstores, bookstores, antique dealers, apparel outlets, ethnic restaurants and movie theaters.
, next to the I-80/I-580
interchange and Union Pacific
railroad tracks. The Albany Hill segment of the street is primarily residential and somewhat steep, climbing 86 feet (26.2 m) in the first three blocks.
At San Pablo Avenue, Solano bends slightly to the south; this is the start of the shopping district. Solano Avenue serves as the de-facto Main Street
of Albany, and initially, this was in fact its name within the city of Albany. Solano passes under the elevated BART
tracks at Masonic Avenue. For four and a half blocks, starting half a block after Curtis Street, the northern side of Solano is in Berkeley, while the southern side and the street itself are in Albany. Between the Albany city limits
and The Alameda, Solano Avenue is the main shopping area of Berkeley's Thousand Oaks
neighborhood. Landmarks along this segment of the street include the Oaks Theater, a movie palace
built in 1925, and the first Andronico's
grocery store, formerly known as "Andronico's Park and Shop" (for a time, simply "Park and Shop").
After crossing The Alameda, Solano Avenue enters a former electric railroad right-of-way, originally constructed by the Southern Pacific
for its Shattuck Avenue line suburban trains
, and after 1941, used by the Key System
for its F-line trains. The Key trains ran here until 1958, when the system was dismantled and the right-of-way was converted to automobile
use in 1963. Solano Avenue thus passes through the Northbrae Tunnel
(constructed in 1911 by the Southern Pacific, and now also referred to as the Solano Ave. Tunnel), which curves to the south. Solano Avenue ends at its intersection with Del Norte and El Dorado Streets just beyond the south portal of the tunnel.
"The Iris", the event initially began on the East end of Solano Avenue as an "open house" of Solano Avenue retail businesses, and eventually included the entire Solano shopping district between San Pablo Avenue in Albany and The Alameda in Berkeley.
During the Stroll, Solano Avenue and all cross streets are closed to traffic. Local businesses and vendors set up booths along both sides of the street and sell clothing, jewelry, art and food items to the public; in recent times, theatre troupes
, puppet shows and amusement rides have also been a part of the festival. Various live bands, most local, have played sets at the Stroll, with notable past musicians including RatDog
drummer/Primus
co-founder Jay Lane
(with jam
side project Alphabet Soup) and Marc Biedermann
(founder of Blind Illusion
, and former bassist for thrash metal band Heathen
). School jazz
, classical
and marching bands from Richmond, El Cerrito, Albany and Berkeley have also appeared at the Stroll since its early years.
The event opens with a parade down Solano. As the end of the parade moves downhill, the street is gradually opened to pedestrians only, and stays that way until late in the afternoon. According to a University of California-Berkeley press report , the 2005 event attracted between 120,000 and 150,000 attendees. Around 300,000 people were attributed by organizers to have attended the 2009 festival, a number largely overshadowed by vacant Solano Avenue storefronts and the late 2000s economic downturn.
In 2001, the Solano Stroll was designated a "National Local Legacy" by The Library of Congress.
rail lines, the Southern Pacific Railroad
and the Key System
, and was intersected by the Santa Fe Railroad
. The Southern Pacific trains used a terminal area at Colusa Ave., now occupied by Andronico's, while the Key System trains terminated at The Alameda. Solano Avenue also intersected streetcar lines at San Pablo Avenue and The Alameda. When BART
was built alongside the Santa Fe's right-of-way, a station at Solano Avenue wasn't included. However, it is only about a 15-20 minute walk to both the El Cerrito Plaza and North Berkeley BART stations.
AC Transit
currently operates bus
service on Solano Avenue, and three local bus lines connect Solano to Downtown Berkeley
. Line 18 runs along the entire length of Solano. Line 7 goes through the Northbrae/Solano Avenue Tunnel and stops at The Alameda before turning. Line 25 makes two stops, at The Alameda and Colusa Avenue. In addition, the 72 line crosses Solano at San Pablo Avenue.
Several AC Transit transbay buses connect Solano Avenue to San Francisco. The G line runs along Solano between Colusa and San Pablo, while the FS line covers the part of Solano east of Colusa. Line L crosses the western end at Pierce Street; while Line H crosses the eastern end, running over the top of the Northbrae/Solano Avenue Tunnel.
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
and Albany
Albany, California
Albany is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. The population was 18,539 at the 2010 census.-History:In 1908, a group of local women protested the dumping of Berkeley garbage in their community...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
is a two mile (3.2 km) long east-west street. Solano Avenue is one of the larger shopping districts in the Berkeley area. Businesses along Solano Avenue cover a wide range, including grocery stores, coffee shops, drugstores, bookstores, antique dealers, apparel outlets, ethnic restaurants and movie theaters.
Route
Solano Avenue begins, at its western end, on the southern slope of Albany HillAlbany Hill
Albany Hill is a prominent hill along the east shore of San Francisco Bay in the city of Albany, California. Geologically, the hill is predominantly Jurassic sandstone, carried to the western edge of North America on the Pacific Plate and scraped off there in the course of subduction. Albany Hill...
, next to the I-80/I-580
Interstate 580 (California)
Interstate 580 is an 80-mile east–west Interstate Highway in Northern California. The heavily traveled spur route of Interstate 80 runs from San Rafael in the San Francisco Bay Area to Interstate 5 near Tracy in the Central Valley...
interchange and Union Pacific
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad , headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is the largest railroad network in the United States. James R. Young is president, CEO and Chairman....
railroad tracks. The Albany Hill segment of the street is primarily residential and somewhat steep, climbing 86 feet (26.2 m) in the first three blocks.
At San Pablo Avenue, Solano bends slightly to the south; this is the start of the shopping district. Solano Avenue serves as the de-facto Main Street
Main Street
Main Street is the metonym for a generic street name of the primary retail street of a village, town, or small city in many parts of the world...
of Albany, and initially, this was in fact its name within the city of Albany. Solano passes under the elevated BART
Bay Area Rapid Transit
Bay Area Rapid Transit is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The heavy-rail public transit and subway system connects San Francisco with cities in the East Bay and suburbs in northern San Mateo County. BART operates five lines on of track with 44 stations in four counties...
tracks at Masonic Avenue. For four and a half blocks, starting half a block after Curtis Street, the northern side of Solano is in Berkeley, while the southern side and the street itself are in Albany. Between the Albany city limits
City limits
The terms city limits and city boundary refer to the defined boundary or border of a city. The area within the city limits is sometimes called the city proper. The terms town limits/boundary and village limits/boundary mean the same as city limits/boundary, but apply to towns and villages...
and The Alameda, Solano Avenue is the main shopping area of Berkeley's Thousand Oaks
Thousand Oaks, Berkeley, California
Thousand Oaks is a neighborhood of Berkeley in Alameda County, California. Located at the base of the Berkeley Hills, it lies at an elevation of 239 feet .The principal shopping area is Solano Avenue, along the southern edge of the neighborhood...
neighborhood. Landmarks along this segment of the street include the Oaks Theater, a movie palace
Movie palace
A movie palace is a term used to refer to the large, elaborately decorated movie theaters built between the 1910s and the 1940s. The late 1920s saw the peak of the movie palace, with hundreds opened every year between 1925 and 1930.There are three building types in particular which can be subsumed...
built in 1925, and the first Andronico's
Andronico's
Andronico's is a supermarket chain based primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its first store was founded in 1929 on Berkeley's Solano Avenue by Greek immigrant Frank Andronico. Since then, thirteen additional stores have opened and five have since closed...
grocery store, formerly known as "Andronico's Park and Shop" (for a time, simply "Park and Shop").
After crossing The Alameda, Solano Avenue enters a former electric railroad right-of-way, originally constructed by the Southern Pacific
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....
for its Shattuck Avenue line suburban trains
East Bay Electric Lines
The East Bay Electric Lines were a unit of the Southern Pacific Railroad which operated a system of electric interurban-type trains in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area...
, and after 1941, used by the Key System
Key System
The Key System was a privately owned company which provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area from 1903 until 1960, when the system was sold to a newly formed public...
for its F-line trains. The Key trains ran here until 1958, when the system was dismantled and the right-of-way was converted to automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
use in 1963. Solano Avenue thus passes through the Northbrae Tunnel
Northbrae Tunnel
The Northbrae Tunnel, also referred to as the Solano Avenue Tunnel, was built as a commuter electric railroad tunnel in the northern part of Berkeley, California and was later converted to street use.In 1910...
(constructed in 1911 by the Southern Pacific, and now also referred to as the Solano Ave. Tunnel), which curves to the south. Solano Avenue ends at its intersection with Del Norte and El Dorado Streets just beyond the south portal of the tunnel.
Solano Stroll
Every year on the second Sunday of September, businesses along Solano Avenue host a street festival called the Solano Stroll. Founded in 1974/75 by Ira Klein , who managed Berkeley boutiqueBoutique
A boutique is a small shopping outlet, especially one that specializes in elite and fashionable items such as clothing and jewelry. The word is French for "shop", via Latin from Greek ἀποθήκη , "storehouse"....
"The Iris", the event initially began on the East end of Solano Avenue as an "open house" of Solano Avenue retail businesses, and eventually included the entire Solano shopping district between San Pablo Avenue in Albany and The Alameda in Berkeley.
During the Stroll, Solano Avenue and all cross streets are closed to traffic. Local businesses and vendors set up booths along both sides of the street and sell clothing, jewelry, art and food items to the public; in recent times, theatre troupes
Improvisational theatre
Improvisational theatre takes many forms. It is best known as improv or impro, which is often comedic, and sometimes poignant or dramatic. In this popular, often topical art form improvisational actors/improvisers use improvisational acting techniques to perform spontaneously...
, puppet shows and amusement rides have also been a part of the festival. Various live bands, most local, have played sets at the Stroll, with notable past musicians including RatDog
Ratdog
RatDog , is an American rock band. The group began as a side project for Grateful Dead rhythm guitarist Bob Weir and bassist Rob Wasserman. After the Grateful Dead disbanded in December 1995, following the death of Jerry Garcia on August 9, 1995, RatDog became Bob Weir's primary band...
drummer/Primus
Primus (band)
Primus is an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, currently composed of bassist/vocalist Les Claypool, guitarist Larry "Ler" LaLonde and drummer Jay Lane. Primus originally formed in 1984 with Claypool and guitarist Todd Huth, later joined by Lane, though the latter two departed...
co-founder Jay Lane
Jay Lane
Jay Lane is an American drummer from the San Francisco Bay Area. He is currently a member of Primus, as well as Bob Weir's RatDog, Scaring the Children with Weir and Rob Wasserman, and the hip hop/jazz fusion group Alphabet Soup. In 2002, Lane was named "drummer of the year" by the California...
(with jam
Jam band
-Ambiguity:By the late 1990s use of the term jam band also became ambiguous. An editorial at jamband.com suggested that any band of which a primary band such as Phish has done a cover of be included as jam band. The example was including New York post-punk band Talking Heads after Phish performed...
side project Alphabet Soup) and Marc Biedermann
Marc Biedermann
Marc Biedermann is an El Sobrante, California based heavy metal guitarist, vocalist, bassist and songwriter. He is best known for as the driving force behind the progressive band Blind Illusion. He has also played on Blue Öyster Cults Imaginos and Heathens Victims of Deception albums...
(founder of Blind Illusion
Blind Illusion
Blind Illusion is an American progressive thrash metal band from Richmond, California. Formed in 1979 by lead guitarist and main songwriter Marc Biedermann, the band had an extremely unstable lineup and went through several stylistic changes during their time...
, and former bassist for thrash metal band Heathen
Heathen (band)
Heathen is an American thrash metal band originating from the Bay Area San Francisco, founded in 1984 by guitarist Lee Altus and drummer Carl Sacco...
). School jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
and marching bands from Richmond, El Cerrito, Albany and Berkeley have also appeared at the Stroll since its early years.
The event opens with a parade down Solano. As the end of the parade moves downhill, the street is gradually opened to pedestrians only, and stays that way until late in the afternoon. According to a University of California-Berkeley press report , the 2005 event attracted between 120,000 and 150,000 attendees. Around 300,000 people were attributed by organizers to have attended the 2009 festival, a number largely overshadowed by vacant Solano Avenue storefronts and the late 2000s economic downturn.
In 2001, the Solano Stroll was designated a "National Local Legacy" by The Library of Congress.
Public transportation
Solano Avenue has in the past doubled as a right-of-way for two interurbanInterurban
An interurban, also called a radial railway in parts of Canada, is a type of electric passenger railroad; in short a hybrid between tram and train. Interurbans enjoyed widespread popularity in the first three decades of the twentieth century in North America. Until the early 1920s, most roads were...
rail lines, the Southern Pacific Railroad
East Bay Electric Lines
The East Bay Electric Lines were a unit of the Southern Pacific Railroad which operated a system of electric interurban-type trains in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area...
and the Key System
Key System
The Key System was a privately owned company which provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area from 1903 until 1960, when the system was sold to a newly formed public...
, and was intersected by the Santa Fe Railroad
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often abbreviated as Santa Fe, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The company was first chartered in February 1859...
. The Southern Pacific trains used a terminal area at Colusa Ave., now occupied by Andronico's, while the Key System trains terminated at The Alameda. Solano Avenue also intersected streetcar lines at San Pablo Avenue and The Alameda. When BART
Bay Area Rapid Transit
Bay Area Rapid Transit is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The heavy-rail public transit and subway system connects San Francisco with cities in the East Bay and suburbs in northern San Mateo County. BART operates five lines on of track with 44 stations in four counties...
was built alongside the Santa Fe's right-of-way, a station at Solano Avenue wasn't included. However, it is only about a 15-20 minute walk to both the El Cerrito Plaza and North Berkeley BART stations.
AC Transit
AC Transit
AC Transit is an Oakland-based regional public transit agency serving the western half of Alameda County and parts of western Contra Costa County in the western, Bay-side area of the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area...
currently operates bus
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...
service on Solano Avenue, and three local bus lines connect Solano to Downtown Berkeley
Downtown Berkeley, California
Downtown Berkeley is the central business district of the city of Berkeley, California, United States, around the intersection of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street, and extending north to Hearst Avenue, south to Dwight Way, west to Martin Luther King Jr. Way, and east to Oxford Street...
. Line 18 runs along the entire length of Solano. Line 7 goes through the Northbrae/Solano Avenue Tunnel and stops at The Alameda before turning. Line 25 makes two stops, at The Alameda and Colusa Avenue. In addition, the 72 line crosses Solano at San Pablo Avenue.
Several AC Transit transbay buses connect Solano Avenue to San Francisco. The G line runs along Solano between Colusa and San Pablo, while the FS line covers the part of Solano east of Colusa. Line L crosses the western end at Pierce Street; while Line H crosses the eastern end, running over the top of the Northbrae/Solano Avenue Tunnel.
Historical items
- Solano Avenue was named for Solano CountySolano County, CaliforniaSolano County is a county located in Bay-Delta region of the U.S. state of California, about halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento and is one of the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties. The county's population was reported by the U.S. Census to be 413,344 in 2010...
. Many other streets in the vicinity of Solano are likewise named for California counties. This was done as part of a campaign in the early 1900s to have the state capital moved from Sacramento to Berkeley. The legislature agreed to put this on the 1908 ballot, but the measure lost by 35,000 votes. - The portion of Solano Avenue within the city of Albany was originally named "Main Street" but this was soon changed to conform to the name "Solano" used within the city of Berkeley.
- Upper Solano Avenue was an important hub of the Southern Pacific's East Bay Electric LinesEast Bay Electric LinesThe East Bay Electric Lines were a unit of the Southern Pacific Railroad which operated a system of electric interurban-type trains in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area...
(later called the "Interurban Electric Railway" after the Bay Bridge was constructed). Three lines intersected at Solano and Colusa Avenues, the "Colusa WyeWye (railroad)A wye or triangular junction, in rail terminology, is a triangular shaped arrangement of rail tracks with a switch or set of points at each corner. In mainline railroads, this can be used at a rail junction, where three rail lines join, in order to allow trains to pass from any line to any other...
": the Shattuck Avenue line (using Solano Ave. between The Alameda and Colusa Ave.), the California Street line, and the Ninth Street line (using Solano Ave between Colusa Ave. and Jackson St.). The station here was called "Thousand Oaks". The Southern Pacific also maintained an electric substation on the north side of the intersection which supplied power to the entire northern section of the East Bay Electric Lines. A small cul de sac behind the building that now occupies the site of the old substation is still called "Station Place". - A watchman's tower, the Masonic Tower, used to sit at the intersection of the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific tracks, on Solano between Masonic Avenue and Key Route Blvd. Today, a dry cleaning establishment occupies the site.
- After the Key System acquired the use of the Southern Pacific's Shattuck Avenue line tracks for its F-line, its trains terminated on the east side of The Alameda.