Rockridge, Oakland, California

Rockridge is a residential neighborhood and commercial district in Oakland, California. Rockridge is generally defined as the area east of Telegraph Avenue, south of the Berkeley city limits, west of the Oakland hills and north of the intersection of Pleasant Valley Avenue/51^st Street and Broadway. Some residential portions of the neighborhood consist mainly of relatively large homes built between the 1920s and the 1950s, although some homes date even earlier to 1909-1912. Other portions of the neighborhood consist of small bungalows and cottages. In other sections, multi-family, apartment buildings add density which supports nearby transit and retail.

Commerce

The main thoroughfare in Rockridge is College Avenue, and the district is bounded by the main campus of the California College of the Arts on the southern end and Berkeley's Elmwood district on the northern end. The College Avenue strip running through Rockridge is home to more than 80 restaurants, cafes and upscale retail stores, including several bookstores specializing in used and rare books.

Dreyer's Ice Cream maintains its international corporate headquarters in Rockridge on College Avenue, and operates its only retail ice cream parlor on the premises, where it offers visitors the opportunity to test new flavors and products. The Rockridge Branch of the Oakland Public Library is one of the most visited establishments in the neighborhood and is home to an extensive collection of children's books and audio/visual materials.

Rockridge is often mentioned in tourist guidebooks on Oakland and the East Bay.

Transportation

Rockridge has been the subject of several academic and government studies regarding the integration of public transportation and residential neighborhoods.Fact|date=February 2008 The Rockridge BART station has been cited as the model of weaving retail, commercial and residential interests into a workable neighborhood.Fact|date=February 2008 The area around the Rockridge BART provides transportation by train, bus, and casual carpool to all Bay Area airports, downtowns, and entertainment districts, while surrounded by open air markets, cafes, bars, shopping, and homes. The Rockridge BART station is located in the center of Rockridge, where College Avenue and Highway 24 cross. AC Transit bus lines 7, 51 and 59 serve the center of the neighborhood, while line E runs along Claremont Avenue and lines 12, 40/40L, CB, and V run along its edges.

BART travel times from Rockridge to Montgomery Station near San Francisco's downtown financial district average 22 minutes. Travel times to downtown Oakland average 8 minutes.

Community character

Rockridge residents are involved in their neighborhood political, educational and cultural life; Rockridge boasts no fewer than 11 community organizations. The "Rockridge News" is published monthly and hand delivered to every resident's home. Chabot Elementary School in Rockridge consistently scores high in statewide assessments, and the Chabot PTA offers extensive after-school programs including language immersion classes and arts and music classes.

History

Rockridge is named for the outcroppings of rock at the northern end of the long shutter ridge formed by the Hayward Fault which encloses the linear valley in which the Montclair district of Oakland is situated. An example of this rock can be seen at an abandoned quarry adjacent to the Rockridge Shopping Center on Pleasant Valley Road. This quarry was operated well into the 1950s and is now used as a reservoir for the Claremont Country Club. Prior to the construction of the shopping center in the late 1960s, the Broadway side of the shopping center had a used car lot. Additionally, Pleasant Valley Avenue did not cross over the hill to Piedmont Avenue. Instead, there was a short street called "McAdams". Mather Street, which intersects Broadway near Oakland Technical High School, formed the continuation of what is now the downhill side of Pleasant Valley Avenue.

Like many neighborhoods, Rockridge has had its ups and downs. Prior to the completion of Highway 24 in 1964, Miles Avenue and several other streets were laid out differently. Residents living in the area at the time, once known as "Little Italy" because of a large number of Italian immigrants, saw the decline of the neighborhood's human scale into the 1970s due to the separation of the neighborhood caused by the SR-24 freeway. In the mid to late1970s, some storefronts on College Avenue were boarded up. However, due to the fortunate success of a number of new businesses, who together formed a "critical mass" of commercial attraction, Rockridge began to thrive again. These three concerns were an antique store, a furniture store, a children's toy and clothing store, and a bagel and dessert restaurant. All three were popular and profitable within months of their openings, and served as anchors for a rebirth of the Rockridge commercial district.Fact|date=November 2007

Perhaps acknowledging the decline in the local population, in 1979, the Oakland School Board made the decision to close and demolish Rockridge Elementary School, located on Broadway Terrace, due to the sharp decline in enrollment (less than 150 students) and fears for the earthquake safety of the original schoolhouse, a two-story building built in 1923. Today, few remember the school which was replaced by another non-elementary school around 1982. The Oakland Unified School District retains ownership of the site and it now operates as Far West High School, a small (approx. 190 students), visual arts-focused campus for grades 9-12. The original auditorium was torn down in the 1950s, and the current one (still in use and doubling as the cafeteria) was constructed in 1959.

Until the 1950s, electric trolley trains ran along College Avenue on what is now AC Transit bus route 51. Additionally, as late as 1959, railroad tracks ran along Shafter Avenue, crossed College Ave. near where the Rockridge BART station is now and ran along the corridor of what is now state Highway 13 (the portion after Ashby Ave.), through Montclair Village and over into Contra Costa County. Film footage of this route has been broadcast over local PBS TV station KQED in a 1990s documentary on the development of the East Bay.Fact|date=September 2007

ee also

*Zachary's Pizza

External links

* [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RockridgeNeighborhoodWatchNetwork/ Rockridge Crime & Safety]
* [http://www.rockridge.org Rockridge Community Planning Council]
* [http://mondomap.com/mondo/map_ocvb.cfm?bid=20 Rockridge Interactive Map] - Oakland Convention and Visitors Bureau.
* [http://www.rockridgedistrict.com Rockridge District Association]
* [http://www.oaklandnet.com/government/council/coun_mem/brunner/index.html Oakland City Councilmember Jane Brunner] , who represents Rockridge