Two new bronze lanterns may shine again soon atop historic stone pillars in the Northbrae neighborhood. The project to restore the lanterns was organized by residents who noticed the lanterns in old photographs and hired a local metalsmith to handcraft them. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight LocalFor decades, two unassuming stone pillars have stood by the intersection of Hopkins Street and The Alameda.
Most don’t know that there once were four of the pillars, one on each street corner, or that they used to be topped by lanterns. They were designed in 1910 by John Galen Howard, the famed architect behind many of UC Berkeley’s most recognizable buildings: the Campanile, Doe Memorial Library, California Memorial Stadium and Hearst Greek Theatre.
But thanks to a couple of civic activists, a metalsmith with a soft spot for history and a community-led restoration effort that has raised more than $13,000, a new pair of handcrafted bronze lanterns could brighten the entrance to Berkeley’s Northbrae neighborhood once more. If all goes to plan, they’ll be lit up in a public unveiling ceremony as early as May, organizers say.
Berkeley resident Darrell Owens, a driving force behind the effort, hopes the lanterns will inspire others in his community to recognize and maintain public art in the Northbrae neighborhood. (A housing advocate and writer, Owens is also one of the transit activists behind the wooden “guerrilla” bus benches that have popped up across Berkeley and Oakland and spurred the city to take action.)
“There are groups in Claremont that ensure that the big lanterns are maintained, [and] there are groups in St. Francis Wood that make sure all their fountains and pillars are maintained,” Owens said, referring to the historic San Francisco neighborhood. “But there is no group in Northbrae that does that … [and] I think the Northbrae public art is actually the coolest of them all.”
Growing up, Owens would often rest on the seating area at the base of the dusty stone columns while he waited for the bus as a middle-schooler. He often thought they looked a bit funny, as other rectangular pillars in the neighborhood had cement globes on top.
It wasn’t until he came across some archival photographs while researching Berkeley’s fountains that he noticed a familiar set of pillars with lanterns on top of them. That sent him down a rabbit hole of research, where he learned the pillars had seating because they were located by the Northbrae transfer station of the Key System streetcar network, and marked the neighborhood’s entrance. The electric streetcars provided fast transportation around the East Bay in the early 1900s, and were a vital part of Berkeley’s expansion, including the residential development in what we now consider the Northbrae neighborhood.
Celebrated architect John Galen Howard’s original sketch for the lanterns on Hopkins Street. Credit: Darrell OwensThe developer hired Howard to design public art across Northbrae, including its pink sidewalks, ornamental stairways, fountains, streetcar stations, rock bridges and the stone pillars, which were made from cream-colored rhyolite rocks with concrete engravings of street names. The lanterns appeared in real estate ads for the neighborhood as early as 1911.
Owens sifted through documents at the Western Railway Museum and UC Berkeley’s Environmental Design Archives to learn more about the lanterns, as well as historic videos (such as this one, which shows the lanterns at the 47-second mark). He believes the two pillars on the northeast and southeast corners were demolished in the 1920s to make way for a gas station, while the lanterns were sawed off rather clumsily sometime between 1956 and 1960, perhaps when the city installed traffic signals at the intersection. Owens said he has climbed up to the top of the pillars and seen remnants of a pipe still sticking out.
To raise money for the project, Owens teamed up with Berkeley resident Charles Wilson, a landscape architect and treasurer of the Friends of the Fountain and Walk, a volunteer-run nonprofit that has preserved and maintained the Beaux Arts fountain at the base of Marin Avenue.
“I want people to be proud of their neighborhood and I want people to respect the history,” Wilson said, “[even] if it’s only 100-year history or 125-year history.”
Wilson, who had also been interested in the Northbrae neighborhood’s pillars when Owens approached him, said the nonprofit raised about $5,000 for the lanterns. Meanwhile a GoFundMe page Owens started, which is still accepting donations, has raised another $9,700.
With money and momentum behind the project, city workers gave the sooty columns a sorely needed power wash last fall, and Owens and Wilson found a metalsmith to recreate the historic fixtures.
Metalsmith Jerry Coe works in his studio in West Berkeley. Coe was hired by housing activist Darrell Owens and Charles Wilson, treasurer of the Friends of the Fountain and Walk non-profit, to recreate the long-lost lanterns. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight LocalAlbany resident Jerry Coe, who owns Coe Studios in West Berkeley, was thrilled when Owens and Wilson approached him with their lantern project. He was so enthusiastic he gave them a 10% discount off the time-intensive custom project.
“How Berkeley can you get?” Coe said. “There’s not much else I could imagine … for us, it’s nice to be part of it, and it’s only a mile away.”
Coe divides his work into two categories: functional art, which satisfies his creative side, and garden lighting, the bread-and-butter of his business. This project was both, plus it was steeped in local lore.
In the 1970s, Coe left his job as a Yosemite National Park ranger responsible for mountain rescues to become a metalsmith after he met an older man who built stagecoaches. Coe became the man’s apprentice and later began working for local museums, recreating missing parts for historic ships. One of his proudest achievements was crafting a full-scale, working replica of a gravity car for the centennial celebration of the now-defunct railway at Mt. Tamalpais State Park, he said.
Everything in his West Berkeley workshop seems to be coated in a thin blanket of black and shimmering golden dust. A tree frog that’s taken up residence in his building offers the occasional ribbit. As Coe speaks, he alternates between heating up a small chunk of bronze under a 1000-degree Fahrenheit flame until it turns claylike and hammering it on an anvil.
To recreate the lantern, Coe made several large sketches based on the archival photographs, carefully consulting with Owens and Wilson on the design. He has stuck as close as possible to the original thing, using a grid to enlarge a black-and-white photograph of the lanterns.
Jerry Coe and Sofia Barron-Kardos, his apprentice, designed their lanterns based on the small handful of old photographs of the original ones. Coe and the neighbors behind the projects added a few modifications, like making the finial (the spike at the top the lantern), longer and slimmer. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local
Coe who designed the new lanterns, decided to make them out of bronze, a mix of copper and zinc. “They should last forever,” he said. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight LocalIt’s unclear what material the original lanterns were made out of, but Coe believes they may have been tin. The new ones will be made from a mix of 60% copper and 40% zinc, he said, and will be solar powered — though you won’t be able to see the panels from the ground.
When Berkeleyside visited his studio earlier this week, much of the bronze lanterns’ frames had been completed. Coe said he planned to visit an Alameda glass manufacturer to finish the lanterns’ windows. Then, he and his apprentice will fuse the glass to the metal and place the final touches, which include polishing the gold-hued bronze, applying a patina to age it and sealing it with wax. Once complete, each lantern will likely weigh over 100 pounds, he said.
Owens and Wilson have already begun brainstorming ideas to restore public art in the Northbrae neighborhood. They have their sights set on the other John Galen Howard stone pillars on streets, some of which have been destroyed by cars over the years.
But before that, they plan to celebrate the lighting of the lanterns with a public ceremony sometime later this year, in which Coe will bring an anvil to the neighborhood and let the community jointly place the final rivet.
Metalsmith Jerry Coe and Sofia Barron-Kardos, his apprentice, pose for a portrait with the new lanterns. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local
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