Southside, Berkeley, California

Southside
Neighborhood of Berkeley
Telegraph Avenue during a street fair
Nickname(s): South of Campus, South Campus
Southside Location within Berkeley and the East Bay
Coordinates: 37°52′04″N 122°15′32″W / 37.8678°N 122.2590°W / 37.8678; -122.2590
Country	United States
State	California
County	Alameda
City	Berkeley

Southside, also known by the older names South of Campus or South Campus, is a neighborhood in Berkeley, California. Southside is located directly south of and adjacent to the University of California, Berkeley campus. Because of the large student presence in the neighborhood, proximity to Sproul Plaza, and history of the area, Southside is the neighborhood most closely associated with the university.

Southside began in the 1860s as a real estate development by the private College of California, the predecessor to the university. The trustees of the College needed to buy a large farm to the east of the College's planned campus to secure its water rights over the headwaters of Strawberry Creek. To raise money for that project, they decided to also buy land to the south of the planned campus at the same time and sell lots adjacent to the campus to create a college town. They initially hired Frederick Law Olmsted to plan the new town, but eventually decided to go for a more traditional grid layout. Except for a small area around Piedmont Avenue designed by Olmsted, the streets were laid out in a 1/8 by 1/8 mile grid, and named alphabetically for prominent academics.

The east-west oriented streets were named in order from the northernmost to the southernmost street: Allston, Bancroft, Channing, and Dwight, all of which retain their old names. The north-south oriented streets were named from easternmost to westernmost: Audubon (now College), Bowditch, Choate (now Telegraph), Dana, Ellsworth, and Fulton. These initial blocks have been subdivided by the insertion of Durant Avenue, and Haste, Kittredge, and Atherton Streets.

The neighborhood didn't begin to grow until after 1873, when the university moved to Berkeley from Downtown Oakland. The neighborhood was connected to Oakland by a horsecar (then streetcar) line along present-day Telegraph Avenue. It grew steadily over the next few decades, with a business district along the streetcar line, and farmhouses and mansions, then rooming-houses, apartments, hotels, churches, and new streets filling the large blocks.