Emeryville, California

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Area
Emeryville, California
Image:Emerysky.jpg
City	Emeryville
Mayor	Ruth Atkin [1] (D)
- City	km²
Population
- City ()	6,882
Time zone	Pacific Standard Time Zone (UTC-8)
- Summer (DST)	Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7)
Website: http://www.ci.emeryville.ca.us/

The city of Emeryville highlighted within Alameda County

Emeryville is a small city located in Alameda County, California, in the United States. It is located in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its proximity to San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, the University of California, Berkeley, and Silicon Valley has been a catalyst for recent economic growth. Several well known biotech, software and entertainment companies have made their home in Emeryville, including Pixar Animation Studios, LeapFrog, Sendmail, Chiron (now part of Novartis), and Sybase. The population was 6,882 at the 2000 census.

1 History
2 Mudflats and other environmental features
3 Business and Industry
4 Transportation
5 Geography
6 Demographics
7 Bibliography
8 External links

[edit] History

Before the colonization of the area by Spain in 1776, this area was the site of extensive native American settlements. Mudflats rich with clams and rocky areas with oysters, plus fishing, hunting, and acorns from the local oak trees provided a rich and easily exploited food source for the residents, who disposed of their clam and oyster shells in a single place, over time creating a huge mound, the Emeryville Shellmound [2].

During the Spanish and Mexican eras, Emeryville was the site of a small wharf near the mouth of Temescal Creek adjacent to the shellmound. The wharf served the Peralta family's Rancho San Antonio, and was used for loading the principal produce of the ranch—cattle hides—onto lighters, and subsequently transferring them to ships, including New England-bound schooners.

The handling of cattle continued into the American era with the establishment of numerous meat packing plants along the bayshore in Emeryville between 67^th and 63^rd Streets in an area called "Butchertown". The cattle processed here were raised in nearby ranches and farms, and brought in by rail or barge. The odors emanating from this district were notorious and often mentioned in local newspapers of the 19^th and early 20^th century.

The Town of Emeryville was incorporated December 2 1896. It was named after Joseph Stickney Emery who came during the Gold Rush and acquired large tracts of land in what became known as "Emery's". In 1884, Emery was president of a narrow-gauge railroad called the California and Nevada Railroad. The railroad originally intended to extend from Oakland, through Emery's (at the time, just an unincorporated settlement along the bayshore) and then east across the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the gold mining town of Bodie, California. From Bodie the railroad would extend east through Nevada to a connection with the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. Despite its grandiose intentions, the railroad only built from Oakland to Orinda and its right-of-way was sold to the Santa Fe Railway.[3] The Santa Fe then constructed a rail yard and passenger depot below San Pablo between 41^st Street and Yerba Buena Avenue. Although located in Emeryville, the depot, which opened in 1902, was called "Oakland".

The Key System, a local transit company, acquired the general offices of the California and Nevada as well as their nascent pier into San Francisco Bay, which was quickly transformed into a long pier reaching nearly to Yerba Buena Island. The Key System established its main rail yard adjacent to the yard of the Santa Fe in a large tract west of San Pablo Avenue in the vicinity of Yerba Buena Avenue (so named because the island was visible in line with the thoroughfare). The Key System's main power plant, used to energize its streetcars and commuter trains, was constructed adjacent to the city limits with Oakland. The immense smokestack was a local landmark for decades, surviving right through the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. It was demolished for safety reasons shortly thereafter. The old Key System mainline to the pier, and later, to the Bay Bridge, ran in a subway below Beach Street and the Southern Pacific mainline near the power plant. That subway survives and is today used as a private entrance to the main sewage treatment plant of EBMUD (the water utility serving Oakland and many surrounding cities). The rail yards and shops of the Key System and Santa Fe were acquired by Santa Fe's real estate development arm, later known as the Catellus Corporation, and this firm proceeded with the development which is today, a sprawling shopping center and multiunit residential district.

In the late 19^th century, a large park was built around the shellmound. The park included two dance pavilions, one of which stood atop the shellmound. A trotting park (the Oakland Trotting Park) was built nearby at the junction of the Berkeley Branch line with the mainline of the Southern Pacific. On February 22 1920 the first dog race track to employ an imitation rabbit opened in Emeryville.

Emeryville used to be as well known for its gambling houses and bordellos as it was for its booming industrial sector; then Alameda County district attorney, later California governor and then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Earl Warren once famously called it "the rottenest city on the Pacific Coast". The popular local restaurant The Townhouse is one such trace, a location that once was a speakeasy during Prohibition.

Emeryville was the site of Oaks Park, the home turf of the Pacific Coast League's Oakland Oaks. The ballpark was located on the block bounded by San Pablo, 45^th Street and Park Street (the fourth side was Watts Street). The site is now partly an empty, fenced-off lot, and overlapped by Pixar Studios. Pixar's main gate (on Park Street) lies directly on the old segment of Watts Street. The stadium did not front directly on San Pablo where a strip of various small commercial buildings stood, now replaced by a single one-story commercial building with several chain businesses.

During World War II, Emeryville was the southern terminus of the Shipyard Railway, a specially constructed electric rail line operated by the Key System to transport workers to the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond. The station was located on the west side of San Pablo Avenue on the Key's yard property. The tracks led out to San Pablo Avenue where they were merged into existing streetcar tracks.

From the late 19^th into the early 20^th century, Emeryville's development as an industrial city grew. Besides the meat-packing plants, other industries were added. Among these were the Judson Iron Works and the Sherwin-Williams paint company. From 1939 until the 1970s, a massive animated neon sign showing a can of red paint tilting, spilling, and covering a globe of the earth, with the slogan "We Cover the Earth" sat on the roof of the plant's main building, a familiar sight to eastbound motorists on the Bay Bridge. It was also once the location of Shell Development, the research arm of Shell Oil Company, which relocated in 1972 to Houston, Texas. A large scrap metal yard (part of the Judson Iron Works) was visible from the Eastshore Freeway for decades until the early 1970s. Also visible, a large facility of the Pacific Intermountain Express (PIE) trucking firm.

By the late 1960s, industries were beginning to move away from Emeryville and the appearance of the city seriously declined. This began to change in the mid 1970s starting with the development of the marina section of Emeryville. By the 1980s, a large shopping area began to take shape north and south of the Powell Street corridor. Additionally, the Chiron Corporation (now Novartis), a major biotechnology company, established its headquarters just south of the old junction of the SP mainline tracks and the old Berkeley branchline (Shellmound Junction) at the end of Stanford Avenue, the site of the old Shellmound trotting course.

Following the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989, a new Amtrak depot was built in Emeryville to replace the old 16^th Street Station in West Oakland, which had been deteriorating even before it was seriously damaged by the quake. The Emeryville station serves Amtrak's California Zephyr, Coast Starlight, San Joaquin, and Capitol Corridor trains. The California Zephyr originates here with service daily to Chicago, Illinois via Salt Lake City, Utah and Denver, Colorado. Buses link the station with San Francisco.

By the 1990s, the old Santa Fe and Key System yards tracts were transformed into a large shopping and residential area, as was the Shellmound corridor. Development of these areas included major roadwork, with the extension of 40th Street, including the construction of a large overpass across the Southern Pacific (now Union Pacific) railroad tracks which connected 40^th Street to an extension of Shellmound Street, creating a single thoroughfare linking two sections of the new Emeryville. On the northern stretch of Shellmound Street, the Emery Marketplace and a movie multiplex were built.

In the early 2000s, the Bay Street commercial area was developed.[4] This section overlaps the site of the old shellmound and straddles Temescal Creek.

[edit] Mudflats and other environmental features

Image:Emeryville mudflats distant San Francisco.JPG

At one time, the Emeryville Mudflats were famous for their stench. In the 19th and early 20th century, this was caused by the effluent from the several meat-packing plants along the bayshore called "Butchertown". Stripped carcasses were also dumped in the bay here. Later on, untreated sewage from Emeryville Oakland and Berkeley flowed directly into the bay over the mudflats producing hydrogen sulfide gas, particularly noticeable on warm days. In the 1950s the East Bay Municipal Utility District constructed a regional sewage treatment plant near the eastern terminus of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, which, for the most part, cured the noxious problem.

The Emeryville Mudflats became famous in the 1960s and 1970s for public art, erected (with neither permission nor compensation) from driftwood timbers and boards by professional and amateur artists and art students from local high schools, the UC Berkeley, the California College of Arts and Crafts and the Free University of Berkeley. The mudflats were even featured in the 1971 film Harold and Maude. These unsanctioned works were admired by some drivers heading westbound on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge from Interstate 80.

In the late 1990s, the sculptures and materials were removed in the interest of establishing a more natural and undisturbed marshland for the nurturing of wildlife. This process continues around the bay in many other wetlands, former diked grazing fields, and salt production evaporation ponds.

Historically, Emeryville had been the location of a number of heavy industrial uses such as P.I.E, whose properties were developed by bringing in waste and construction debris fill from San Francisco in the early 1900s. Correspondingly much of the underlying soil contained heavy metals, hydrocarbons and other soil contaminants. Much of this contamination was removed in the 1980s when the considerable wave of redevelopment occurred.

[edit] Business and Industry

Emeryville is now home to burgeoning biotechnology, software and film industries. Because of these some consider Emeryville an exclave of the Silicon Valley region, the northern reaches of which are about 30 miles south of Emeryville.

Companies include:

Chiron Corporation (recently acquired by Novartis International AG) — a global biotech leader and research company and manufacturer of biopharmaceuticals, vaccines and blood testing kits, providing therapeutics against multiple sclerosis, vaccines against meningitis, flu and rabies, and testing kits for hepatitis and HIV.
Pixar Animation Studios — a major animation and computer graphics firm known for award-winning short and feature films such as Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and Finding Nemo. In their movie The Incredibles, a map is shown on the dashboard of the hero's car, easily recognizable as part of Emeryville near Pixar's headquarters. Also, a "Welcome to Emeryville" sign is briefly seen in the 2006 film Cars.
Kodak EasyShare Gallery (formerly Ofoto.com) - an Internet digital photo service whose product offerings include photo prints and gifts.
Wham-O Toys — a toy company and an inventor's workshop, home of the original frisbee, hacky sack and hula hoop.
Leapfrog — an educational toy company best known for its LeapPad, a paper-based electronic reading toy.
Sendmail Inc. a software and services company that was founded by Eric Allman, the founder of Email itself
Alternative Tentacles Records — a long-running independent record label, specializing in punk and alternative music, founded and run by former Dead Kennedys singer/songwriter Jello Biafra. Home to the music of Biafra, Wesley Willis, The Dicks, D.O.A., and many other acts. Although founded in San Francisco (where a PO Box mailing address is maintained), the label's actual office and warehouse space are in Emeryville.
Peet's Coffee & Tea - specialty coffee roaster and retailer, and inspiration for Starbucks Coffee
Innovative Interfaces, Inc - a leading supplier of integrated library system software.
Art.com, Inc - the world's largest online retailer of print art and posters.

As part of a huge urban renewal project, several enormous shopping centers have opened next to the intersection of Interstate highways 80 and 580. Among their anchor tenants is the first store of Ikea in Northern California, as well as more familiar merchants such as the Home Depot. A new retail development named Bay Street Emeryville sits along Highway 80 and is home to such merchants as Banana Republic, GAP, Coach and the Apple Store, and restaurants such as California Pizza Kitchen and Pasta Pomodoro. The complex is anchored by AMC Theaters and is located next to IKEA. Will Wright's Spore development team is currently based here.

[edit] Transportation

Image:Emeryville Amtrak station November-2005.jpg

Emeryville has an Amtrak station, and also sits about two miles west of the MacArthur BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) Station in Oakland. To supplement the bus service provided by AC Transit, the regional transit agency, the city runs a free shuttle service called Emery Go Round that serves MacArthur BART, the Bay Street shops, the Marina and other places.

As for freeway access, it sits on a key section of Interstate 80, just north of where that freeway meets Interstate 880 and Interstate 580 in a gigantic interchange known as the MacArthur Maze. Highway 24 is also accessible from Emeryville, which connects southbound to Interstate 880 via Highway 980 and continues eastward to Highway 680, towards Walnut Creek and Concord.

Emeryville also maintains a small marina with limited services.

[edit] Geography

Emeryville is located at 37°50′9″N, 122°17′14″W (37.835926, -122.287253)^GR1.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 5.0 km² (1.9 mi²). 3.2 km² (1.2 mi²) of it is land and 1.8 km² (0.7 mi²) of it (36.79%) is water.

[edit] Demographics

As of the census^GR2 of 2000, there were 6,882 people, 3,975 households, and 1,164 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,178.0/km² (5,646.2/mi²). There were 4,274 housing units at an average density of 1,352.6/km² (3,506.5/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 44.99% White, 19.46% Black or African American, 0.49% Native American, 25.57% Asian, 0.25% Pacific Islander, 4.18% from other races, and 5.06% from two or more races. 8.95% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 3,975 households out of which 10.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 18.0% were married couples living together, 8.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 70.7% were non-families. 55.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.71 and the average family size was 2.69.

In the city the population was spread out with 11.4% under the age of 18, 13.4% from 18 to 24, 42.2% from 25 to 44, 23.3% from 45 to 64, and 9.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 100.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 100.0 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $45,359, and the median income for a family was $57,063. Males had a median income of $49,333 versus $39,527 for females. The per capita income for the city was $33,260. About 6.3% of families and 13.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 4.5% of those under age 18 and 8.0% of those age 65 or over.

[edit] Bibliography

C. Michael Hogan, Michael J. Johnson et al., "Environmental Impact Report for the Eastshore Center Development in the Redevelopment Project Area of the City of Emeryville, prepared for the city of Emeryville by Earth Metrics Inc., Burlingame, CA, July, 1986
Emeryville General Plan, volumes I and II (1979)
Final Environmental Impact Report, Bay Center Development, prepared by the city of Emeryville (1985)