Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park

don“t sit on the ledges!

It’s a nice park. I’m sure it’s crazy if school was in session because it’s directly across the street of Berkeley High School.
The people that we were surrounded with are interesting but there wasn’t too many. There is definitely character at this park.

I’m giving MLK Park four stars because it’s in Downtown Berkeley yet doesn’t feel like it’s in Downtown Berkeley. Put another way, although you will be sharing the park with homeless people and Berkeley High School students, for some reason, it’s all good. This is in contrast to People’s Park, which should probably be called Some People’s Park, because it’s not for all of us.
I ate lunch here with a couple of coworkers earlier this week. I normally eat in the office, but because a sizable portion of UCB’s graduate students believe I am an overpaid bureaucrat, or that I work for overpaid bureaucrats – or something like that – our office has been occupied territory since Monday morning. That means that literally dozens of sociology and geography grad students have been sitting, working, blogging, juggling*, eating, and sleeping in our office for almost an entire week. Their beef? It’s really complicated and probably not terribly interesting to most people, but they believe an election was stolen. What kind of election? Hey, I already told you it was really complicated and not terribly interesting! Sorry. It’s all good.
In any case, my supervisor really enjoyed our lunch on the grass, and she found it interesting that she had worked less than a block from this park for more than a year but had never been here. Until the chaos ends, I can imagine spending many more lunch hours here. As usual, it’s best to avoid this place (and any public place in Downtown Berkeley) during BHS’s lunch hour.
So thanks, protesters, for introducing me to a new lunch spot. I’m normally all about protesting, but I also know that it’s important to pick your battles, and if you’re trying to stand up for workers’ rights, it makes a lot more sense to direct your anger (and your sit-​in) at a place other than where everyday workers who played no part in the injustice^ you’re protesting against are trying to get work done. In fact, by making it impossible for all of us to do our work these past few days, you’ve actually been wasting your own union dues.
*Yes, there was juggling. The strangest part of the juggling was that one of the grad students – an adult in her twenties – claimed she had never witnessed juggling before. Never. She was so excited about it. How can someone go through life never having witnessed juggling, especially someone who LIVES IN BERKELEY?
^The supposed stealing of the vote took place in L.A., so I think all these Berkeley students should be down there with their UCLA brethren sitting in in that office. More important, STOP STEALING STUFF FROM MY DESK! I came back to work on Wednesday to find most of my pens missing. And my computer speakers were disconnected. Thanks. It was very nice of you to use my speakers, put them back on my desk, and not bother to plug them back in. I’ll be sure to vote for you guys in the next election.

«Park» seems a generous word, for while there may be a towering semi-​circle of trees, a medium-​sized person could likely throw a x-​zylo across the turf without even trying that hard. Still, whatever title suits there’s a good number of folks who mash this grass with their grateful bottoms, and on behalf of those I speak.
Addison St. borders the northern perimeter, and on Saturday plays host to a lively, organic farmers market. It is at this this time, and weekdays after the 3pm bell when the BHS throngs descend, that the green’s in full swing: toddlers will be scampering up the climbing rocks, sparking-​eyed teenagers attack the skateboarding horizontals with gusto. People with all natures of problems, from not having a home to not having a floppy-​haired boyfriend, can be found. Patches of sunny lawn become an equalizer.
For just this reason, photo opps abound. Where can one find acro-​yogis doing airplane and drinking kombucha, handwritten posters looking for Julie (with a heart dotting the i) because her friend Eddie needs her help while he’s in the slammer plastered to the port-​a-​potty, a bench warmed by a woman dressed in everything she owns warmed by a Himalayan cat on her belly, and/​or two sun-​kissed high school boys with slightly upturned noses dressed in 80s punk gear with blue hair and arms draped over each other, smiling? I mean these are the people lenses and café walls were made for!
So admit it, Berkeleyans, you plot your routes home to perambulate alongside this spot. What’s a city without the spectacle of its inhabitants?

Usually I like parks and think they better cities, but I can’t say I think highly of this one. I do appreciate that it’s some green space in downtown Berkeley, but other than that there isn’t a lot I like about this park. For starters, it’s crawling with homeless people — and not cool homeless people. I can be all about chilling with the homeless, like some of the friendly guys at St. James Park in downtown San Jose. The guys here, though, tend to be rude and harass you. There’s also not a lot of interesting decoration or cool events that take place here, as far as I can tell. I wish the City of Berkeley would do more with this park, as the space really does have a lot of potential.

Skateboarding is never a problem at MLK park. Berkeley decided to do a great thing by adding the ledges during the remodeling. Instead of mis-​spending tons of money on another skatepark that would require more supervision, they built a great skating area for a lot less money.
This spot is enjoyed daily by skaters from all over the bay. Now high school kids can bust some grinds, flippy tricks, and manuals in one of the safest areas in town.
Skateboarding is not going away! Every city in the country should copy this park area to accommodate their kids skateboarding.

This park used to be known as Provo Park, and has been the home-​away-​from-​school for many a BHS student. I remember hanging out in this park at lunchtime with my friends when i was in high school. The park has gone through many facelifts over the years, and the tree-​lighting for Christmas is a sight to behold. People’s Park, for all intents and purposes, belongs to the homeless of Berkeley, whereas Provo Park belongs to the teenagers of Berkeley. It is and will always be their safehaven, as long as Berkeley High remains in its current location.

I walk by this park every day on my way to BART, and having to look at the wasted potential of this park depresses me every time.
1) They recently put in some nice new concrete benches and planters — but somehow forgot to put the anti-​skateboard widgets on them so that they’ve been totally destroyed no more than one month after being finished. This park is RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from Berkeley High. How could they possibly not think that skateboarding would be a problem?
2) I know that being homeless isn’t a crime or whatever, but I always though that camping in public parks was against the law. Every day the same half-​dozen creepy homeless guys are in this park leering at children, collecting carts full of stinky stuff, and doing their business in the bushes. I’d use this park for playing lawn bowling on weekends but I don’t like the idea of accidentally stepping on a human turd while lining up my next throw. The homeless already have free run of People’s Park — can’t we at least clean up a couple of the Berkeley parks for the taxpayers?

Not a big park or a park with many features like pools, rec halls etc. It’s a nice break from bars, restaurants and shops in and around the downtown Berkeley area. I can stop here to cool off as the park is also like a not so nice oasis in the middle of a concrete jungle.
Former co worker of mine had yet another use for this park. She use to drop off used clothing here for the homeless (or someone in Berkeley looking for a 100% discount on used clothes). I thought this was kind of odd until I read this:
«So now you know that about 70 percent of your old donated jeans are being used as cloths to wipe oil off of engine parts and the remaining 20 to 25 percent of pants that left your closet with no value are ultimately sold in Africa, where American clothes are extremely popular, for an average price of about $ 7 per pair. That’s a bargain for African shoppers — most of them are low-​income earners who cannot afford to buy newly made U.S. clothes.»
Then I thought direct action in giving away my old clothes is not such a bad idea.