Strawberry Creek Park is a four-acre public space in West Berkeley that opened in 1983 and sits on land with an ancient creek and former Santa Fe Railroad freight yard. The park's central green, Poet's Corner, features a large flat lawn with shady spots, a Hidden Cafe with restrooms, and paths along the west edge. The park attracts diverse users: new mothers with infants, lunchtime remote workers, day camp children, basketball and tennis players, and dog-walking families. The park's proximity to I-80 and North Berkeley BART makes it accessible, and weekend crowds increase due to its central location.
People lounge in the sun, splaying out blankets on Strawberry Creek Park's lawn on June 7. Credit: Sara Martin/Berkeleyside On a foggy Wednesday morning, a group of new mothers spread out blankets, unpacked backpacks and settled in with their 3- to 4-month-old infants on the grassy meadow at Strawberry Creek Park. Once members of a Kaiser Permanente pregnancy group, the mothers have been meeting weekly in the park the central green of West Berkeley's Poet's Corner.
On the large flat lawn at the park's north end, there are plenty of shady spots for babies to sprawl and crawl and there's the Hidden Cafe, a place to get coffee and a snack and a bathroom, which is essential when you are here for four hours, said Madeleine Mountain of El Cerrito. Coffee, yeah, that is really big for tired moms. Family friendliness is just one of the park's attractions.
By noon, the sun came out, shining a light on all of the park's disparate parts. A lunchtime crowd spilled from the cafe onto outdoor tables, where people ate, socialized and worked on laptops. Children from a day camp splashed in Strawberry Creek, while a pair of boys took shots on a basketball court and middle-aged couples played a relaxed game of doubles tennis.
Collection
[
|
...
]