Quirky Berkeley

The Quirky Material Culture of Berkeley

Quirky Berkeley
  • Walkers
  • Help us!
  • Links
  • Blogs/Albums
  • Contact us
  • Latest Posts
  • Quirky Berkeley in the Media

Author Archive

September 20, 2015 by tomdalzell

The Bird House – Sixth and Allston (2200 Sixth)

  The house at the southwest corner of Sixth and Allston is a bright orange stucco bungalow.  Sixth Street is a busy north-south street.  If you just drive by you will never see the lovely birds painted on the house walls. It is a great visit for kids.  Find the birds! This photo is from […]
September 20, 2015 by tomdalzell

Peter Mitchell’s Bugs on Cedar

    An insect made of welded car parts.  Not one, but many.  Inside a kiosk on at 1745 Cedar. Peter Mitchell – the Peter of Peter’s Automotive – starting making the bugs in his spare time when his shop was on San Pablo Avenue.  He displayed them on the shop roof, tolerating the occasional […]
September 16, 2015 by tomdalzell

Gabby’s Giant Bug Movie Posters

Gabby had been in Pittsburgh with Young Emily in November, 2013.  She was attending a talk on South Slavic Tamburitza Bands. The tamburitza is a long-necked flute.  What drew Young Emily to the instrument was the fact that the frets may be moved permitting the instrument to be played in various modes. Gabby walked miles […]
September 13, 2015 by tomdalzell

Random on MLK

  My oldest daughter Julia graduated from sixth grade in 1997.  It was right about then that she started to use the word “random” with some frequency.  It remains a somewhat prominent word in the slang vocabulary of young people.  I am fond of it.  It is a perfectly fine conventional word used in a […]
September 13, 2015 by tomdalzell

I Love Lucy In Color

Like many of us, I watched my fair share of “I Love Lucy.”  Oldest daughter Julia watched her fair share too when she was in high school (1999-2003).  We think of it in black and white. We are surprised when we see color images, be they color stills or colorized shots or even the occasional […]
September 12, 2015 by tomdalzell

The Butterfly House on Bancroft

I go up and down Bancroft Way with some regularity on account of our daughter Charlotte’s BFF Jesse lives on 8th just north of Bancroft.  A few blocks above San Pablo on Bancroft stands the Butterfly House.  Violet trim with a major in butterflies, minors in dragonflies, owls, wind chimes and peacocks. The visionary behind […]
September 7, 2015 by tomdalzell

Columns

  As I write this, we are approaching the third anniversary of my first formal Quirky Berkeley exploratory walk.  Youngest daughter Charlotte and her friend Jesse went along that day.  I wish I could remember what all I thought that it would entail – but I can’t. Over the initial months, I stopped photographing some […]
September 6, 2015 by tomdalzell

Pirates

  I usually save my best photo in a series for last. Not here, though.  This is the best.  I am putting it first for two reasons. First, to change this up.  Second, because I don’t have a large amount of pirate pictures.  Maybe you will overlook that fact if I lead with this great […]
September 6, 2015 by tomdalzell

Taco Bell and MORE

Gabby had sent my friend some photos. They were of the original Taco Bell stand in Downey, California. My friend said, “When this opened in 1962, it was cool.  Maybe even disruptive?  But today, not at all, dude.  What happens?” I suggested that Glenn Bell had a dream, and it was not to open a cool little restaurant, […]
September 5, 2015 by tomdalzell

More Bulwinkle!

  Ponder this confluence of people and places: (1) The old Cody’s bookstore.  The final selling ground for Fred and Pat Cody, pioneers of the paperback revolution.  An important oasis of sanity and peace during the police and demonstrator violence of the 1960s and 1970s.  An empty shell for years at the corner of Telegraph and […]
← Older posts
Newer posts →

Here you will find photos of the oddball, whimsical, eccentric, and the near-rhyme quirky material culture of Berkeley.
Read More

Subscribe

Categories

  • Animals
  • Architecture
  • Cars, Trains and Planes
  • Food
  • Gone
  • Graffiti
  • Ma
  • Mailboxes
  • Major Quirky
  • Miscellaneous
  • Murals
  • Painted
  • Peace
  • Signs
  • Walks

All content © 2025 by Quirky Berkeley. Base WordPress Theme by Graph Paper Press