East Bay Home and Gardens

Wild Neighbors: Developers Strike Back: Arrowhead Marsh at Risk Again

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday August 14, 2007
All our victories are temporary; all our defeats are permanent,” David Brower is supposed to have said. Case in point: Oakland’s Arrowhead Marsh, the crown jewel of the Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline Regional Park. Friends of Arrowhead were relieved in 2005 when the Lower Lake Rancheria Koi Nation dropped their plans for a casino complex next door to the marsh. Now the developers are back: this time it’s at least one, maybe two trucking terminals. -more-

East Bay Then and Now: Buyer Sought for Historic West Berkeley Church

By Daniella Thompson
Friday August 10, 2007
Westminster Presbyterian Church, which changed hands last year, is on the market again. The third landmark designated by the City of Berkeley, the church at 926 Hearst Ave. and Eighth Street is the second oldest in town, having been built in 1879—a year after the neighboring Church of the Good Shepherd went up. -more-

Garden Variety: Seize the Time, Pet the Kittens at Westbrae’s Paradise Pottery

By Ron Sullivan
Friday August 10, 2007
Now that Clay of the Land has gone out of business—the likable and savvy owners lost their lease to a developer, how novel—I guess I ought to mention other local marvelous discount pottery places. Here’s one to get to before the high-rise axe descends upon its lot, as there’s been a for sale placard there right from the start. -more-

About the House: Retrofitting a Lousy Foundation

By Matt Cantor
Friday August 10, 2007
We had a little shaker a few weeks ago and I was faced with the same series of encounters in the ensuing days that I’ve faced so often over the last 20 years. They tend to go something like “Hey, that was a pretty big quake we had the other day, eh? But you know, there weren’t any cracks in my walls or anything. Not as bad a Loma Prieta.” And I get started… “Well, the fact is that what we had the other day was tiny.” Then comes the math. “Did you know that a 7.2 on the Richter is roughly 30,000 times bigger than a 4.2 (the one we just had)”…faces go blank, people wander away wondering why they bothered talking to me in the first place. Maybe I’m just not a people person. Oh well, my kids love me. -more-

Quake Tip of the Week

By Larry Guillot
Friday August 10, 2007
Playing in the Traffic? -more-