Elmwood Hardware, a fixture-selling fixture of the Berkeley scene for 84 years, will close next month for extensive remodeling, said owner Tad Laird. -more-

Angel Bertha Elzy has been waiting for a house since 1983. -more-

A new kind of battle is brewing on Telegraph Avenue. Those who are leading the fight say it is not against religion, or against freedom of speech, but they contend that some religious speech on the street is just too loud. -more-

San Pablo Park—the West Berkeley recreation center that served as a social and sports mecca for East Bay African Americans in the heavily segregated years before World War II and became the symbol of Berkeley’s legendary ethic of ethnic diversity—turns 100 this month, and local officials and residents are honoring it this Saturday with a centennial celebration. -more-

Berkeley’s oldest tree-sitter, two Panoramic Hill residents, and two Berkeley landmark commissioners—one current, one former—have joined forces to file a legal challenge to expansion plans at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). -more-

Berkeley residents who get tired of being called NIMBYs and worse by the powers-that-be think they have problems. The artists and other denizens of West Berkeley who object to the new taxation scheme which the big property owners are trying to foist on the neighborhood they call home are currently getting the full treatment from those who think they know what’s best for the area: how to clean it up and make it all nicey-nice for the newly lucrative biotech labs and the high-end condos speculators are hoping to build near them. Their turf is also the target of city re-zoning efforts both spot (Berkeley Bowl) and far-reaching (auto dealership specials). They complain, with some justification, that their now-affordable housing and workspaces are being threatened by gentrification, that there’s obvious inequality in the way different contenders for West Berkeley space are being treated. -more-