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Community Effort To Repair Berkeley’s Finnish Hall Before Rain Arrives
A project to make urgent partial repairs to a beleaguered West Berkeley landmark structure—Finnish Hall—begins Friday, spearheaded by a group of neighbors and community members. The effort is not to raise the leaky roof, but repair it, before winter rains begin.
Funded with in-kind donations and a GoFundMe page, the project is still short some thousands of dollars but the organizers have decided to begin repair work this week so repairs can be done while the weather remains dry.
Bryce Nesbitt, the lead project organizer, says that although the fundraising money is not yet fully subscribed and more money beyond the initial goal may be needed, “we’re starting Friday. While we don't have enough funds to finish, we'll get as far as we can. Every $63 donated gets another 4 foot by 8 foot section of roof done.”
The building in need of repair is Finnish Hall, Toveri Tuppa (“Comrade’s Hall”) at 1819 Tenth Street. The three story wooden structure, incorporating vernacular Finnish design and painted a cheery white and blue (the same colors as the flag of Finland) stands just a block off San Pablo Avenue on a residential street.
The GoFundMe fundraising pitch is straightforward and urgently worded. “Old Finnish Hall has fallen on hard times. (It) sports a giant hole in the roof, and on a stiff wind day, shingles literally fly into neighbor’s yards and onto the street. This once vibrant…space can’t come back to life if it rots. This winter’s rains will destroy this building unless we act fast. A local roofer will donate labor if we, the community, raise funds for the materials.”
Last week, supporters of the repair project came to the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission to ask for support and encouragement for their grassroots campaign. That’s where I first learned about the roof repair plan (disclosure: I sit on the LPC).
The repair project organizers—a mix of neighbors, other community members, and Berkeley arts advocates including Carol Denney, Jerome Solberg and Lisa Bullwinkel—also started their GoFundMe last week.
To date (Tuesday night, October 11) it has raised $12,747 out of the initial $14,970 goal. 63 people or organizations have donated, including two members of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, local architects, Ashby Lumber, and Civic Arts Commission member Lisa Bullwinkel, who is also one of the GoFundMe organizers.
The money is intended to go towards buying some of the materials, renting cranes to reach the roof, and other aspects of the repair work.
You can read the fundraising appeal (and donate if you wish) here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/
(If the link doesn’t work, go to gofundme.com and search for “Finnish Hall” and “Berkeley.” It should be one of the first hits.)
Finnish Hall was built in 1908-09 with the volunteer labor of Berkeley’s then-large Finnish community. Many immigrant Scandinavians in early 20th century Berkeley worked in the construction trades, especially as carpenters. The spirit of the creation of the building with volunteer labor seems akin to the spirit of the present-day community fundraising effort to save the building.
The Hall was constructed as a social and event center for local Finns, whose modest homes were concentrated in the surrounding West Berkeley neighborhoods. The building originally included an auditorium, kitchen, dining hall, library, and sewing room.
As a center of immigrant life, it figured prominently in the 1934 General Strike in San Francisco. Labor organizers of the strike used Finnish Hall as one of their support centers for the waterfront longshoremen who were striking. Right-wing Berkeley-based vigilantes raided the Hall, and other sites in Berkeley, breaking in and vandalizing the interior.
Designated a City of Berkeley Landmark, the building was eventually sold, as younger generations of Finns dispersed to other communities. It came into the ownership of a non-profit, and has been an event space for everything from martial arts classes to opera performances in recent decades.
I looked online for users of the Hall when writing this article and found an eclectic mix, representing both the changing character of the East Bay and increasing multiculturalism. Users in recent years include Brazilian Capoeira classes, Abrazo Queer Tango, Chinese martial arts classes, the Berkeley Chamber Opera and the Actors Ensemble of Berkeley.
The building faces multiple other challenges in coming years, beyond and below the roof. The state of the ownership sounds uncertain and a court hearing for unpaid back taxes is currently scheduled for 2023.
But getting a sound roof on before this winter should allow its advocates to focus on other issues in coming months and try to fully revitalize the building and its organizational structure.
