Can Berkeley Hear?
It’s official. The apartment shortage is over, the apartment glut begins. The end of Homefinders, a worthwhile enterprise which served a lot of needy customers in its heyday, is the final nail in the coffin of Berkeley’s haphazard building boom. While it lasted, it lined the pockets of a few already well-fixed investors, notably UC’s B-School Prof. Teece. Its legacy is demolished landmarks (the Doyle House, the Fine Arts Theater), crumbling buildings (the Gaia Building) and vanished institutions (the Gaia Bookstore, Anna’s Café on University). In its wake are promises: Anna’s really will re-open sometime in the Gaia Building; the fake marquee on the Fine Arts apartment building touts shows which will never play there. (Red Diaper Baby Josh Kornbluth shouldn’t let his good name be used for this particular scam.) Unfortunately, the people who run Berkeley don’t seem to have gotten the word. And who runs Berkeley? Who really knows? All we know for sure is that the behemoth downtown Seagat
