Sproul Plaza - History

History

Sproul Plaza as well as Sproul Hall are named for former University of California president Robert Gordon Sproul. The Plaza was designed by landscape architect Lawrence Halprin in 1962. At the time, the University was expanding its core campus southward from its prior border at Strawberry Creek to Bancroft Avenue, and acquired acres of commercial and residential properties in the south campus Telegraph Avenue area.

Upper Sproul Plaza is bordered to the east by Sproul Hall, which was formerly the location of the campus administration, and is today the location of student and admission services. To the north is Sather Gate, which leads into the central campus, and to the south are Telegraph Avenue and the South Campus area of Berkeley. Sproul Hall is situated on a rise above Upper Sproul Plaza and features a broad, terraced stairway leading to the entrance. Large numbers of students walk past Sproul Hall on the way to class or on the way to Telegraph Avenue.

The combination of a stairway that can be used as a large raised platform and a ready audience makes Upper Sproul Plaza a popular location for student protests, the first of which occurred in 1964 during the Free Speech Movement, when Mario Savio spoke from the Sproul Hall steps, and folk singer Joan Baez gave an early performance. A small round brass marker, embedded in the concrete, declares them as the "Mario Savio Steps." Upper Sproul Plaza was also the site of early teach-ins and protests against the Vietnam War, the 1969 tear gassing of People's Park protesters by the National Guard, 1985-86 protests against University investment in apartheid-era South Africa, and many other political events.

During calmer times, numerous student groups set up tables to recruit and inform other students (a practice known as "tabling," as occurs at many universities throughout the United States). Upper Sproul Plaza also features a double row of the pollarded London Plane trees characteristic of the Berkeley campus.

Lower Sproul Plaza, directly west of Upper Sproul Plaza, is the location of numerous small musical and cultural performances and is surrounded by numerous brutalist-style 1960s-era buildings owned by the ASUC, including Eshleman Hall to the south and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union to the east, as well as the César E. Chávez Student Center to the north and Zellerbach Hall to the west. The Chavez Student Center combined forces with artist-activists Emmy Lou Packard and Byron Randall to create the bas relief mural in the Plaza. Eshleman Hall houses the ASUC Senate as well as the offices of various student groups. (Although it was rated "seismically very poor" in the last campus earthquake readiness evaluation, the ASUC lacks the funds to retrofit the building.) The Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union is home to the Pauley Ballroom, the student store, and the "Bear's Lair" food court. The César E. Chávez Student Center houses the Student Learning Center, the ASUC Mall (including the BEARcade), and the "Golden Bear Café" campus restaurant. Zellerbach Hall is the largest indoor performance auditorium on campus, and frequently hosts guest speakers as well as Cal Performances engagements.

Recent geological soil testing (2011) on three Plaza locations are the start of planned renovations of the ASUC owned properties and the underground garage in Lower Sproul, part of the UC's master plan.

In 2011, Sproul Plaza is the site of Occupy Berkeley protests.