Editors’ note: This week we’re republishing some of our favorite stories of 2025. This story was first published on Aug. 18.

On a recent weekend in San Pablo Park, music pulsed as young people sat on picnic blankets munching on barbecue while others played volleyball and kickball or caught up with friends. The occasion was Field Day, an event meant to bring young Black professionals together. 

The organizers had spent weeks looking for a perfect spot for their party, before settling on the South Berkeley park. 

“There are not too many spaces where you can have folks gather without a permit and not be harassed by the police and other people,” said Orobosa Ogbeide, the 28-year-old founder of Play2Win, the group behind the event, which drew more than 300 people. “It was the quality of the park, the baseball fields were clean … and safety was definitely a concern. We really wanted a positive vibe.” 

On another side of the park, Jamie Cope walked his dog, Izzy, a retriever poodle. While Izzy explored a patch of grass, Cope spun his Escrima sticks, a prop used in the Filipino martial art. Enthusiasts often gather at the park to practice. “This was the first, last affordable place in Berkeley when we bought our home 24 years ago and the park was the main appeal,” Cope said. 

Nearby Ken Pitts, 68, whose lifelong passion for taekwondo was sparked by a free city class in the park when he was a child, was setting up for a family reunion in a rented hall of the Frances Albrier Community Center. More than 65 people were expected at the party, including some who grew up in the area, but were priced out of Berkeley.

“As a kid, I spent as much time as I could at San Pablo Park,” Pitts said. “I left home in the morning and spent all day at the park, swinging from trees, on the trampoline or boxing. I stayed out until the lights came on.”

San Pablo is Berkeley’s oldest park, and one of its most beloved. 

While other parts of Berkeley are full of pocket parks, for many in the neighborhood, San Pablo Park is the only green space within easy walking distance. 

The park is multifunctional: It’s an outdoor gym, a playground (the city’s first, in fact), a classroom and a meeting space — a place where bright-eyed children clamber up structures, families grill hotdogs and burgers, purple haired teenagers hold hands on first dates and amateur soccer players and Ultimate players train in leagues. There is a little something for everyone at the nearly 13-acre park, which remains the vibrant center of a neighborhood where so much has changed.

“Whenever I ask the kids which park they want to go to, it’s always San Pablo Park,” said Roxana, a nanny chasing after two small boys on a recent day who declined to provide a last name. “There are a lot of options, there is a splash pad for hot days and it just feels safe.”

A training ground for champions

San Pablo Park was built between 1910 and 1914 on land donated to the city by the Mason McDuffie Company. 

At the time, the neighborhood around the park was called Finntown, for the large Finnish community who lived in the area. But the area’s demographics were changing and it soon became a melting pot, one of the only places where white and Black people mixed. With its baseball fields and courts, the park quickly became a magnet for athletes. Jack LaLanne, considered the Father of Modern Fitness and founder of the first fitness club in the country, located in Oakland, did chin-ups and practiced rope climbing at the park in the 1930s, and years later described San Pablo Park as “one of the few places in Berkeley — or anywhere else — where this kind of inter-racial activity could take place.” 

Barred from living in north and Central Berkeley because of redlining and covenant restrictions, more Black families moved to the neighborhood in the 1940s. Meanwhile, the park became a regular stop for Negro League baseball teams since Black people were not allowed to use nearby Oakland’s sports fields. Fans from all over the Bay Area came to the park to watch legendary ballplayers like Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell compete against teams made up of local African American players. 

More Black residents meant more businesses and by the ’50s and ’60s, Sacramento Street teemed with Black salons, restaurants, department stores and blues and jazz music spilled out of many doors.

“They were redlined and so they created their own,” said Mildred Howard, an artist who grew up in South Berkeley near the park. “There were Black people, many of them doctors, lawyers, political figures, who lived all around the park,” she said. “I remember there were always dance classes and tons of activities for young people.” 

There were also leagues for children in the neighborhood, and the park hatched a number of professional athletes like baseball stars Billy Martin, Ray Lamanno and Johnny Allen. Berkeley native Don Barksdale went all the way to the Olympics in 1948, bringing back a gold medal in basketball and later opened an ice cream shop in the neighborhood. 

“We all had peers that we looked up to and who came out of San Pablo playground,” Barksdale remembered in an oral history. “We have had three or four reunions of the San Pablo Park guys which, at one, 175 guys showed up at Stanley’s Restaurant.”

In 1965, the Frances Albrier Club House was built and used for recreational programs, social events and a growing number of political meetings. The Black Panthers held free grocery distributions at the park.

A shift in the neighborhood

Over the decades, South Berkeley has changed dramatically. In 1970, the San Pablo Park neighborhood was 86% Black. By 2020, that number had dropped to 22%, the steepest decline in Black residents of any neighborhood in the city between 2010 and 2020. 

“In just the past several months, three Black people on my block are moving because the owner of the home died and the relatives can’t afford to buy it back,” said Stephanie Johnson, an artist and former Civic Arts and Landmarks Preservation commissioner who has lived across the street from the park for more than 40 years. “It’s heartbreaking for me to see the neighborhood change in a way where it’s no longer diverse. The diminishment is very painful to live with.”

Despite the gentrification that has occurred in the area, the park has remained a place of connection and celebration for the Black community. The Berkeley High School All Class Reunion was held for many years at the park, as are countless birthdays, family reunions and baptisms. 

The tennis courts and playgrounds underwent improvements in 2021 and the Frances Albrier Community Center is awaiting a planned remodel, although the city is still seeking sources of funding. The building, now showing its age, continues to offer camps, arts classes, baby play groups and in the summer offers free lunch and snacks to children under 18 years of age. 

“It’s a great park,” said Ayden Clark, a 22-year-old shooting hoops with friends on a recent day. “Everyone is here.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the location of Berkeley’s Juneteenth celebration and this year’s Berkeley High School All Class Reunion. The Juneteenth festival is held on Adeline Street. The All Class Reunion was held at San Pablo Park in prior years, but the 2025 event has been moved to the Berkeley High campus.