Chasing Bay Area artifacts of the New Deal

A stream tumbles down a rocky outcrop behind Lake Temescal‘s log-cabin-like boathouse, passing through shaded pools before flattening out on its way into the lake.

The stream looks as natural as the Oakland hills that rise to the east. In fact, it was built by federal workers in the 1930s – just like the boathouse, and just like hundreds of other Bay Area landmarks that endure as part of the region’s physical and cultural heritage, even though they were spawned by an economic crisis.

“Millions of people enjoy these things all the time who have no idea where they came from,” says Gray Brechin, a visiting scholar in UC Berkeley’s geography department. “I think of it as a buried civilization.”

Richard A Walker is the director of the Living New Deal.

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