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The evolution of a downtown corner
The Kress Building is the third major commercial structure built at the northwest corner of Shattuck Ave. and Addison Street (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2007)27 March 2007
On 23 February 1924, the Berkeley weekly newspaper The Courier announced that the rapidly expanding American Bank, headquartered at 16th Street and San Pablo Avenue in Oakland, had purchased the College National Bank of Berkeley. American Bank was headed by Phillip E. Bowles, a University of California alumnus and regent from 1911 to 1922. Bowles Hall, U.C.’s first student residence hall, would be endowed by his widow in his name.
Bowles’ equivalent at College National Bank was Frank Ernest Heath (1866–1951), the leading dairyman in these parts. Having begun as a cable-car gripman and streetcar conductor in San Francisco, Heath bought a small Alameda dairy in 1900. After acquiring several Oakland dairies, in 1906 Heath purchased Berkeley Farm Creamery at 2108–2116 Allston Way, current site of the Gaia Building.
Berkeley Farm Creamery, 2108–2116 Allston Way (BAHA archives)Initially a small plant, Berkeley Farm Creamery was transformed by Heath into one of the largest in the west, with seven hundred milk cows producing 8,000 gallons a day and gross sales of $2,750,000 in 1927.
The College National Bank was organized in 1919 under charter No. 11495. Like hundreds of other small California banks, it printed its own national currency banknotes. By 1923, the bank had expanded to such an extent that it was able to construct its own building on the northwest corner of Shattuck Avenue and Addison Street in downtown Berkeley.
College National Bank currency (courtesy of Paper Money Facts)The site where the new bank building was to be erected was not empty. For several decades, this address—2032–2038 Shattuck Avenue—had been occupied by a three-story building with window bays along its two fa�ades. Topped by a conical witch’s hat, its round corner turret served as companion to the corresponding domed turret on the Francis K. Shattuck Building across Addison Street. On the ground floor, this building contained three storefronts that varied over the years from picture-framing and paint stores to a candy factory. Upstairs there were offices and rooms.
The west side of Shattuck Ave. north of Center St. in 1907. The building at 2032–2038 Shattuck is directly across the street from the SP train station, with a tall pole above a squat witch’s hat. To its left is the orange-colored Francis K. Shattuck Bldg. (detail from a postcard)In January 1923, the Courier announced the completion of the wrecking of the site for the College National Bank, and excavation for the new building began the following month.
The new edifice, opened in December 1923, was a temple of commerce in appearance as well as in function. It was designed by Oakland architect Charles W. McCall, who had built the Mission Revival Webb Block on the corner of Ashby and Adeline in 1905. This time, McCall used a hybrid modernist-Greek Revival style, executed in concrete. The traditional Greek triangular pediment was replaced by a flat parapet, and the Addison Street fa�ade featured seven two-story-high windows separated by plain concrete columns. Along the Shattuck Avenue fa�ade, four Doric columns stood guard over the recessed entrance.
The Courier, 1 December 1923 (BAHA archives)
College National Bank, 2036 Shattuck Avenue, in 1925. To its south are the Francis K. Shattuck Bldg. and the frame of the future Chamber of Commerce Bldg. (BAHA archives)
This temple to mammon may have been designed to last forever, but its life was remarkably short. In July 1929, College National Bank was acquired by American Trust Company of San Francisco, which consolidated it with its First Berkeley Branch at 2144 Shattuck Avenue. Soon thereafter, the Great Depression took hold, and the Greek temple stood empty.
In December 1931, the Berkeley Daily Gazette reported that the Berkeley Municipal Christmas Tree Committee had opened temporary quarters in the vacant building in order to collect shoes, stockings, and warm underwear gifts for underprivileged children and needy elderly folk.
Enter Samuel Henry Kress (1863–1955) and his five-and-dime empire. Established in 1896, S. H. Kress & Company is described in the Kress Foundation’s history as having “operated a chain of distinctive, elegant buildings purveying cheerful, low-priced notions and durable household wares. Designed to exacting company standards, the handsome Kress stores were cherished no less as prominent local landmarks than for their quality merchandise. In an age of civic boosterism, the downtown ‘Kress’s’ were celebrated beacons of prosperity and progress, exemplars of urban art, and magnets of municipal pride.”
Alone among the five-and-dime chains that clustered on America’s Main Streets, Kress began building its own stores in 1909, relying on an in-house architectural division that employed at its peak nearly 100 architects and designers.
The Berkeley store, designed by Edward F. Sibbert, in a 1933 photo (Kress Collection, National Building Museum)In 1931, Kress announced that it was going to build in the new style and modernize Main Street. Two years earlier, the company had hired Brooklyn-born Edward Frederick Sibbert, Jr. (1899–1982), who would become Kress’s chief architect and design more than 50 stores in 25 years.
Fortunately for Berkeley, Kress decided to build here when Sibbert was already on board. His Art Deco buildings are the most distinctive and the best remembered of the Kress stores. Kress apparently acquired the College National Bank site in 1932. In July of that year, The Architect & Engineer announced plans for a new three-story, $100,000 building, but two months later the Berkeley Progress reported that the company was planning to remodel the existing bank building. The decision was finally made to build from scratch—most likely because the extremely low cost of labor and construction materials during the Depression created a unique opportunity to build opulent stores.
The glaze has been flaking off the terra cotta ornaments lining the windows and the roof parapet. (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2007)
The Kress gilded logotype is still there, albeit in dire need of regilding. (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2004)
Narrow windows separated by bands of dark brick lend a strong element of verticality. (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2007)
In May 1933, the Berkeley Progress reported that the new two-story-plus-basement building would be erected by Dinwiddie Construction Co. at a cost of approximately $100,000, that it would have a steel frame, with a frontage of 55 feet on Shattuck Avenue and 150 feet on Addison Street, and that the walls would be of concrete faced with pressed brick and a brick veneer. The building was being constructed with foundations that could carry additional stories when needed.
The building permit issued in June 1933 was for a two-story, four-room, $55,000 store measuring 55 feet by 100 feet, with a height of 52 feet. Like many other Sibbert-designed Kress stores, it is sleekly fashioned in the Zigzag Moderne style, with strong verticals and vaguely Mayan glazed terra cotta ornaments. Even the fire escape on the Addison Street side is patterned in Art Deco style.
The most elegant fire escape in Berkeley could use a touch of paint. (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2007)The store opened in January 1934. Curved glass display windows led the shopper through heavy bronze doors into a long, elegant sales floor offering thousands of inexpensive items. The salesladies’ tan and ivory uniforms blended with the pale walls.
Curved glass display windows & bronze doors at the Birmingam, AL store (Kress Collection, National Building Museum)
Selling floor at the Anniston, AL store (Kress Collection, National Building Museum)
In 1964, S. H. Kress & Co. was bought by Genesco, Inc., which began closing down the stores in 1980. About one hundred of the Kress buildings survive and are treasured for their beauty. Many have been designated landmarks and adapted to other uses. The Berkeley store was designated a city landmark on 20 April 1981, after Genesco, Inc. had closed the store. Later it was occupied by a J.J. Newberry five-and-dime outlet, followed by a fabric retailer. Currently the building is home to Half Price Books, the Jazz School, and the Aurora Theatre Company.
In 1997, the National Building Museum mounted the exhibition Main Street Five-and-Dime: The Architectural Heritage of S. H. Kress & Co. The announcement card and the exhibition brochure featured a 1933 photograph of the Berkeley store.
This article was published in the Berkeley Daily Planet on 30 March 2007.
Copyright © 2007–2021 Daniella Thompson. All rights reserved.
