Original working 1936 Blueprint Technical Drawing Plan of the Berkeley Aquatic Park and Adjacent Improvements, issued by the City of Berkeley Department of Public Works, Harry Goodridge City Engineer, Plan No. 1640. Scale is 1 inch = 100 feet. This is not the final plan, it is a late stage working plan with Drawer 21 printed in the margins. The blueprint is printed with purple ink on yellow ground, the verso is white and the size is 83.5" inches long by 19.5" inches wide. CONDITION: folded in half lengthwise, then folded 10 times down to a manageable 8" x 10" inches, there are relevant penciled additions, toning at the the folds, some tearing at the centerfold where the folds intersect, signs of light use and wear, and some edge tears, otherwise a legible solid copy of this rare early Berkeley Aquatic Park Plan.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built the mile long, 100 plus acre Berkeley Aquatic Park on the bay front south of University Avenue between 1935 and 1937. It was created along with the Berkeley Yacht Harbor in a waterfront makeover and was used as a water park for water sports, canoeing, sculling and model yacht racing, the lagoon was largely protected from the wind and offered a unique marine environment for human and sea life. The Park's 1937 opening celebration was called "The Pageant of Land and Sea" and the festivities were shared with The Berkeley Yacht Harbor. The park lies between the freeway (Interstate 80) and the former Southern Pacific Railroad tracks (now Union Pacific). Tidal gates under the freeway keep the water level constant and refresh the basin with water from San Francisco Bay. The aquatic park project grew out of the Eastshore Highway, a feeder road for the new San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge, which created a causeway/barrier farther out in the Bay. When the park was built, the lagoon was connected to the San Francisco Bay by eight 24 inch diameter clay and concrete tide tubes running under the highway that allow a regular cleansing action between ocean and inland waters. Aquatic Park and the Bay Shore Freeway (Interstate 80) remain lasting results of the WPA and served to define both West Berkeley's physical boundary and link it to the port cities of Oakland and Richmond.