I found this picture online about a year ago, thinking I might share it here, but Jim Brophy’s recent post of vintage bus photos inspired me to finally write up a post. The curbside in front of Palmer’s Drugs, as well as adjacent corners of the main intersection of University and Shattuck in downtown Berkeley, California was a place I spent a lot of time as a child growing up. If there was no 67 or 51 or F bus in sight, there might be time to run into Palmer’s and browse the comics, or if I was feeling flush, buy a pack of gum for 5 cents.
A little research showed that this photo was taken during the introduction of a fleet of New Look GM buses with extra features specifically for trans-bay routes to and from San Francisco, in the “Travelcade of Progress”, in December 1960. It’s entirely possible that a young dman and his Mom or Dad are among the people on the street. By the time I started elementary school a year or two later, until I graduated from high school in the mid-seventies, I waited for buses almost every school day at this corner, often both morning and afternoon. More on the New Look bus can be found here.
The new buses were already common when I started riding them daily, but there were still many of the old buses in service, though if we had a choice – for example when two buses on the same route showed up back to back – we always preferred the newer ones. If I chose to take the Number 7 bus, which took a steeper route to a stop 3 blocks from my house than my usual 67, which stopped half a block from my house, the driver of an old bus might ask the kids to get off so it would make it up one particularly steep pitch, and then reboard. Although Berkeley was one of the first cities to implement mandatory busing for school integration, I was not part of that program and always rode the public AC transit buses.
Aside from the buses, what caught my eye in the street view picture was the number of “imports”. Not just a VW, but a Fiat Multipla, an Austin A40, and what looks like a Simca. Any other unusual finds on the streets here?
About twenty years ago I briefly got intrigued by the new generation of die cast “collectible”, as opposed to “toy”, vehicles. With the advent of online shopping, I found things that I didn’t know existed, including this nice Corgi GMC coach in AC Transit livery. It’s in the form of a Number 83, a line I don’t recall ever riding … and a lot cleaner than any AC Transit bus I remember from childhood. I did buy it, but it’s been hidden away in a closet for some time now. Not the daily encounters that I had many decades ago.
Very enjoyable post! Very nice Corgi model also. I have another vintage photo article coming up on Sat.
I spent a fair amount of time on these too. A bus route ran along the street behind mine and there was a stop that was about a 5 minute walk from our back door, through the yards and then a couple of houses down the street.
In probably 1976 I had job 3 days a week after school and Saturdays that was downtown and the bus was my friend until I was allowed to buy a car. And I suspect that the ones in Fort Wayne, Indiana were no cleaner than those in your area.
I attended college in Muncie, Indiana (where they made the Chevy transmissions) and I was shocked to see that they were still running old-look buses as late as 1980.
Did you all take note in the first picture? There is a JEEP commercial application waiting at the traffic light! When did we last see one of those? I like your article very much.
Very good eye! I somehow missed it even though it was right next to the Oval window VW. The Austin A 40 also caught my eye. Somehow I missed the Jeep.
Splendid shot of Berkeley from a long lost,idyllic era. Liked spotting the small oval rear window Bug waiting for the green light. They were all over Bay Area roads in those days.
The Austin is the smaller A30 (or later version A35) rather than A40. The Fiat Multipla must be the real oddball though.
Thanks, I wasn’t sure about the Austin but forgot to verify it. I suspect it’s an A35, not sure if the A30 was sold here. I had a school friend whose Dad drove a Multipla … that might even be it in the photo! The Multipla replaced an Isetta, no less.
I wonder how many of those buses in that line up in the Transit Times were destroyed making the movie Speed
This has nothing directly to do with buses…though being a young commuter between San Francisco and Berkeley for a few years, I remember the AC Transit GM Fishbowl buses as being clean on their outside and smelling nicer on the inside than those on San Francisco Muni. The Shattuck/University intersection is strange in that northbound, Shattuck Ave. splits into two one-way streets with commercial buildings on a narrow “island” in between. Northbound Shattuck dead ends at University Ave., and traffic continuing on Shattuck, including all those buses in the photo, must make a left turn onto University, then in a half block, a right turn onto the continuation of Shattuck. It’s a traffic nightmare at times and a dangerous intersection.
The layout arises from a streetcar line from the early 1900s. It ran from Oakland to the south and its terminus at Berkeley became the short, one way stub street.
Work is underway to revise the traffic flow, the now-southbound part of the divided Shattuck Ave. becoming two-way. The now-southbound stub portion gets its traffic lane narrowed and more much-needed parking will be added.
Correction…no more editing capability, at least on this phone:
“…The now-NORTHbound stub portion gets its traffic lane narrowed and more much-needed parking will be added…”
Moderators may correct the original if they wish!!
Thanks for the update. I still drive in Berkeley one or two times a year, but avoid that intersection, in fact downtown altogether. As for AC vs Muni cleanliness, I too did that commute in high school for 4 years and yeah, Muni was worse but AC Transit wasn’t great even by my teen standards. The local buses on routes that had lots of kids could get trashed in minutes.
The Willys is definitely not a factory model… Or is it? Willys branches in other countries made a wide variety of forms not available in US. This one has a Mexican flavor.
I feel like it’s a factory Panel Delivery with some extra side windows fitted. The rear door windows look just like the ones I find on Google.
Where I lived in suburban Maryland, nobody rode transit buses to school; they didn’t even go anywhere near my school. Didn’t know kids riding transit buses to school was even a thing…
What does that Owl Rebuilt _______ rebuild?
New Looks must have looked so ultramodern in 1959-60; windscreen must be almost 3x the size of the old look buses.
And by comparison, Berkeley had no school buses at all until the integration busing started. In general, even now in the Bay Area, I only see yellow school buses hired out for field trips or band or sports events. My own kids never rode in them except in those situations.
One other bus question – why do these not have those little skylight windows over the main windows, as seen on the Corgi model? The bus being built on the assembly line seems to have them, but not the complete buses on the street. (all of the GM new-look buses in my area had those little windows)
Because these are not transit buses; note the lack of the essential rear door. These are “suburban” buses, designed for long routes, and had nicer individual higher-back seats, more like a highway coach. They also had different gearing to give them a higher top speed on the highway. And a manual transmission was an option on them. basically a hybrid between transit bus and highway coach.
The newspaper article in the post makes references to these, with their “soft upholstery”.
here’s what they looked like inside, although this one has newer upholster colors:
Thanks Paul, your mention of the higher gearing brought back memories of commuting over the bridge on the trans bay F bus to driver training class, which I took at a public high school in San Francisco (‘72 Galaxie, ‘73 Coronet). I rode that route often on weekdays, in heavy traffic, but the lighter traffic on Saturday mornings (westbound) allowed the driver to hit some impressive speeds coming down from the elevated “maze” to the toll plaza approach at sea level. The speed plus total lack of damping made for a thrilling ride, compared to the rush hour crawl on weekdays. Probably no more than 65 or 70, but I suppose more than the urban buses could achieve, at least so easily.
Ah, now it makes sense now; I’d always wondered what their purpose was; now I see it saves GM from having to make two different sizes of main windows. This one looks like a long airport shuttle to me (one with really gaudy upholstery); I’m not aware of anyone having ever run these in my area though, it was transit buses for cities and nearby burbs, coaches for longer trips.
Those suburban coaches on AC Transit were used on the Transbay routes with lower densities and longer routes, most serving nicer neighborhoods. They had high-back seats on floors raised over the wheelhouses, and air conditioning. The higher density Transbay routes and the local East Bay transit lines used the longer, wider transit coaches with standard transit seats…and had standee windows.
In the warmer summer months, if I wasn’t in a hurry in the afternoon, I’d eschew the direct ride across the Bay to San Francisco on the F-Berkeley line, which used transit buses, take a local on College Ave., and catch the nicer, air conditioned suburban equipment on the C-line which served the toney Piedmont neighborhood.
Although they don’t quite qualify as suburban buses (no luggage rack, 2nd door), the Metrobus service in the DC area when I was a kid (early ’70s) decided they wanted a more upscale image and ordered a batch of AM General buses (I forgot AMC was once in the bus business!) with plush cloth seats and carpeting on the walls and floors, as well as air conditioning. By the time they were 5 years old there was all sorts of grime baked into the carpet and seats they couldn’t seem to clean and it got really gross. Eventually they ripped out all the carpet and replaced it with linoleum or vinyl and reupholstered the seats in vinyl. Note of those fancy accoutrements could overcome the awful squeaking of those AM General buses anyway.
Took me awhile to recall the exact location since I started grad school at Cal in 1977. Shattuck runs on both sides of Palmer’s since the road splits at Center Street. Palmer’s is on the southeast corner in the shot. Building still there today, upper facade still the same, as seen here. Been some years since I was in this area but was there a lot from 1977-81. In hindsight going to UC Berkeley was one of the best things that could happen. SDSU was a lot of fun but it was a mono-culture while Cal was a multi-culture environment and it greatly expanded my horizons to my great benefit today. Heck, everybody should get to spend at least two years at Cal back then to know of what I talk.
Did you ever have a Biochemistry class ending on the hour, on the northwest corner of campus, and a Chemistry class on the southeast corner of the campus, starting at ten minutes past? With the walk all the way UPHILL?
Northwest to southeast is actually downhill, but the opposite direction whew! Growing up there as a faculty kid, then going to college at UC as well, I was shocked to later see other campuses where bikes were allowed, and even cars. Getting from class to class in 10 minutes was a challenge even for the fittest.
Northwest is where Palmer’s would technically be. The northeast corner would be Hearst Mining and Cory Halls where it is a long downhill ride via Hearst to Shattuck. Overall the east border of the campus, along Gayley (Memorial Bowl), is higher than the west side along Shattuck. Bancroft is south and Hearst is the north border or as we said north side at Euclid for La Vals Pizza.
I was a Grad student who spent most of my time up in Minor Hall across from Cowell Hospital and next to Wurster. The extreme southeast corner of the campus is Boalt Law at the corner of Telegraph and Bancroft. If it was mid-afternoon I would be down near Spoul watching the girls walk by. If it was after 6:00pm I might be in the faculty lounge drinking beer with classmates and clinical professors.
Oops, Boalt Law is no more due to racist Asian wrtings, recently discovered, by John Boalt around 1882. A hall was named after him but it became the de facto name for the entire school. They changed it over to Berkeley Law School this January.
The buses in the photo are equipped with air conditioning packs on the roof above the rear window. Not all of the AC Transit (=Alameda County/ Contra Costa County) buses were so equipped. One can speculate that the non-A/C buses ran routes mainly on the west side of the Berkeley/Oakland hills, where temperatures can typically be 10-20 lower than on the east side.
A great report! Love the lead pic. The most iconic bus design in North American cities.
When I was a student in the early 80s, I frequently rode a cross-city route in Ottawa (Route 99) that alternated back and forth from city streets to the Queensway, a multi-lane high speed freeway. What I remember most about that route was how agonizingly slow it was getting up to highway speed, and merging. And once up to speed, the loud, incessant drone of the Detroit Diesel 6V71N.
As the city transitioned to modern, lighter, faster, and more agile buses, there was a spike in rider injuries. As so many people were adjusted to the slow, ocean liner-like characteristics of the previous new looks, riders were falling everywhere.
This is the Route 99 from around 1980.
Was there any functional purpose to the slanted windowpanes and pillars on the New Look (and some other buses of that era) or did the designers just think they looked cool? That looks seems to have fallen out of favor since then; all of the buses I see in my area now have straight vertical window pillars.
Didn’t Benjamin Braddock chase down Elaine Robinson who was riding on one of these busses in “The Graduate”. After chasing the buses for several stops, he finally gets aboard and sits behind her. His attempt to persuade her on the bus was a bit lacking. 😏😏😏
I don’t recall that scene, but in general that movie played pretty fast and loose with Bay Area geography.
I rode AC Transit home from SF to Oakland when I’d casual carpool into the city occasionally for a few years around the ’00-’05 timeframe, the buses were usually quite clean (or at least not notably unclean). I can’t recall exactly which buses they were but most likely newer than these. I think the last New Look bus I rode on would have been as a teen in L.A. in the early ’80’s via the RTD around the time the new GMC’s were being phased in. The New Looks were more fun as well as more comfortable but didn’t have the A/C that the new ones did…
These were the buses I grew up with and remember then fondly in their BC Hydro blue.
In reference to the Corgi, Rapido Trains will be releasing an HO scale version of the New Look: https://rapidotrains.com/products/ho-scale/model-buses/ho-scale-new-look-bus