More on Berkeley College

Did you know that…?

One of the two basements in Berkeley contains a wall on which hundreds of plaques are placed, each bearing the name of one of the College’s graduates.  Reading some of the names there reminds us that there are some great stories associated with the college and its former tenants.

Take Potter Stewart, for example.  (We quote from a latter-day interview).  As an undergraduate, he lived with a roommate in a top-floor room in Berkeley College – the least expensive available, Mr. Stewart said, at $450 a year (now $1,490 in 1982 dollars). Three meals a day, seven days a week, ”with uniformed waitresses and printed menus” went for $280 a year (now $1,700 in 1982 dollars, without the menus or the waitresses).  Help, someone convert these figures to 2020 dollars.  Mr. Stewart assured the interviewer that he knew a waitress when he saw one.

Mr. Stewart also said he paid his way by waiting tables, in the requisite white jacket, in the freshman Commons. His other moneymaking ventures included selling Fords on a commission of $30 apiece.

”I sold two all summer,” he said. ”And one was to my sister’s fiance.”

Or take the film actress Jordana Brewster YC’ 03.  She is the grand-daughter of, yep, Kingman Brewster, our President.

And, yes, Dick Cheney, former Vice-President of these United States, also lived in Berkeley.  Alas, he did not graduate from the College.

It turns out that Berkeley College also has a place in American culinary history.  In 2002, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Berkeley College dining hall won first place in that paper’s survey of best college food.  We quote from that Journal article.

“After punching our meal ticket across the country, we found our winner in a baronial hall in New Haven, Conn. At Berkeley College, one of Yale’s 12 residential colleges, we settled into huge red-leather chairs beneath chandeliers for some gourmet offerings. No food-service specials like mashed potato flakes here — the spuds were fancy fingerlings, three times the price of ordinary russets. Likewise, the roasted portobello and tofu salad was subtly spiced, and crusty French loaves were accompanied by a roasted garlic spread, plus olive oil for dipping. “If I were a kid, I wouldn’t ever leave this place,” said our expert, Glenn Harris from New York’s Jane restaurant.

“The school says things will only get better: Next year, Berkeley plans a 100% organic “sustainable-foods initiative” that, with the help of celebrity chef Alice Waters, will bring in local produce and antibiotic-free meat. “I don’t think anything on this scale has ever been attempted in the annals of institutional food service,” says Berkeley co-master John Rogers. Uh, what time’s dinner?”

Those lucky dogs.  Actually, we never wanted to leave it either, regardless of the quality of the food.