October 22, 2026
San Francisco Chronicle — I’m walking down College Avenue for a tour of the Elmwood with 85-year-old Burl Willes, who had a travel agency here, wrote a history book about the neighborhood and is now the unofficial mayor of this two-block commercial district in the southern end of Berkeley.
“I planted this tree,” he says, lovingly patting the thick trunk of a mature ginkgo, its leaves turning yellow like an East Coast fall.
It’s one more home-spun moment in this Hallmark movie of an East Bay neighborhood. Or maybe “Gilmore Girls” is the better comparison. Like that TV show’s fictitious hamlet of Stars Hollow, the Elmwood has a small-town feel, with a row of cozy businesses that seem built for blooming conversations.
Read more at the SF Chronicle.
