A century ago, Berkeley’s City Council voted Sept. 29, 1925, “to purchase a site on the northwest corner of Grove and Woolsey streets for the contemplated South Berkeley Library branch,” the Berkeley Daily Gazette reported. “The property consists of two lots which will give ample room to erect a structure the size of the Claremont branch. It will cost $8,040.”

The little one-story Spanish Revival-style library built there still stands, but the South Berkeley Library site moved several blocks north on what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Way. In 1968, the old library building became the Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church’s new home.

Mishaps: On Sept. 29, 1925, “Police officer Gene Woods narrowly escaped falling from the roof fire escape of the Brasfield Apartments, 2520 Durant Avenue, at 2:

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