1712 Euclid Ave.

90 years of a Berkeley building and its changing residents, from frat boys to friars to Muslim undergrads.

1712 Euclid Avenue1925.  Teeks (young men who are members of Tau Kappa Epsilon) move into the newly constructed stucco fraternity house at 1712 Euclid in Berkeley.  The whole Northside neighborhood was rebuilding in the aftermath of a huge fire that had swept through the Berkeley hills two years before, destroying hundreds of structures.  The UC Berkeley student body was growing, and the TKE fraternity was one of many Greek organizations to buy up property in the neighborhood.  It was a hopeful time to be a college student, post war, pre-Depression.  To be accepted as a Teek was an honor; their motto was “TKE Builds Better Men for a Better World.”

1970.  Brown-robed Franciscan friars now inhabit 1712 Euclid.  The Franciscan School of Theology bought it from the Teeks, who like many fraternities had shrunk in the activism of the 1960’s and could not fill the house.  Mario Savio’s Free Speech Movement, war protests, hippies – not a lot of interest in pledging.  Many of the Northside frats sold their huge rambling buildings to seminaries, both Catholic and Protestant.  Nine such schools had in 1964 formed the Graduate Theological Union, a consortium of theological schools, a new hopeful experiment in ecumenism and higher education.  The three Catholic schools were the Franciscans, the Jesuits and the Dominicans, who had all bought Northside frat houses.  The Franciscans were the hippest of the three.  Instead of the Teek’s beer parties, the common room now hosted health food potlucks and folk masses.

2015.  Hijab-clad Muslim women are part of the student body of Zaytuna University, the new owners of 1712 Euclid, and the first Muslim liberal arts college in the US.  As frats lost popularity in the 60’s, so did the Franciscan’s in the 90’s. Priest sex scandals hurt enrollment and lawsuits by victims emptied endowments.  FST, which by the 90’s was the only Franciscan seminary in the US, retrenched further by moving south to San Diego and become part of a Catholic university there.  As they left they said they were glad to sell to Zaytuna, that “by reaching out beyond the Christian traditions, the many communtities on “Holy Hill” can only strengthen the future health and stability of the GTU.”

Zaytuna's first Holy Hill building, a former Protestant churchZaytuna compares itself to Yeshiva University, and Wheaton College, religiously affiliated independent schools offering a liberal arts education.  1712 Euclid is the third GTU building they have rented or bought. Learn more by looking at this article about the student body and curriculum,  and the school’s own website, Zaytuna College.  (They were recently accredited by the Western Association of Colleges and Universities, which means they can use the <edu> url.)

What a dramatic shift this building at 1712 Euclid has seen, or embodied, in its 90-year history!  Just these three snapshots, 45 year leaps from 1925 to 1970 to 2015, point to the profound changes in the US religious landscape, American higher education, and the Northside neighborhood of Berkeley.  

Faithful readers know I like thinking about repurposed buildings.  I’ve written about the building that is now the Congregational Church of Belmont, but began as a country club and also served as a research lab.  I wrote then, “Buildings change.  A lot of buildings (not all) have character, I think, and some actually are characters.  And even might have souls.   So I am wondering: just as our body’s cells completely change every seven years, does a building’s character or soul change when its purpose changes, when different workers show up, or a locker room becomes a Sunday school room?  What changes and what remains the same?“

And more recently I asked the same questions about the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, that began as the Public Library.   “I wonder, do buildings have souls, and do they remember their past?  Does the library building next door look across Hyde St. to its modern successor building in confusion or affection?  Does the grand staircase, with all the inspiring quotes above it, about how reading ennobles the soul, think – Where did all the books go?”

So it’s fun to imagine the walls and corridors of 1712 Euclid conversing late at night:

-Where did the frat boys go? (or, Thank God the beer and vomit are gone.)

-I miss the incense and theological discussion.

-Nice to have some women in the building.

-We walls have heard English and drinking song, then Latin and Gregorian chant and now it’s Arabic and the Quran.  Pretty classy education for this old stucco building.

I generally disapprove of fraternities.   I can remember gloating, when I was a student on Holy Hill, that an ecumenical community of seekers and preachers and scholars was a distinct improvement in the use of those buildings over crude frat boys.  Not to say that we didn’t still partied pretty well ourselves.  (It was generally agreed that the Jesuits had the best wine cellar and some pretty mean parties.)  Seminary students then were younger than today so we also indulged in some adolescent high jinx.  Maybe I can blame the legacy of the frat buildings on my bad behavior. 

But I was really sad to see the Franciscans leave.  Some of the other seminaries are also on the verge of closing.  Was this 50-year ecumenical experiment a failure?  Will theological education survive in any form or is it doomed to become just distance learning and “practical theology” – no classrooms or libraries?  As both religion and higher education change dramatically, what does the future hold for the teachers and students of religion?  Sure, Francis disapproved of owning property, so maybe it’s fitting they sold.  How could I study the life of Jesus, and of Francis, and still get all excited about how great buildings are? 

Then comes Zaytuna, still small, but growing, just like the growing Muslim population in the US.  And these folks are committed to a broad liberal arts education, and in some way interested in being part of a larger religious community, while maintaining their autonomy.  Might this be a divine gift for the community?  And for the buildings?  Better Muslims than condos. 

And if every student is a seeker, even the frat boys, then not so much has changed.   There are still seekers in 1712 Euclid, and the buildings still stands. 

That is some consolation, even a blessing.

Copyright © 2016 Deborah Streeter