“A park is a poem the city writes to itself — a reminder that concrete was never the whole plan.”
Where Berkeley exhales — a small green hymn between the houses
Derby Street & Hillegass Avenue · Berkeley, California
For the grass-stained knees & the bench-warmed hearts
Above us, oaks hold conference with the fog,
trading secrets in a language
only patient listeners learn —
the dialect of decades,
the grammar of good shade.
A kingdom declared daily
by tiny sovereigns in rain boots,
who govern by the ancient law:
the slide belongs to everyone,
the swings to whoever asks.
Each plank a memoir —
of crosswords half-finished,
of coffees cooling beside novels,
of grandmothers who know the dogs
by name before the owners.
At dusk the park becomes
a cathedral of horizontal light,
and everyone inside it — jogger,
toddler, crow — is briefly,
unmistakably, gilded.
From vacant lots to sacred ground — seven decades of becoming
Berkeley opens one of the nation's first junior high schools nearby. By 1916 it is renamed Frances Willard Intermediate High School, honoring the suffragist and reformer. The school and the park's futures become forever entwined.
Fourteen-year-old Willard student Stephanie Bryan disappears while walking home from school. The case makes national headlines and shocks Berkeley, then a city where violent crime is almost unheard of.
The City of Berkeley begins purchasing parcels at Derby and Hillegass. By 1968, federal HUD funds help secure the remaining land. The neighborhood finally has its green commons.
At the height of Vietnam War protests, community activists rename the park in solidarity. On Bastille Day, July 14, 1969, protesters march from here to People's Park carrying wire cutters baked into loaves of bread — a nod to the French Revolution. The fence at People's Park comes down. Willard becomes a staging ground for one of Berkeley's most storied acts of civil disobedience.
During the People's Park upheaval, police padlock the Willard schoolyard fence and tear-gas the students trapped inside. A National Guard helicopter later gasses the school grounds again. The children of Willard become unwitting witnesses to history.
Phase II plans are approved as a “user-developed park” — designed jointly by the City and Willard School. In August 1971, the park is officially dedicated for public recreation.
The park is officially named for Frances E. Willard (1839–1898), the visionary suffragist, educator, and social reformer who led the largest women's organization of the 19th century and was the first woman honored in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall.
Under Bill Lipsky's tireless leadership, dozens of neighbors form the Friends of Willard Park. Over six years they rebuild entrances, lay cobble pathways, add lighting and trees, restore the circular bench, and construct the beloved tot lot. In the final 88 days alone, volunteers contribute nearly 5,000 hours of labor.
The Willard Neighborhood Association calls the park the “beating heart” of the neighborhood. Friends of Willard Park continues to steward the grounds, grow new community leaders, and ensure the park remains a fun, safe, multi-use green space for one of Berkeley's most dense and dynamic neighborhoods.
Known as “Frank” to her friends, Frances Willard grew up a sturdy, independent frontier child in Wisconsin who climbed fences, fired guns, and chafed at the rules that said only boys could ride horses. She became the first female college president granting degrees to women, then left academia entirely to lead the Women's Christian Temperance Union — transforming it into the largest women's organization in 19th-century America with 245,000 members.
Her motto was “Do Everything” — and she meant it. Beyond temperance, she championed women's suffrage, the eight-hour work day, prison reform, equal pay, kindergartens, and shelters for abused women and children. She averaged 400 lectures a year for a decade, traveling 30,000 miles annually. In 1893, at age 53, she taught herself to ride a bicycle — still a radical act for a woman — and wrote a book about it.
She was the first woman represented in the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall, and her influence helped pave the way for both the 18th and 19th Amendments.
“The loves of women for each other grow more numerous each day, and I have pondered much why these things were. That so little should be said about them surprises me, for they are everywhere.”
Fun facts, small wonders, and Berkeley being Berkeley
Willard Park has long been home to Berkeley's annual Easter Egg Hunt, drawing families from across the city every spring.
The park is famous for its unwritten canine code: well-mannered dogs roam off-leash, and the regulars know every dog by name before they learn the owner's.
On Bastille Day 1969, Berkeley activists baked wire cutters into loaves of bread and marched from Willard Park to cut down the fence at People's Park — a revolutionary gesture worthy of the date.
The park's namesake, Frances Willard, learned to ride a bicycle at age 53 and wrote an entire book about it — arguing that cycling was liberation on two wheels.
In the final 88 days of the 1990s park renovation, neighborhood volunteers contributed nearly 5,000 hours of labor — averaging 57 hours per day of community sweat equity.
The playground features in-ground talk tubes — whisper into one end and your voice travels underground to emerge across the playground. Magic for kids, perplexing for dogs.
Every season earns its name here
Plum blossoms arrive before the calendar agrees. Children rediscover the grass like old friends after a long trip. The Easter Egg Hunt draws half the neighborhood. The park smells of wet earth and ambition.
Fog rolls in at four like a gentle chaperone. Frisbees arc in slow motion. Yoga groups claim their territory. Somewhere a guitar is being learned, and the park forgives every wrong chord.
Leaves compose themselves into drifts of ochre and rust. The light turns amber. Dog walkers linger longer, as if the benches have grown warmer. The tennis courts echo with the satisfying pop of crisp-air rallies.
Rain turns the cobble paths into mirrors. The oaks stand skeletal and dignified. Only the devoted come — and they nod to each other like members of a secret society. The clubhouse glows with youth programs and warmth.
Everyone. That's the whole point.
2730 Hillegass Avenue at Derby Street · Berkeley, CA 94705