Chartered by an Act of Assembly in 1890, the Town of Berkley was located directly across the Eastern Branch Elizabeth River from the City of Norfolk in the South Hampton Roads area.

On 13 April 1922, the "negro belt" of the city suffered a large fire that destroyed two hundred homes.

Berkley also is the site of the juncture of the Downtown Tunnel (across the river to Portsmouth) and Interstate 464 (leading to Chesapeake).

[1] It encompasses 255 contributing buildings in one of southeast Virginia's oldest and most diverse communities, now part of the City of Norfolk.

It includes a variety of early-20th century commercial and residential architecture, some of it designed by the area's most important firms.