Elmwood, Berkeley, California

The most extreme definitions of the district's boundaries do not extend past Telegraph Avenue to the west, Dwight Way to the north, or the Oakland city limit to the south.

Elmwood was a streetcar suburb that was developed in the 1900s housing boom following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake,[1] and was the first Berkeley subdivision to be assigned single-family residential zoning.

Elmwood was developed as a de facto segregated neighborhood, reinforced by Federal Housing Administration–guaranteed mortgages, which were not issued to African Americans.

Homes purchased with FHA-guaranteed mortgages were closely scrutinized to ensure segregation was maintained.

In one noted 1958 incident, a white San Francisco schoolteacher, Gerald Cohn, purchased a house with an FHA-guaranteed mortgage in Elmwood.