Note: in 2015 Nimitz Way was resurfaced. Hints of the under drawing remains along the margins.

Originating at Inspiration Point, Nimitz Way is a popular hiking and biking roadway along the San Pablo Ridge in Berkeley’s Tilden Regional Park. Built prior to World War II, it later became the guarded entrance to a Nike missile site constructed during the Cold War. The roadway was named after Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander who spearheaded Japan’s WW II defeat. Admiral Nimitz, a Berkeley resident in later life, enjoyed hiking the roadway scattering wildflower seeds — the yellow lupine that now blossoms in springtime was a favorite. The trail was dedicated to Nimitz in 1955. Following the dedication ceremony, Nimitz and his wife Catherine attended a party at the Brazilian Room where Catherine, an amateur artist, displayed her paintings. This mingling of art with the spirit of Nimitz Way continues to the present day thanks to the talent of an anonymous East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) employee who at a later date artfully repaired roadway cracks.

The natural forces that formed the ridge and carved Wildcat Canyon and the surrounding area also eroded and opened splits in the Nimitz Way roadbed. The East Bay Regional Park District employee assigned to repair them wielded his tar-soaked brush with expressionistic grace. While trail-users delight in spectacular views to the east and west, few note the tar painting calligraphically unfolding beneath their feet like a vast Japanese scroll. Freed of the confines of a rectangular canvas, studio walls, and representational content, the artwork abstractly covers a vast expanse of roadway.

At the trailhead the painter explores his medium, energetically applying tar to ribbon-like cracks. The markings soon become more localized, focusing on vertical fissures along both sides of the trail. Toward the .5 mile marker stretches of open, freely drawn horizontal lines set a new rhythm. A unique artistic identity begins to emerge as errant brush-strokes and drips wander from functional lines filling cracks. The artist is at his calligraphic best near the mile marker and beyond. He punctuates his work with exploding strokes, errant gestures, and drips, adding hints of figuration and zigzags on the downhill slope.

The Nimitz Way roadbed artwork is easily overlooked: it’s anonymous, it’s quiet, and it blends with the surroundings. In contrast to dramatic, political, brightly colored public art, the roadbed artwork, once noticed, inconspicuously remains just one part of the trail’s beauty. Like all good art it encourages us to look hard, to freshly discover the things we see, and to experience our surroundings in new ways.