What’s Armstrong University?
I was just making some additions to InBerkeley’s custom Google map when I noticed something strange about the block of Milvia between Allston and Channing. Where you should see Berkeley High School, Google instead has Armstrong University. Huh?
Despite budget pressures I’m sure Berkeley High hasn’t sold its property. Google, or more accurately its data supplier, Tele Atlas, just has it desperately wrong. It’s particularly odd that there’s such a prominent error on a major site in a city that has its share of employees that commute to Google in Mountain View.
What makes it stranger is that there once was an Armstrong University in Berkeley, but it was never on the Berkeley High site (BHS moved to its present site in 1901). Armstrong University was founded in 1918 by Evan Armstrong as the California School for Private Secretaries. It moved to a Walter Ratcliff-designed building on Harold Way in the 1920s and renamed itself Armstrong College. It mutated at some point into Armstrong University, but moved out in 1996.
Although it seems to survive in online directories, as far as I can tell Armstrong University no longer exists. Except in the wrong place on Google Maps.
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Map makers inject intentional mistakes into their products to prevent copyright violations. Sometimes they create entire cities that don’t exist. Maybe this is one such case.
i’d bet it’s an error, as the last place Armstrong occupied was the south half of that little square to the right of it in the map above, just below the “YMC” of YMCA. a little double-vision, a little dyslexia, a little inattention,…
It was Armstrong [Business] College when I went to Berkeley High and was, as I recall, in the small block bounded by Allston Way, Kittredge, and Milvia.
Sorry to hear it’s gone, like so many other private, specialty colleges.
–rj
The Magnes Museum bought the old Armstrong site a few years ago. While waiting development, the Magnes has commissioned contemporary artists like Naomi Kremer and Jonathan Keats to transform the windows into works of art.
Here’s a link to Naomi Kremer’’s exhibit, called Ghosts:
http://www.magnes.org/ghosts/index.htm
Here is a page on how to report errors:
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/012529.html
OK, I’ve submitted an error report. Thanks, Matt. Interesting to see if and when the change propagates through.
They also show Harold Way in the wrong place. If you switch to the satellite view you’ll see that it is actually in the middle of the block, not toward the west end. I reported that error about a year ago, but, as you can see, they haven’t corrected it.
I noticed that a year or two ago, but I’ve never ever had a response from Google about any feedback I’ve submitted. So, I don’t submit feedback anymore.