Both screening rooms were long and very, very narrow — no more than six seats across on either side of the center aisle, if I recall correctly—and the walls dividing them were paper thin, ensuring that the soundtrack from next door’s movie was always intruding into your movie’s quietest and most contemplative moments. Closed during the 1990s,

Today, outsiders may call Berkeley "the People's Republic." During its early-20th-century heyday, however, the city was run primarily by Republicans. But Berkeleyans — even then — were not immune to the call of the Socialists for a more equitable divvying of life's spoils.

In 1911, when Socialist J. Stitt Wilson ran for mayor, even a paper not known for its radical opinions supported his cause. "His well-rounded sentences, polished rhetoric and telling logic drove home the truth with great power," the Gazette said of his kickoff speech.

Wilson, then a boyish 43, called for public ownership of lighting and electricity, streetcars, water, and phones, and a public kindergarten, with all these services provided at minimal cost. The battle, he said, set private citizens against "a mere handful of individuals who control the resources of the nation." Wilson, a backer of women's suffrage, already had the support of Berkeley's progressive women.

"You know what I am standing for," he said to rousing cheers, "cheaper water, cheaper gas, cheaper lights, cheaper phones."