The Heart of Berkeley: The Historic McGee-Spaulding District

 

Philip K. Dick is probably best known for the movie Blade Runner, based on his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968). He lived at 1711 Allston Way with his mother in 1944 while attending Berkeley High School. In 1947, he undertook one of the most difficult challenges of his life: moving out of his mother’s house. It is not clear whether his mother threatened to have him arrested or not, but it is assumed that she was concerned about his choice of accommodation. His new Berkeley address, 2208 McKinley Street, was a warehouse whose upper floor had been converted into a rooming house. The rooms were occupied by some of the most notable young Berkeley gay artists of the time including poets Robert Duncan, and Jack Spicer, and the future art historian Gerald Ackerman. Although Dick enjoyed the literary talk at the house, other aspects of life there--passes made at him by one of his housemates--evidently disturbed him. He moved out in 1948 and at nineteen entered into the first of five marriages.