Eastshore resident recalls joys of tadpole fishing, 12-cent Munchy’s burgers

Growing up in Richmond’s Eastshore neighborhood, Victor Harris caught tadpoles in a stream everyone called “The Ditch,” played baseball in Booker T. Anderson park and ate 12-cent burgers from Munchy’s. Some 50 years later, Munchy’s is gone, but the neighborhood spirit lives on.

“People respect each other here,” Harris said. “The old and the young get along.”

The Eastshore neighborhood has 874 residents, occupies less than one square mile and is northwest of the Richmond Annex some 200 feet east of Interstate 580. 

As he spoke, a breeze rustled the leaves of a eucalyptus tree nearby. Though the Bay Area was under a severe hot weather alert that day, the breeze was keeping the temperatures comfortable in the Eastshore.

Harris has deep Richmond roots. Like many Black families, he said, “My folks came to Richmond from the South in the 1940s to work in the shipyards and settled here.” 

“I grew up around the corner from the park,” said Harris, as he perched on a bollard outside the community center at Booker T. Anderson Community Park, named after the Rev. Booker Anderson, pastor of Easter Hill from 1959 until 1969, where Anderson was part of drawing his friend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other activists to speak.

As a kid in the neighborhood, “After school you could come here and hang out. It kept us off the streets,” Harris said. 

Neighborhood youths, as well as adults and children from all over the city, still play sports and engage in programs there, especially thanks to the reopening of the Booker T. Anderson Community Center, which celebrated its extensive renovation with an event in June, which Harris attended.

Booker T. Anderson park: Eastshore’s heart and soul

As Harris shared his stories with Richmondside, it became clear that the 22-acre park, which dates back to 1914 when it was called East Shore Park, and its community center are the heart and soul of the neighborhood.

The community center hosts events including the Achieve Summer Camp youth program running through August and has a fitness center, basketball open gym, volleyball league and card playing and dominoes for seniors. 

The park is the second largest park in Richmond, second only to Nicholl Park, according to Arto Rinteela, president of the Richmond Neighborhood Coordinating Council.

The park has been a constant motif in Harris’ life. Not only did he live nearby for much of his life, for a considerable amount of time he had a hand in maintaining it. He worked for the City of Richmond for 28 years as a lead maintenance worker, retiring in 2019.

An example of his job duties? “Cleaning the railroad tracks,” he said, referring to the tracks that run on the west side of the neighborhood.

Harris didn’t live in Eastshore his entire life. He moved away in 1996, living in cities including Vacaville and Pittsburg, where he raised his children. He returned in 2013.

In his youth, Harris loved to visit establishments including Brooks Burgers and Munchy’s, he said. Now, the primary source of food outside the home is the food trucks.

While his passion was once his work, as a retiree, Harris goes swimming at facilities including the Richmond Plunge, and rides his bike on the Bay Trail.

“When I worked for the city, in the mornings I had to get up and go to work and clean it up. Now, I can enjoy it,” he said.

A mover and shaker, he attends City Council meetings regularly. He said he doesn’t always feel the council is addressing the neighborhood’s concerns, though.

“Blight. Weeds that don’t get trimmed,” the former maintenance lead worker said.

Also, he believes a group of trees east of the community center needs to be thinned.

While the line of trees is beautiful, the trees obscure the view of the playing fields, he pointed out.

Like any neighborhood, Eastshore has its challenges, he said, but he’s firm in his commitment to his place of birth.

“It was a beautiful thing to work in the city where you were raised,” he said. “Seniors would come in and complain about their neighborhoods. I would give a quick response to all Richmond’s neighborhoods. I was the middleman between residents and management. I put the fires out.”