About the Bulb

About the Bulb

The Albany Bulb is human-made land. It was created as a construction debris landfill from 1963 to 1983. This nearby shoreline of the East Bay is the ancestral home of the Huichin Ohlone people, was part of Rancho San Antonio, and was once the site of a thriving dynamite manufacturing industry. You can read more about the Bulb’s history in “The Battle of the Bulb: Nature, Culture and Art at a San Francisco Bay Landfill” in BOOM: California journal.

Today, the Bulb (the westernmost, island-like portion of the land in this picture) is owned and managed by the City of Albany. Albany Beach and the Plateau northeast of the Beach are part of the McLaughlin Eastshore State Park and are managed by the East Bay Regional Park District.

For updates on park closures and policies during COVID-19, visit the websites of the City of Albany and the East Bay Regional Park District.

There is limited free parking at 1 Buchanan Street and plenty of bicycle racks. There is a safe, off-street bicycle/pedestrian path along Buchanan Street that leads under the freeway to the Bulb. The Bulb is reachable by the Bay Trail from the north, and a connection to the Bay Trail in Berkeley is under construction.

There is a vault toilet (which may be closed due to COVID-19-check EBRPD policies) but no drinking water or running water.