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Palo Alto, California

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"Palo Alto" redirects here. For other uses, see Palo Alto (disambiguation).
City of Palo Alto
Official seal of City of Palo Alto
Seal
Location of Palo Alto within Santa Clara County, California.
Location of Palo Alto within Santa Clara County, California.
CountryUnited States of America
StateCalifornia
CountySanta Clara
Government
 • MayorYoriko Kishimoto[1]
Population
 (2007)
 • Total61,200
Time zoneUTC-8 (PST)
 • Summer (DST)UTC-7 (PDT)
Websitehttp://www.cityofpaloalto.org/

Palo Alto (IPA: [pælo ælto], from Spanish: palo: "stick" and alto: "high", i.e., "tall tree") is a city in Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, USA, named for a tree called El Palo Alto. The city is located at the northern end of Silicon Valley, and is adjacent to Stanford University and home to several successful high-technology companies, such as Hewlett-Packard. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 58,598.

The northern half of Palo Alto, north of Oregon Expressway, is filled with elegant homes, some of which date back to the 1890s but most of which were built in the first four decades of the 20th century on tree-lined streets. South of Oregon Expressway, in the southern half of Palo Alto, the houses, including many Joseph Eichler-designed or Eichler-style houses, were primarily built in the first 20 years after World War II.

While the city contains homes that now cost anywhere from $800,000 to well in excess of $10 million, much of Palo Alto's housing stock is barely middle-class in the style of mid-century California suburbia, and would not be so expensive were it not in such a desirable location[citation needed]. Palo Alto neighbors Stanford University and is in the heart of Silicon Valley. It also has highly rated public schools (See: PALY and GUNN), a high quality of life, and a vibrant downtown. The median home sale price (including condos) for all of Palo Alto was $948,000 in 2005.[2]

History

University Avenue at the Circle with train steaming toward El Palo Alto, 1894

Earliest recorded history stems from 1769, when Gaspar de Portolá noted an Ohlone settlement. This remains an area of known Indian mounds. A plaque is erected at Middlefield Road and Webster Street to commemorate this area.

The city got its name from a tall tree by the banks of the San Franciscquito Creek bordering Menlo Park. You can still find this two-trunked tree along the foot bridge on Alma Street. A plaque recounts the story of a 63 man, 200 horse expedition from San Diego to the mission at Monterey from November 7–11, 1769. The group overshot and reached the bay instead. Regarding the bay as too wide to cross, the group decided to turn around near 'el palo alto.'

Rafael Soto, tenth child and son of a De Anza Expedition settler, Ignacio Soto and wife María Bárbara Espinosa de Lugo to Alta California. He settled near the San Francisquito Creek between El Camino Real and Middlefield. Selling goods to travelers in the area about 1830. His property was granted at a size of about 2400 acres and reduced over time and claim. His wife met with problems maintaining ownership. Their daughter María Luisa married (1) John Coppinger in 1837 who owned vast acreage north of the Creek in present San Mateo County. Upon his death she inherited it and married later a visiting boat captain, John Greer, who stumbled into the area. He owned a home on the property that is now Town & Country Village on Embarcadero & El Camino Real. Greer Avenue and Court are named for him.

To the south of Oregon Expwy was another grantee owner; the Robles brothers. Espanolos, Castilian, they said, and named Don Secundino and Teodoro. The older born in 1813 at Presidio Branciforte (Santa Cruz). They bought their 8500 acre property from José Peña, his 1841 grantee of Rancho Santa Rita. It was basically from Page Mill To San Antonio Rd. and east of El Camino, AKA 'Mayfield'to the Bay. Stories say their grand hacienda was built on the former meager adobe of José Peña near Ferne off San Antonio Road, midway between Middlefield and Alma St.. These 2 boys did well. Read their story and understand how they earned money to buy this land in 1847. They later were forced to sell 250 acres in 1853 the present Barron Park, Matadero Creek and Stanford Business Park to Elias O. Crosby ~ Creator of the term 'Mayfield'. Their hacienda hosted fiestas and bull fights. It was ruined in the 1906 earthquake and its lumber was used to build a large barn nearby which it is said lingered until the early 1950s. In 1880 Secundino Robles, father to twenty-nine children, still lived near present day Sears Dept. Store and was bounded on the south by Mariano Castro's grant across the street on San Antonio Road.

From 1846–1848, the United States and Mexico were at war (see Mexican-American War), which concluded with U.S. conquest of California and New Mexico. Mexican land grants became targets of the Americans settlers and tycoons. Although if it must be considered that seventy years earlier the Mexicans had done much the same to the native California Indians and fewer are telling tales about their losses and historic figures. They were much more passive and had no real ability to confront De Anza and his men. Palo Alto was destined to be an early settlement but was reconsidered due to low creek levels. They marched on and set up a camp (Presidio) in present day San Francisco.

Many of the Spanish names in the Palo Alto area represent the local heritage and descriptive terms and former residents. Pena Court, Miranda Avenue, which was essentially Foothill Expwy was the married name of Juana Briones and the name occurs in Courts and Avenues others in Palo Alto to Mountain View in the quadrant where she owned vast acreage between Stanford Univ., Grant Road in Mountain View and west of El Camino. Yerba Buena was to her credit. Rinconada was the major Mexican land grant name.

The township of Mayfield was formed in 1855, in what is now South Palo Alto. In 1895, Leland Stanford came to the town of Mayfield, interested in founding his university there, and creating a train stop near his school (on Mayfield's downtown street, California Avenue). However, he had one condition: alcohol be banned from the town. Known for its rowdy saloons, Mayfield rejected his requests for reform. This led him to drive the formation of Palo Alto in 1895. Stanford set up his university, Stanford University, and train stop (on University Avenue)in his new town of Palo Alto. With Stanford’s support, saloon days faded and Palo Alto grew to the size of Mayfield. On July 2, 1925, Palo Alto voters approved the annexation of Mayfield and the two communities were officially consolidated on July 6, 1925. This saga explains why Palo Alto has two downtown areas: one along University Avenue and one along California Avenue. The latter was the downtown of Mayfield, the former of Palo Alto prior to merging with Mayfield. The Mayfield News wrote its own obituary four days later:

"It is with a feeling of deep regret that we see on our streets today those who would sell, or give, our beautiful little city to an outside community. We have watched Mayfield grow from a small hamlet, when Palo Alto was nothing more than a hayfield, to her present size … and it is with a feeling of sorrow that we contemplate the fact that there are those who would sell or give the city away." A good site for more is taken from a book pub. in 1881.

An interesting part of Palo Alto is a designated historic district called "Professorville"; this area bounded by Lincoln, Kingsley, Waverley and Ramona is where many of Stanford University's first faculty members settled. The district includes a large number of well preserved residences dating from the 1890s including 833 Kingsley, 345 Lincoln and 450 Kingsley. 1044 Bryant was the home of Russell Varian, co-inventor of the Klystron tube. The Lee DeForest laboratory site, situated at 218 Channing, is a California Historical Landmark recognizing DeForest's 1911 invention of the vacuum tube and electronic oscillator at that location. While not open to the public, the garage that housed the launch of Hewlett Packard is located at 367 Addison Av. Hewlett Packard recently restored the house and garage. A second historic district on Ramona Street can be found downtown between University and Hamilton Avenues.

Environmental features and geography

Palo Alto has a number of significant natural habitats, including estuarine, riparian and oak forest. The Charleston Slough contains a rich marsh and littoral zone, providing feeding areas for a variety of shorebirds and other estuarine wildlife (Jenks, 1976].

Palo Alto is located at 37°25′45″N 122°8′17″W / 37.42917°N 122.13806°W / 37.42917; -122.13806 (37.429289, −122.138162)Template:GR. It is in the south-eastern section of the San Francisco Peninsula. It is bordered to the west by Menlo Park, to the north by East Palo Alto, and to the east by Mountain View and Los Altos. The southern border is made of Stanford, California (Stanford University) and Los Altos Hills.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 66.4 km² (25.6 mi²). 61.3 km² (23.7 mi²) of it is land and 5.1 km² (or 7.6%) is water.

The official elevation is 56 feet above sea level, but the city boundaries reach well into the peninsula hills. There are signs denoting the city limits on Skyline Boulevard (highway 35) and the Stevens Canyon trail (San Andreas fault rift zone).

Demographics

As of the censusTemplate:GR of 2000, there were 58,598 people, 25,216 households, and 14,600 families residing in the city. The population density was 955.8/km² (2,475.3/mi²). There were 26,048 housing units at an average density of 424.9/km² (1,100.3/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 75.76% white, 2.02% African American, 0.21% Native American, 17.22% Asian, 0.14% Pacific Islander, 1.41% from other races, and 3.24% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.65% of the population.

There were 25,216 households, of which 27.2% had resident children under the age of 18, 48.5% were married couples living together, 7.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.1% were non-families. 32.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.30 and the average family size was 2.95.

In the city the population was spread out with 21.2% under the age of 18, 4.9% from 18 to 24, 32.4% from 25 to 44, 25.9% from 45 to 64, and 15.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 95.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.6 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $90,377, and the median income for a family was $117,574. Males had a median income of $91,051 versus $60,202 for females. The per capita income for the city was $56,257. About 3.2% of families and 4.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 4.0% of those under age 18 and 5.0% of those age 65 or over.

Economy

Palo Alto serves as a central economic focal point of the Silicon Valley, and is home to more than 6,000 businesses employing more than 98,000 people.[3] Many innovative tech firms reside in the Stanford Research Park on Page Mill Road while Sand Hill Road is a notable haunt for venture capitalists. The city’s economy generally follows the economic trends of the rest of the Silicon Valley. Well-known companies and research facilities headquartered in Palo Alto include:

Other notable corporate citizens:

In addition, Palo Alto has a lively retail and restaurant trade, and the Stanford Shopping Center and downtown Palo Alto (centered around University Avenue) are popular destinations.

See also: Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce list of Major Employers (archived)

Utilities

Unlike surrounding communities, electric and gas service within city limits are provided by the city of Palo Alto. A minor exception is a rural portion of the city limits in hills area — west of Interstate 280 and along Page Mill Road — which gets gas and electric service from Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E).

Water and Gas Services (WGS) operates gas and water distribution networks within the city limits. Natural gas is purchased from PG&E or third parties and delivered to Palo Alto via PG&E's gas transmission pipeline network. The city operates gas meters and the distribution pipelines. Water comes from city-operated watershed and wells, the Santa Clara Valley Water District, and the City and County of San Francisco Hetch Hetchy system. The city is located in Santa Clara Valley Water District, North Zone. Hetch Hetchy pipeline #3 and #4 pass through the city.

The city operates its own electric power distribution network and telemetry cable network. Interconnection points tie the city into PG&E's electric transmission system, which brings power from several sources to the city. A claim to fame is the city's exemption from rolling blackouts during the summer 2000 power shortages. Palo Alto is a member of a joint powers authority which cooperatively generates electricity for government power providers such as the city of Santa Clara, city of Redding, and Modesto Irrigation District. Roughly the same group of entities operate the Transmission Agency of Northern California (TANC). TANC transports power (called wheeling) over its own lines from as far as British Columbia through an interconnection with the federal Bonneville Power Administration. A local oddity is a series of joint poles on Arastradero Road near Page Mill Road. The primary conductor cross arms are marked PGE and CPA (city of Palo Alto) to identify each utility's side of the shared cross arms.

Palo Alto has an ongoing community debate about the city providing fiber optic connectivity to all residences. A series of pilot programs were proposed. One proposal called for the city to install dark fiber which would be made live by a contractor. Internet connectivity over fiber optic lines is not universal or city-wide as of spring 2006.

Services traditionally attributed to a cable television provider were sold to a regulated commercial concern. Previously the cable system was operated by a cooperative called Palo Alto Cable Coop.

The former Regional Bell Operating Company in Palo Alto was Pacific Telephone. The company is now called AT&T and was previously called SBC and Pacific Bell. One of the earliest central office facilities switching Palo Alto calls is the historic Davenport central office (CO) at 529 Bryant St. The building was sold and is now used as offices. The former CO building is marked by a bronze plaque and is located on the north side of Bryant Street between University Avenue and Hamilton Avenue. It was called Davenport after the exchange name at the introduction of dial telephone service in Palo Alto. For example, modern numbers starting with 325- were DAvenport 5 in the 1950s and '60s. The Bryant CO, located at 37°26′44″N 122°09′39″W / 37.44556°N 122.16083°W / 37.44556; -122.16083, contained several floors of clattering Western Electric Step-by-Step switching equipment that historically handled calls for homes and businesses in Menlo Park, Atherton, East Palo Alto, and Palo Alto. The Step-by-Step office was scrapped and replaced by stored-program-controlled equipment at a different location about 1980. Stanford calls ran on a Step-by-Step Western Electric 701 PBX until the university purchased its own switch about 1980. It had the older, traditional Bell System 600 Hz+120 Hz dialtone. The old 497-number PBX, MDF, and battery string were housed in a steel building at 333 Bonair Siding. (The building still stands but Stanford's present-day PBX switch is elsewhere.) From 1950s to 1980s, the bulk of Palo Alto calls were switched on Number 5 Crossbar systems. By the mid-1980s, these electromechanical systems had been junked. Under the Bell System's regulated monopoly, local coin telephone calls were ten cents until the early 1980s.

During the drought of the early 1990s, Palo Alto employed water waste patrol officers to enforce water saving regulations. The team, called "Gush Busters" patrolled city streets looking for broken water pipes and poorly managed irrigation systems. Regulations were set to stop restaurants from habitually serving water, run off from irrigation and irrigation during the day. The main goal of the team was to educate the public in ways to save water. Citations consisted of Friendly Reminder post cards and more formal notices. To help promote the conservation message, the team only used bicycles and mopeds.

Sources

  • Coleman, Charles M., P. G. and E. of California: The Centennial Story of Pacific Gas and Electric Company 1852–1952, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952).
  • Hanson, Warren D., San Francisco Water and Power: A History of the Municipal Water Department and Hetch Hetchy System, (San Francisco: San Francisco Public Utilities Communications Group, 2002).
  • Map: PG&E Backbone Gas Transmission System, (San Francisco: Pacific Gas and Electric Co., undated).
  • Map: Water Conveyance, Treatment, and Distribution System, (San Jose: Santa Clara Valley Water District, 1978).
  • Earthquake Planning Scenario Special Publication #61, (Sacramento, California: State of California, Division of Mines and Geology, 1981).
  • $117,730,000 Bond Offering: Transmission Agency of Northern California, (Sacramento, California: Transmission Agency of Northern California, 1992).

Fire and police history: 1960–present

Palo Alto City Hall, as seen in 2004.

In the 1960s, rapid growth began to fill in the blank spaces on the Palo Alto map. Unincorporated areas and orchards still dotted the map. Prune and apricot orchards became suburban streets. The size and expertise of public safety services has evolved along with this constant growth in population. The city was among the first in Santa Clara County to offer advanced life support (ALS) paramedic-level (EMT-P) ambulance service. In an arrangement predating countywide paramedic service, Palo Alto Fire operates two paramedic ambulances which are theoretically shared with county EMS assets. The Palo Alto Fire Department is currently the only fire department in Santa Clara County that routinely transports patients. American Medical Response holds the Santa Clara County 911 contract and provides transportation in other cities. Enhanced 9-1-1 arrived in about 1980 and included the then-new ability to report emergencies from coin telephones without using a coin.

Before the 1980s, Palo Alto police shared a single radio channel with Atherton and Menlo Park, (154.950 MHz). While located in Santa Clara County, in one sense, the police had closer ties to San Mateo County because of this arrangement. Until the 1970s, a Motorola FMTRU-series DC-remote base — possibly a backup system — was housed at EOC on Newell Rd. The police station was housed in a stone building (still) marked Police Court at 450 Bryant St. The building is now a senior citizens center. In the late 1970s, FCC regulations changed to allow sharing of television frequencies in major US metropolitan areas. About 1980, the city built their own voted repeater system on TV-sharing frequencies for Police. Fire systems evolved from stand-alone base stations to a voted modern, system using DTMF station ringdowns. The current city systems are models of good level discipline. In modern times, police have enjoyed a reputation for professionalism and quick response times. Another facet of the Police Department involves one officer convicted of groping a woman who was handcuffed in his patrol car and an incident where officers were alleged to have coerced a false confession from an innocent person during an investigation of the rape of an elderly woman. In modern times, police work out of the City Hall high rise.

In modern times, the larger population and difficult target hazards of the campus are addressed by the resources of Palo Alto Fire, which handles daily calls for service. Stanford University Department of Public Safety ran their own fire department and dispatched their own police calls until about 1980. Prior to that time, Stanford Department of Public Safety Sheriff's Deputies used County Frequency 7 (154.740 MHz). The University's radio equipment had been upgraded after protests against the Vietnam War tested readiness and limitations of the agency in the 1960s. At the time, the channel (Frequency 7) was also shared primary dispatch for Los Altos and Mountain View police. Under the county radio identifier prefix system in use at the time, Stanford units were identified by a prefix 26. A typical Stanford DPS patrol unit might identify as twenty-six-ess-eight (26S8), for example. The University's Frequency 7 police base station had a call sign of KBF249. In the early 1980s, Stanford turned their dispatching for fire and police over to the City of Palo Alto. Before the early 1980s, Stanford Fire units were dispatched by university staff on County Frequency 8 (154.400 MHz) and used identifiers including Engine 95 and Rescue 95. Fire equipment ran calls out of the station that is today identified as Palo Alto Station 6: a.k.a. 711 Serra Street or Quad 9 Building 300. The need for a new fire station may have partly been dictated by needs for a large ladder truck because of the arrival of Escondido Village high rise buildings. Prior to the construction of this station, fire units worked out of a building that is now marked, "Old Fire Truck House." The old fire station is located on Santa Teresa Street near Tressider Memorial Union: Quad 2 Building 620.

The Barron Park Fire District #2 was also known by its radio callsign "High Pressure 90."

Along the 4000-block of El Camino Real in Palo Alto exists a community built in the late 1940s known as Barron Park. Barron Park remained outside the city limits until a 1970s zeal for annexation brought it into the city. As an unincorporated area, police services were handled by the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department. Fire services were the domain of the volunteer Barron Park Fire District, (BPFD). Based on the age of their equipment, the Barron Park subdivision is believed to have been built in 1949. The district housed two firefighting vehicles in a steel shed (the fire station) behind Lanai Florist at 4050 El Camino Real. The shed still stands today. Only one fire unit had a radio: a 1950 GMC/FMC pickup marked, "Barron Park Fire District Number Two," and used the radio callsign, "High Pressure 90." A second unit, a 1949 White/Van Pelt, was not radio equipped. In practice, it was referred to on the radio as, "The Big One." As it had no official identifier, volunteers would tell county fire dispatch over the radio, "The Big One is also responding." Barron Park Fire operated its radios on the county-dispatched primary fire channel then referred to as Frequency 2. The department was self-dispatched. The department's seven-digit emergency number rang at the BPFD Chief's house. If the call was a fire, the Chief pulled an exclusion key on the emergency line telephone and dialed zero. This grounded one conductor of the seven-digit emergency number's phone line and actuated a relay which turned on a Federal-brand, air-raid style siren at the site where the firefighting vehicles were parked. As the siren would cycle through its repartee, all available volunteers would go to the station. At the station, the first to arrive would lift the receiver of an extension of the seven digit emergency phone and the Chief would tell them what the call was. The first volunteer would write the call on a blackboard so late arrivals could know the location of the event. Typical of fire calls in any area, a large fire will generate many reports. The telephone technology used by many volunteer fire departments at the time — including BPFD — used an electromechanical device called a line turret. This was a predecessor to modern conference calls and call waiting. After the Chief answered the first call, if a second person called the seven-digit emergency number to report a fire, the second caller would be bridged onto the first call. This allowed a single, rotary-dial telephone to answer multiple lines. In a typical volunteer department, emergency phones would be wired to the homes of several volunteers and they would take turns maintaining watch over the phone. It also led to confusion because the second caller might get conferenced with an earlier caller who was halfway through the process of reporting a fire. When Barron Park was annexed to Palo Alto about 1979, The Big One was donated to San Jose City College Fire Academy program where it was subsequently scrapped. High Pressure 90 was sold at auction and still resides in the area of Barron Park. Today the area receives city services and is part of the city of Palo Alto.

Sources

  • Richmond, Emily, “Teen Girls Claim Cop Demanded a Peek,” Palo Alto Daily News, October 9, 1999, pp. 1,20.
  • Stanford University Base Map, (Stanford: Facilities Information and Technology Maps and Records Office, Stanford University, 2003).
  • "1117 Compass Way: Summer 1976," Fremont Fire District Audio Archive 1976–1981, Compact Disc 1, Track 3.

School system

Public schools

The Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) provides public education for Palo Alto. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Palo Alto has a student-teacher ratio of less than 17, much lower than some surrounding communities. Juana Briones Elementary has a student/teacher ratio of 14.4.[4] The school board meets at 7 p.m. the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the month; the meetings are open to the public and city-cast live on Cable Services Channel 28 in Palo Alto.

Private schools

Libraries

The Palo Alto City Library has five branches, with a total of 265,000 items in their collections.

Media

Transportation

Palo Alto is served by two major freeways, Highway 101, and Interstate 280, and is traversed by the Peninsula’s main north-south boulevard, El Camino Real (CA-82).

The city is also served indirectly by California State Route 84 which traverses the Dumbarton Bridge to the north. None of the highways on the Peninsula side of the bridge have been upgraded to freeway status due to opposition from residents of Palo Alto, Atherton and Menlo Park. The freeway opponents fear that upgrading Highway 84 will encourage more people to live in Alameda County (where housing is more affordable) and commute to jobs in the mid-Peninsula area, thus increasing traffic in their neighborhoods to the south of the bridge. Also, Palo Alto has only one major crosstown arterial, Page Mill Road / Oregon Expressway, which completely connects the two freeways. Because of these two defects in the regional road network, Palo Alto is notorious for severe traffic congestion at rush hour.

Palo Alto is served by Palo Alto Airport of Santa Clara County, one of the busiest single-runway general aviation airports in the country. Palo Alto Airport (KPAO) is used by many daily commuters who fly (usually in private singled engine aircraft) from their homes in the Central Valley to work in the Palo Alto area.

Train service is available via Caltrain with service to San Francisco and San Jose. Caltrain has two regular stops in Palo Alto, one at University Avenue (local and express) and the other at California Avenue (local only). A third, located beside Alma Street at Embarcadero Road, is used to provide special services for occasional sports events (generally football) at Stanford Stadium. The University Avenue stop is the second most popular (behind 4th and King in San Francisco) on Caltrain's entire line.

The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) provides primary bus service through Palo Alto with service to the south bay and Silicon Valley. The San Mateo County Transit District (SamTrans) provides service to San Mateo County to the north. The Stanford University Free Shuttle (Marguerite) provides a supplementary bus service to and from the campus, and the Palo Alto Free Shuttle (Crosstown and Embarcadero), which circulates frequently, and provides service to major points in Palo Alto, including the main library, downtown, the Municipal Golf Course, the Caltrain University Ave. Station, and both high schools.

There are no parking meters in Palo Alto and all municipal parking lots and multi-level parking structures are free (limited to two or three hours any weekday 8am - 5pm). Downtown Palo Alto has recently added many new lots to fill the overflow of vehicles.

Sister cities

Palo Alto has five sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International, Inc. (SCI):

In 1989, Palo Alto received a gift of a large, whimsical wooden sculpture called Foreign Friends (Fjärran Vänner) — of a man, woman, dog and bird sitting on a park bench — from Linköping. The sculpture was praised by some, called "grotesque" by others, and became a lightning rod for vandals. It was covered with a large addressed postcard marked "Return to Sender." A former Stanford University mathematics professor was arrested for attempting to light it on fire. It was doused with paint.

When the original heads were decapitated on Halloween, 1993, the statue became a shrine — flowers bouquets and cards were placed upon it. Following an anonymous donation, the heads were restored. Within weeks, the restored heads were decapitated again, this time disappearing. The heads were eventually replaced with new ones, which generated even more distaste, as many deemed the new heads even less attractive.

A few months later, the man's arm was chopped off, the woman's lap was vandalized, the bird was stolen, and the replacements heads were decapitated and stolen.

The sculpture was removed from its location on Embarcadero Road and Waverley Avenue in 1995, dismantled, and placed in storage until it was destroyed in 2000. Ironically, the statue was designed not as a lasting work of art, but as something to be climbed on with a lifespan of 10 to 25 years.

Palo Alto Burglars

In the 1970s and 1980s, Greg Brown painted a number of trompe l'oeil murals on various buildings in downtown Palo Alto. These murals included a false window on the west side of the Hamilton Station Post Office, a three-foot (one meter) bird on the side of a building at ground level off University Avenue, and the Palo Alto Burglars, which were two figures painted climbing down a rope from the roof of a two story building. (See JIMWICh - Greg Brown's Palo Alto Murals for more information & photographs.)

Notable buildings and other points of interest

Palo Alto Community House

Noteworthy residents

Bibliography

  • John Jenks, David Crimp, C. Michael Hogan et al., Engineering and Environmental Evaluations of Discharge to the Coast Casey Canal and Charleston Slough, prepared by Kennedy Jenks Engineers and Earth Metrics Inc. (1976)
  • Santa Clara County Heritage Resource Inventory, Santa Clara County Historical Heritage Commission, published by Santa Clara County, San Jose, Ca., June 1979
  • A description of high-tech life in Palo Alto around 1995 is found in the novel by Douglas Coupland, Microserfs.
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