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Palo Alto, California

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Palo Alto (IPA: [pælo ælto]) 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 home to Stanford University, and 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 both halves of the city contain homes that now cost anywhere from $900,000 to well in excess of $1 million (with the median being in the $1.05 million area), giving the entire city a somewhat-deserved reputation as a wealthy enclave, the fact is that the housing stock of south Palo Alto is rather middle-class in the style of mid-century California suburbia, and would not be so expensive were it not in such a desirable location, close to both Stanford University and Silicon Valley. Typically, homes in the northern half of the city are even more expensive than those in the southern half. Palo Alto is also generally perceived to have excellent public schools (See: PALY and GUNN) and a high quality of life.

A good description of high-tech life in Palo Alto around 1995 is found in the novel by Douglas Coupland, Microserfs. One visible trend at the time was that of people who lived in San Francisco, but who drove south 30 to 50 miles each weekday in order to work in Silicon Valley.

Contents

History

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

The township of Mayfield was formed in 1855, in what is now South Palo Alto. Known for its rowdy saloons, it rejected Leland Stanford’s requests for reform which led him to drive the formation of Palo Alto in 1895. 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.”

An interesting part of Palo Alto is a designated historic district called "Professorville"; this area bounded by Lincoln, Kingsley, Waverley and Ramona was where Stanford University's first faculty members settled. There are a large number of well preserved residences dating from the 1890s here 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 owing to DeForest's invention of the first vacuum tube and oscillator in 1911 at this location. While not open to the public, the garage that housed the launch of Hewlett Packard is located at 367 Addison Av. The house and garage were recently restored by Hewlett Packard. How could anyone know all this would precurse the birth of Silicon Valley?

Environmental features and Geography

Palo Alto has a number of significant 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] (37.429289, −122.138162)[Geographic references#1GR1]. 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.

Demographics

As of the census[Geographic references#2GR2] 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 out of which 27.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 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.

Famous residents

Economy

Palo Alto serves as a central economic focal point of the Silicon Valley, due in large part to the Stanford Research Park on Page Mill Road. Also, 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. Several well known companies are headquartered in Palo Alto, including:

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 the regulated monopoly: 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 the 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 Irrrigation District. Roughly the same group of entities operate the Transmission Agency of Northen 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 fiberoptic 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 fiberoptic 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], contained several floors of clattering Western Electric Step-by-Step switching equipment which -- in history -- 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 600hz+120hz 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 unitl the early 1980s.

Sources

Fire and Police History: 1960-present

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.

Seen through a terrible photoshop filter, Barron Park Fire District #2 was also known by its radio callsign "High Pressure 90."
Enlarge
Seen through a terrible photoshop filter, 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 1949 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

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 [link]. 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.

News 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 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) provide service to major points in Palo Alto, including the main library, downtown, 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.

Sister cities

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

Points of interest

Bibliography

External links

 

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