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An all-residential neighborhood, College Terrace stretches 12 by two blocks. It lies between South California Avenue and Stanford Avenue, from Amherst Street to El Camino Real. College Avenue runs down the center of the neighborhood. College Terrace is directly adjacent to Escondido Village, a staff and student housing development on the southern edge of Stanford University. The neighborhood features its own branch of the Palo Alto Public Library system built in 1936 in the Spanish Colonial Revival style as a WPA project. [1]
Four parks were part of the original plan for the College Terrace neighborhood and all still exist: [2]
- Donaldina M. Cameron Park, located on Wellesley Street between Stanford Avenue and College Avenue. It was originally called Berkeley Park and renamed in 1968 for Donaldina Cameron, a long time resident of College Terrace who died in 1968. [2]
- Mayfield Park, located on Wellesley Street between College Avenue and South California Avenue, next to the College Terrace Library. It was originally called Hollywood Park before being renamed in 1968. [3]
- William C. Werry Park, located on Dartmouth Street between Stanford Avenue and College Avenue. Originally called Eton Park and was renamed for a former Palo Alto Postmaster in 1968. [4]
- Frederick W. Weisshaar Park, also on Dartmouth Street between College Avenue and South California Avenue. Originally called Hampton Park it was renamed in 1968 for an earlier owner of the College Terrace land. He was also a Mayfield school district trustee and Mayfield's first treasurer. [5]
There are three places of worship in College Terrace:
All the cross street names in the College Terrace neighborhood are named after East Coast colleges and universities: Amherst, Bowdoin, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Oberlin, Princeton, Wellesley, Williams and Yale.
Notable former residents of College Terrace include the architect Birge Clark, theologian Robert McAfee Brown, and folk singer Joan Baez. [9]
Palo Alto is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
Menlo Park is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; and Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City to the west. It had 33,780 residents at the 2020 United States census. It is home to the corporate headquarters of Meta, and is where Google, Roblox Corporation, and Round Table Pizza were founded. The train station holds the record as the oldest continually operating train station in California. It is one of the most educated cities in California and the United States; nearly 70% of residents over 25 have earned a bachelor's degree or higher.
Stanford is a census-designated place (CDP) in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is the home of Stanford University, after which it was named. The CDP's population was 21,150 at the 2020 census. Stanford is adjacent to the city of Palo Alto, which borders it to the east, but the CDP itself remains unincorporated.
Donaldina Cameron was a New Zealand-born American Presbyterian missionary who was a pioneer in the fight against slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown, who helped more than 2,000 Chinese immigrant girls and women escape from forced prostitution or indentured servitude. She was known as "Fahn Quai" or the "White Devil" of Chinatown, as well as the "Angry Angel of Chinatown" and "Lo Mo".
The Peninsular Railway was an interurban electrified railway in the U.S. State of California in the United States of America. It served the area between San Jose, Los Gatos, and Palo Alto, comprising much of what is today known as "Silicon Valley". For much of its existence it was a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
Started in 1901 and completed in 1902, St. Thomas Aquinas Church is the oldest church in Palo Alto, California and is a registered historic landmark. Its distinctive Carpenter Gothic Victorian style makes it a signature building for the downtown area.
Birge Malcolm Clark was an American architect, called “Palo Alto's best-loved architect” by the Palo Alto Weekly; he worked largely in the Spanish Colonial Revival style.
Palo Alto station is an intermodal transit center in Palo Alto, California. It is served by Caltrain regional rail service, SamTrans and Santa Clara VTA local bus service, Dumbarton Express regional bus service, the Stanford University Marguerite Shuttle, and several local shuttle services. Palo Alto is the second-busiest Caltrain station after San Francisco, averaging 7,764 weekday boardings by a 2018 count. The Caltrain station has two side platforms serving the two tracks of the Peninsula Subdivision and a nearby bus transfer plaza.
Professorville is a registered historic district in Palo Alto, California containing homes that were built by Stanford University professors. The historic district is bounded by Addison Avenue, Waverley Street, Kingsley Avenue, and Ramona Street. The community considers the district to be larger and bounded by Addison Avenue on the northwest, Cowper Street on the northeast, Embarcadero Road on the southeast, and Emerson Street on the southwest.
California Avenue station is a Caltrain station located in Palo Alto, California. It stops at the historical town center of Mayfield, which was annexed by the town of Palo Alto in 1925. The current station structure was built in 1983 and the station was expanded from one platform to two in 2008.
The Mayfield Brewery also known as the Mayfield Railroad Brewery was a brewery that operated in Mayfield, California, for over 50 years, between 1868 and 1920. The brewery was located at what is now the corner of California Avenue and Birch Street in Palo Alto, California. It produced steam beer and sold it in kegs to local saloons. The brewery was shut down by Prohibition.
The Palo Alto Unified School District is a public school district located near Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. It consists of twelve primary schools, three middle schools, two high schools, with a third opening Fall of 2024, and an adult school.
Adobe Creek, historically San Antonio Creek, is a 14.2-mile-long (22.9 km) northward-flowing stream originating on Black Mountain in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It courses through the cities of Los Altos Hills, Los Altos, and Palo Alto on its way to the Palo Alto Flood Basin and thence to southwestern San Francisco Bay in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Historically, Adobe Creek was a perennial stream and hosted runs of steelhead trout entering from the Bay, but these salmonids are now blocked by numerous flood control structures, including a tidal gate at the creek's mouth and a long concretized rectangular channel culminating in an impassable drop structure at El Camino Real. The co-founders of Adobe Systems both lived on Adobe Creek.
Matadero Creek is a stream originating in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The creek flows in a northeasterly direction for 8 miles (13 km) until it enters the Palo Alto Flood Basin, where it joins Adobe Creek in the Palo Alto Baylands at the north end of the Mayfield Slough, just before its culmination in southwest San Francisco Bay. Matadero Creek begins in the city of Los Altos Hills, then traverses the Stanford University lands and Palo Alto.
Since the founding, Stanford University has provided on-campus housing for students. Today, all undergraduate students, most graduate students, and many graduate employees use campus housing. While not all graduate students are eligible for campus or subsidized off-campus housing, of those that are, only 64% are able to take advantage of this opportunity due to the limited housing stock. Student Housing at Stanford is currently part of Residential & Dining Enterprises, an in-house standalone vendor within the Stanford affiliated network of businesses.
The Kee House is a historic house located at 2310 Yale St. in Palo Alto, California. Built in 1889, it is one of the oldest houses in Palo Alto and the oldest surviving building from Mayfield, a village that predated Palo Alto and was later annexed into the city. The house was one of the first built in the College Terrace tract, a middle-class residential area named for its proximity to Stanford University. The two-story house has an Italianate design with Eastlake elements. The front and side porches feature carved brackets and turned posts; the rear entrance originally had a similar porch. The hip roof features double brackets and a frieze below its eaves.
Melvin Alfred Carter is an American serial rapist who confessed to at least 100 rapes of women in Northern California, between 1971 and 1980.
Monta Loma is a neighborhood in Mountain View, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. Located between the bounds of San Antonio Road, Middlefield Road, Rengstorff Avenue and Central Expressway.
Arthur Bridgman Clark (1866–1948) an American architect, printmaker, author, and professor, as well as the first mayor of Mayfield, California (1855–1925), and first head of Art and Architecture Department at Stanford University. He taught classes at Stanford University from 1893 until 1931.
Mayfield was a historic town in Santa Clara County, California. It was one of the oldest towns, predating the establishment of nearby Palo Alto and Stanford University. In 1853, prior to its becoming a town, Elisha Oscar Crosby acquired a 250 acres (1.0 km2) parcel of land, which was named Mayfield Farm. This property later changed hands on September 23, 1856, when it was transferred to Sarah Wallis to settle a debt Crosby owed her. The name "Mayfield" subsequently became associated with the community nearby. The historical significance of Mayfield is now marked by California Historical Landmark #969, which designates the location of Wallis's first residence, the Mayfield Farm.
