ABOUT COLLEGE TERRACE

Welcome to College Terrace! Read on for more about our past, our resources, and our neighborhood character. College Terrace is also a neighborhood concerned about preservation.

We also have a very active neighborhood association which sponsors two picnics each year. If you have never been to one of our picnics, check out the pictures!

Resources

We are (still) a very walkable neighborhood with many resources close by. And look under Getting Around! for great ways to go places further afield.

Right in our neighborhood, at 520 College, is J J & F Market.

Check out the pictures!

Across College Avenue is Common Ground, a not-for-profit garden supply and education center. This is the place to buy seeds and plants, compost and organic fertilizer, take classes, or taste great heirloom tomatoes!
College Avenue is also home to Klutz Galactic Headquarters!

special events

For natural foods, visit Country Sun Natural Foods on California Avenue. They carry a full range of vitamins and natural body care products as well!
And while you're on California Avenue, please be sure to notice all the public art installations! In fact, it's called the "Avenue of the Arts"! Visit the California Avenue web site to learn more about the art.
If you're looking for new wheels, check out The Bike Connection and Cardinal Bike Shop on El Camino near Stanford Avenue.
Find out why people in some countries have no back pain at The Balance Center on Oxford.
We also have our very own beautiful College Terrace Library on Wellesley Street. Unfortunately there continues to be discussion of closing both the Downtown and College Terrace branches. Click here for more information.
Meanwhile, we're very fortunate to have this wonderful resource. A web-connected computer is among the facilities at our branch. Please encourage your non-computerized neighbors to make use of it to check out our web site!

If you'd like to help support Palo Alto's wonderful libraries, check out the Friends of the Palo Alto Library web site. They have book sales to raise funds.
And we have four lovely, small parks renamed in 1968 for local notable figures. Created in 1888, these are actually the oldest parks in the City!

On Wellesley Street, Mayfield Park surrounds our library while the Donaldina Cameron Park is between College and Stanford.

On Dartmouth, Weisshaar Park to the south has tennis courts while Werry Park to the north was recently referbished. In case you missed the Ice Cream Social celebrating the reopening, be sure to catch the pictures.
Copies, copies.... Choices, choices!
In addition to FedEx Kinko's at 249 California Avenue, we also have CopyAmerica at 344 California Avenue. They're locally owned and open late during the week. They're also less expensive than Kinko's!
When friends and relatives come to town, consider the Stanford Terrace Inn. And please let them know that you're a College Terrace resident - they're part of the neighborhood too!
We have several churches in the neighborhood and nearby: University Church: Home of Episcopal Lutheran Campus Ministry at Bowdoin and Stanford Ave, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Stanford Avenue near Wellesley, and the Wesley United Methodist Church, just across El Camino on College.

Our Past

We are one of the oldest neighborhoods in Palo Alto, California, an odd 2 block by 12 block strip of land wedged in between Stanford University and the Stanford Research Park. We can even claim to be the original Palo Alto: when Alexander Gordon subdivided the area in 1891 he had planned to name it "Palo Alto" but was persuaded by Stanford to settle for "College Terrace" instead!

The area has a colorful history including a number of small dairies, a "China Town", and many student "eating clubs". From the very beginning the neighborhood has attracted a mixture of people from all walks of life. Famous Palo Alto architect and historian Birge Clark was born in the Terrace and spent his childhood here. His notes on the area make great reading!

Originally part of the town of Mayfield, we were annexed to Palo Alto in 1925. Several of our streets were renamed at the time of annexation: Lincoln Avenue became California Avenue, Palo Alto Avenue became College Avenue, and Washington Street became Cornell Street. This last change explains why Cornell is "out of order"!

Neighborhood Character

Our neighborhood is a real community. The mix of renters and owners, old and young, single folks and families makes it special. For folks moving here, we encourage you to check out our advice for new residents. If there are other pointers we should add, please let us know! You may also want to read the City's new Visibility Guidelines! Let's make College Terrace as safe as possible for walkers and bicyclists of all ages!

Our neighborhood gets lots of attention from the press. Check out articles about College Terrace in the Palo Alto Weekly The most recent one is from April, 2006.

Take a walk through the neighborhood and check out the Canopy tree tour and the PAST Heritage historic homes tour.

Preservation/Demolitions

The name College Terrace is often linked with preservation in Palo Alto. The neighborhood rose up in 1996 and asked the City Council to do something to halt the demolitions which were destroying the character of our neighborhood. The problems we faced were two:

first, we were unhappy about losing historic homes like Big Blue, the large Queen Anne Victorian which used to stand on the corner of Princeton and College.
and second, we didn't like the kind of "garage-with-dwelling-space-attached" houses which were springing up in their place, all the same, none creative.

The City's first attempt to answer our call was an unfortunate effort to solve both problems. This interim ordinance failed miserably and created a lot of animosity and anxiety. Finally in June of 1999, a new permanent historic preservation ordinance was passed. But the flawed process had created bad feelings and the ordinance was overturned by ballot referendum on March 7, 2000. This means that we're right back where we started and homes like Big Blue could vanish overnight.

Meanwhile the city has formed an advisory group to try to develop a solution to the oversize house problem. The group's initial input is now complete and staff is working on crafting a proposed solution. There are plans to hold another public input forum later this summer.

When all this started, a number of College Terrace residents got together and talked about what we really wanted from an ordinance. We came up with a list of recommendations which were submitted to the Palo Alto City Council. It's still an important piece of work and we may still want to go back to the council for some local protection once we see what the new "big house" regulations are like.

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