Where to spot Palo Alto architect Birge Clark’s iconic work

Just about everyone who has driven through Palo Alto likely has seen the Spanish-influenced architecture of Birge Clark. His iconic red-tiled roofs, stucco walls, arches and wrought iron details defined the burgeoning city's Early California style and had so much influence on the look of its commercial and residential streetscapes that Palo Alto has been referred to "as the city Birge built."

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Remembering Black pioneers of the Peninsula and Santa Clara County with historian Jan Batiste Adkins

“The most important thing we can do is to document our history.” A Stanford staff photo of Sam McDonald on campus (date unknown). McDonald worked a variety of jobs on the Stanford campus, eventually becoming the superintendent of the school’s athletic grounds, effectively making him the first African-American administrator at an American university. McDonald would later be known for his preservation of the land in La Honda that is now Sam ...

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Redwood City was dethroned as a world flower capital; now one mural pays tribute

Peruvian-born artist Claudio Talavera-Ballón talks Redwood City’s history of Japanese internment, farmworking and his addiction to oil painting “This is what I like so much about muralism — it’s that opportunity to reach the most humble, who are the greatest appreciators of art. The least able to afford a framed painting are the most likely to appreciate one.” — Claudio Talavera-Ballón. (Images courtesy of Claudio Talavera-Ballón) It took just over two months ...

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6–5–0 Etymology: (re-)considering the place names on the San Mateo coast

How one resident is exploring the stories behind Coastside locations (and reevaluating the naming process moving forward) By Kara Glenwright and Sarah Wright // Photos by Adam Pardee Street signs at the intersection of Miramontes Avenue and Ocean Avenue in Half Moon Bay, on Aug. 20, 2020. (Photo by Adam Pardee/Half Moon Bay Review) El Granada resident Pamm Higgins doesn’t know why the Burnham Strip still carries the name Burnham. “We’ve already got these ...

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Un-forgetting the segregationist history of Palo Alto (and Daly City, and San Francisco, and…)

Richard Rothstein’s book The Color of Law documents how American communities—including much of the Bay Area—were purposefully segregated along racial lines. In 1954, one Peninsula real estate agent seized upon the sale of a single home on the east side of Palo Alto. (Book cover image via Liveright/W.W. Norton Publishing) Floyd Lowe, President of the California Real Estate Association at the time, quickly began amplifying racial tensions by warning residents that the one black family ...

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