University Avenue & Downtown
Downtown Palo Alto grew up at the foot of University Avenue, where the road from the Stanford quadrangle met the railroad. Today the avenue runs from a Streamline Moderne station past a restored movie palace, Spanish-style courtyards and the town’s old protest plaza.
Discover University Avenue & Downtown
With the opening of University Avenue from the Stanford quadrangle to the Southern Pacific railway, the site of the college town was settled; the first house went up in 1891, the year the university opened. (History of Santa Clara County, 1922)
The Streamline Moderne station at the foot of the avenue opened in 1941, designed to echo Southern Pacific’s Daylight trains, and it is now the second-busiest stop on Caltrain. (Wikipedia)
The Stanford Theatre at 221 University Avenue opened on June 9, 1925. The Packard Foundation bought and restored it in 1987-89, and it now shows films made between 1910 and 1970, with a Wurlitzer organ between shows. (Wikipedia)
Around the corner, the 500 block of Ramona Street is a National Register district of Spanish Colonial shops begun by Pedro de Lemos in 1925, and Lytton Plaza at Emerson Street, built in 1964, has long been the town’s place of protest. (Wikipedia, Palo Alto History)
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Palo Alto magic: Redwoods, oak hills and a town by the bay
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