Midtown Residents Association Neighborhood Newsletter

WINTER 2007

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Visit our web site at http://www.midtownresidents.org/

FROM THE CHAIR: Sheri Furman

What did MRA, your neighborhood association, do for residents in 2006?

This is our report to our community about our activities and accomplishments. Thanks to everyone for helping Midtown be named the “Best Neighborhood” in the Palo Alto Weekly’s Best of contest!

Accomplishments: We hosted social events, held several meetings and attended several meetings with city officials. We met with the developers planning projects in and around Midtown.

MEETINGS & EVENTS
February / MRA General Meeting to present Midtown survey results and elect MRA officers
April / MRA General Meeting on Alma Plaza
July / MRA General Meeting on Crime in our Neighborhood (presentation by Lynne Johnson, Police Chief) & Neighborhood Watch program by Susie Jones, PAPD
August / National Night Out event
Co-sponsored the Midtown Summer Festival with the Midtown Merchants
MRA General Meeting on Developments in Midtown
September / Co-sponsored a South Palo Alto Neighborhoods Meeting to discuss Proposed Taube-Koret Campus For Jewish Life Meeting with residents and City on improvements at Hoover Park
October / Eighth Annual “MRA Sunday Social in the Park“

We attended and spoke at City Council, Planning and Transportation Commission, and Architecture Review Board meetings on:

·  Alma Plaza

·  Classic Communities

·  AD (Auto Dealership) Overlay

·  Taube-Koret Campus for Jewish Life project

·  195 Park Boulevard development

·  Pedestrian Transit Overlay District for California Avenue

·  Zoning Ordinance Updates

·  Emergency Preparation

·  Planning Department reorganization

·  Greer Park

We served on the Mayor’s Red Ribbon Committee (Emergency Preparation), the Storm Drain Oversight Committee, the City Manager’s Destination Palo Alto Committee and participated in a meeting regarding the redesign of the Palo Alto web site.

We attended forums: Winds of Change: Adapting Our Community to the Changing Realities of the 21st Century, The Future of Edgewood Plaza, The Impact of Housing Growth on Schools.

We welcomed new businesses – Café Sophia, Indochine, and Butterfly Life.

We participated in monthly meetings of PAN (Palo Alto Neighborhoods) as one of the three co-chairs.

TAKE THE 2007 MRA Survey at
http://perennialsurvey.com/s.cgi?12397
If you don’t have email, and want to take the survey,
call us at 321-1280 and we will mail you a copy.


MIDTOWN – People define our history…a continuing story…

Joe Yarkin
Interviewed by Annette Ashton

Read the complete story on the MRA website, www.midtownresidents.org. Click the History of Midtown icon.

Joe Yarkin – an icon in real estate - twinkles as he walks down memory lane and recalls the good old days in Palo Alto when our city was growing so rapidly. Palo Alto was a small town and Joe knew everyone! Here is a bit of his story.
Joe was originally from New York. He came out to California to go to USC and majored in economics. Joe also went to USC for Grad School on the GI bill, to get a MPA Masters of Public Administration after the War. That is where he met his wife Pearl, who was in law school and was also from New York! After USC, Joe became a Koro Fellow and studied public policy in 1948.
Joe’s college roommate was from San Francisco and after visiting him knew that he liked it so much that he decided to settle here! San Francisco reminded him more of NY than LA did. /
Photo by Sharon Fox
When Joe moved to Palo Alto in 1952, he was a veteran from World War II. Joe and Pearl bought their first home on 1952 on Clara Drive on the GI Bill for $10,000.The contractor helped pay the closing costs; the mortgage was $70/month. Joe’s daughter Kerry is now living in this first family home with her twins!
Joe worked for the San Francisco Home Builders Association (HBA) and then became their representative in Santa Clara County. The HBA did Public Relations for the builders as well as wrote contracts for several of the crafts mainly carpentry.
He went into real estate in 1957, since he knew many of the major builders and developers at the time from his work at HBA.
Some of the builders that he knew well and enjoyed remembering were: Duelger (a major force in the development of Daly City) and Stoneson (who developed Stonestown).
As soon as Joe could get a brokers license, he went into business. It was tough and took 2 exams to qualify. He hung out his shingle at his office on El Camino near California Avenue – Joe was in the front half and a plumbing shop in the rear! The big czar of California Avenue at the time was Mike Golik – Mr California Avenue. If you wanted something done, you talked to Mike. His family business was farming in Santa Clara valley. Joe and Mike always had good talks at their weekly lunches; they met for years.
Joe dealt mainly in residential properties and gradually added commercial buildings. Real estate attracted a lot of bright young men who grew Palo Alto . Most were in their late 20’s, and were mainly veterans. They were a fiery bunch. It was an exciting time, a good life and great way to make a living! They had a lot of fun! Joe liked selling real estate in Palo Alto. He dealt with a certain cliente that he could work with. He sold “the town” and convinced clients to pay a bit more to live here due to a wonderful town and great schools.
In 1952, much of the land in south Palo Alto was truck farms. The city ended around Oregon Avenue; there were only a few small developments beyond that. There was a burst of growth in the 50’s – mainly young families post GI – many who worked at Stanford or engineers who worked at companies like Lockheed. If you didn’t work at Stanford or Lockheed you most likely commuted to San Francisco. Midtown was the BIG shopping center at the time. Joe fondly remembers the Co-op; he and Pearl belonged and shopped there till it closed. They loved Mitchell Park, and the schools were wonderful. His boys played little league. Joe was the boy’s soccer coach.
As the family grew, Joe and Pearl had 7 children, they moved to Tulip Lane to a home developed by Floyd Lowe, the state real estate president. They then moved to Ely Place to a house that was big enough for the growing family! When the kids grew up, they looked for a smaller house. Joe didn’t want to leave Palo Alto but at the time they found the perfect house in Menlo Park, where they still reside.
His oldest son Alan is Managing Director for Smith Barney in South Florida. He is very athletic and still an avid surfer. Joe tried to carry a surfboard once and that was enough surfing for him! Son, Mark has his own appraisal business in the East Bay. Son, Don works in the real estate business as a broker for Coldwell Banker in Palo Alto. Son, Burt is CEO for Cartridge World in the East Bay. Son, Matt also lives in Palo Alto and works for a small computer company in San Jose. The 2 girls were active too. Neva always loved the outdoors and is currently living in Israel with 2 daughters. Kerry now teaches 3rd grade in Redwood City and tries to entertain her twins as much as she can.
More favorite memories were of the key developers in Palo Alto at the time:
Andy Oddstad was a developer, who built ranch style homes. He was unusual since he went to college – most developers worked their way up from the crafts. He built the Sterling Gardens Tract in 1951. Note: Clara Street where Joe and Pearl bought their first home was named for the wife of Andres Oddstad and he named the cross street, Sandra Place, for his daughter.
Sterham and Price did a big development on East Meadow and did many projects in Cupertino.
Brown and Kaufman - built in the late 50’s to mid- 70s. They met as students at Stanford
McKellar and MacKay filled in a lot of land in South Palo Alto
Along side of them was Eichler- the most innovative. He hired first rate architects which was a rarity. Most of the others copied each other’s styles or used draftsman (not architects). Joe Eichler made money in WWII in butter and eggs. He lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Hillsborough. He liked it so much that he wanted to develop something similar for others. His first small development was in Sunnyvale, then he came to Palo Alto One of his first projects he did was in Barron Park. Shen and Allen were the architects. Another was in the circles in Fairmeadow. Joe got to know Eichler well, and said he was a real character. Eichler always seemed to be scowling. He talked through the side of his mouth where a cigar dangled He had a reputation, if you liked his houses, he would give you the moon. Eichler had a sense of design. This is especially noted in Greenmeadow, where he built the development with a community center and pool. And in Edgewood Shopping center – the only shopping center that he built.
These young folks were very attracted to the Eichler homes with radiant heat. He couldn’t build houses fast enough. Eichler had his biggest success in Palo Alto. In some cities such as San Francisco, he couldn’t compete with the local builders. He flopped and lost his shirt.
Joe remembers some of his most famous clients – from the Fairchild days. Eight young men were working on a vacuum tube project for Shockley. They were courted by Fairchild to start a business. A number of them lived in Midtown, and Joe sold them homes. Jules Banks and Gene Kleiner bought on Charleston Road. Robert Noyce later started Intel. They all later went on to do marvelous things.
Joe also remembers selling many properties to Andrew Grove and his family. Andrew was always very thorough. His wife claimed that Joe was their good luck charm, since they were so pleased with every property Joe sold them – including their dream home where they still live.
In 1961, Joe was president of the Palo Alto Real Estate Board. He was active in the Jewish Community center on Arasterdero for years and was on the board. He sold an one acre property that they had on Middlefield – a wonderful property that no one could figure out how to develop, since it was deep. He is now sorry he didn’t buy it for himself!
Joe believes in giving back to the community. He has been a member of the local Kiwanis club for 35 years and still regularly goes to lunch for fellowship and excellent speakers. Joe was very involved in the downtown Farmer’s Market and was on the committee for years. Joe still keeps a small office on Homer – near Whole Foods – where he can watch the comings and goings of the town he helped build!

The Chicken Lady of Palo Alto

Read the complete story on the MRA website, www.midtownresidents.org. Click the History of Midtown icon.

My friend Geri is as "country" as a Jewish girl from the San Fernando Valley can get. Geri has enjoyed a high-powered career as a journalist, an award-winning speaker and business analyst, and now an author. She used to run with the in-crowd in Washington, but she prefers raising chickens to making small talk with Senators.

On a street near the geographic center of Palo Alto, Geri keeps a backyard flock of Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rocks. On April 18, she brought her babies home. On September 27, she got her first egg. Cost to produce that egg: $1500.

Raising chickens for eggs is about freshness, organic-ness, and freerange-ness. It's about bonding with God's creatures. It's not about economics.

/ Still, Geri and her husband Rick (the Harvard Handyman) set up shop frugally. They heard about a big wooden packing crate that was free for the taking, so they picked it up, took it apart, and re-built it into a coop with nesting boxes and a hen-sized ramp. Even the paint was free.
FREE CONSUMER TIP: Some paint stores give away paint that has been custom mixed and returned. Rather than pay a fee to have it disposed of (it's a hazardous material, you know) they will give it to you for nothing.
Geri snagged a gallon of "seafoam" for the outside and a tasteful "gray-raspberry" for the interior. It was so "Palo Alto" even the Architectural Review Board would have approved. Such an elegant abode deserved a name, so they christened it Chateau Cluck.
When the coop was ready for occupancy, Geri picked up the chicks. Just two days old, they were fuzzy little things they named Zoe, Samantha, and Phoebe. They got used to their surroundings, they bonded to Geri, and the neighbors didn't complain. Life was good.
Then one day, the Chicken Lady of Palo Alto got an inkling. Something was not quite right with Zoe. Following her hunch, she posted a couple of close-ups of Zoe on the Internet. Geri had made chicken-lover friends all over the country, and her panel of experts confirmed her suspicion: Zoe was a Zorro.
Much hand-wringing ensued. Not only would Zorro not produce eggs, but he would turn into a loud, crowing pecking machine, which is something that is just not acceptable in the suburbs, especially in Palo Alto. Not wanting him to end up in a stewing pot, Geri sent Zorro / Photos by Sharon Fox
into exile. She took him to a farm in East Palo Alto where a nice lady took him in and even gave Geri two hens to keep her from missing Zorro. The new girls, Hannah and Penelope, moved across the freeway to Palo Alto and immediately began teaching the city chicks some new tricks. For starters, they insisted on sleeping in the trees. (Chickens sleep in trees? Who knew?) Geri spent that first night frantically searching the ground for her new charges with a flashlight while they sat quietly above her in the pear trees. It wasn't until daybreak that she found them. She would have hugged them if they had let her.
The next night, the old girls decided that they would also abandon Chateau Cluck in favor of a perch in the fruit trees. It took 30 minutes of feather-ruffling and squawking for them to establish their pecking order. In the end, Phoebe was Head Hen, and her girl Sam was second in command. The new kids were allowed to sleep in the same tree, but on lower branches.
Geri still thought that that Chateau Cluck was the best place for them, so she tried to capture them to tuck them in for the night. They weren't having it. Hannah flew over the fence, took off and wasn't seen for three days. Just as Geri was thinking about putting Hannah's picture on a milk carton, she showed up, whiskey on her breath and a tattoo of Foghorn Leghorn on her left drumstick.
The prodigal was welcomed home and the flock soon grew into happy, healthy hens under Geri's indulgent eye. Friends were treated to photos periodically, until Rick chided, "What?? You're sending out pictures of your chickens? What about your grandson??
Then came the day they had waited for: the big payoff. Phoebe was showing all the classic signs of impending motherhood. She was restless. She was cranky. She ran around flapping her wings. Then she presented Geri and Rick with her first offspring - a perfect, Grade AA, organic egg.
Geri took a photo and sent an e-mail to her friends, who had been breathlessly awaiting the news. "Our first egg!" said the subject line. I opened the attachment, anxious to see what it looked like, this long awaited offspring of Phoebe, their precious Barred Rock. I expected to see the proud grandparents, tired but happy, tenderly holding the precious little shell while Phoebe recuperated in the Chateau. What did I see? Phoebe's firstborn in an iron skillet, sunny side up.


January MRA General Meeting