From: maslak@unix.SRI.COM (Valerie Maslak)
Newsgroups: ba.singles
Subject: Re: Driving people from the net
Date: 9 Oct 92 17:37:57 GMT
Organization: SRI International, Menlo Park, California

In article <1992Oct6.210531.2501@netcom.com> tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) writes:
>
>I moved to the South Bay in 1974, to work for Intel. Sure, the Valley
>was a bit less crowded, but not as uncrowded as some may think. There
>were more orchards, to be sure, but look at the average age of houses
>in the residential neighborhoods of Santa Clara, Sunnyvale,
>etc....most were built in the building boom of the 50s and 60s. Even
>the giant apartment complexes, such as the (in)famous one at the
>corner of El Camino and Wolfe, whose name I've temporarily forgotten,
>was mostly finished when I first visited the area in 1973.

I have to disagree. I also moved to this area in 1974, and things
have changed A LOT! And not for the better. You used to be able to
get from Palo Alto to Sunnyvale on 101 at 6:30. Now it's still dead
stop at HWY 85 at 7.

>For those who hate the strip mall atmosphere, but who don't want to
>move as far away as either SF or Santa Cruz, you might want to look at
>Palo Alto and points north. Palo Alto's a bit pricey (so is SF), but
>the atmosphere's very nice. And let me tell you this: in 1974,
>University Avenue rolled up the sidewalks at dusk...things were dead,
>dead , dead. In the past dozen years, it's become a major night spot,
>with great bookstores, restaurants, and all kinds of activities open
>late into the night. A good tradeoff for loss of some orchards, in my
>opinion.

 Well, I happen to live just off University Avenue in Palo Alto, and
I for one wish the sidewalks still rolled up! In 1974, there were
hardware stores and things for REAL people, real families, in
downtown Palo Alto. You could cross the street without risking your
life. There wasn't trash everywhere. You could get a seat in a
restaurant without reserving weeks ahead. The community swimming
pool actually had room to swim, and the parks weren't mobbed with
people who come in from wherever in fleets of buses.

Seriously, I love Palo Alto, and for the Bay Area, it's a decent
place to live. But when my throat burns so badly from car fumes that
I can't even walk downtown any more, and when the new store opening
on the corner is Blockbuster Video, I can tell you that I can't
agree with your "good tradeoff."  When the last greenhouses on Central
Expressway and Mary disappeared, I cried. Mariani's old place (was
it on Sunnyvale Saratoga or Stelling???)...I just wonder how long old
Olsen's cherries can hold out.

This place probably had too many people when I moved here, and now
it definitely has too many. All the lovely old bungalows in Palo
Alto that have been leveled so someone could build their oversized,
vulgar, tasteless dream of a million-dollar pseudo-Normandy/Tudor/Mission
mansion that backs right up to their neighbor's windows....take a
look at that cul-de-sac in Los Altos hills that
overlooks the 280/Page MIll intersection, or those THINGS
off 280 and Magdalena....

This place has too much money, too many people, and no common
sense. And besides, the new Kelpers Books is just not the same as the
OLD one.

Valerie Maslak