visiting in-laws Archives - Page 7 of 14

Walk into History, Pacifica

May 20, 2022Silvia

Last week’s post was about a self-guided historic walking tour in Redwood City. Usually I shake things up a bit, but this week there will be a follow-up of some sort. The history walking tour of Pacifica takes about an hour and starts near the pier.

The historical society of Pacifica that compiled the walking tour suggests starting about one hour before sunset, in order to enjoy the sunset at the end of the tour. When we did it we started in the morning devouring treats from Rosalind’s Bakery on a bench near the ocean for breakfast.

The first of eleven stops on the tour is the Spanish inspired old water treatment building and wall. The second one, Sam’s Castle, you’re not too near to, but worth a separate tour if you get a chance. The Salada Hotel (3) and the two beach bungalows (4) tell more of a story, as Pacifica was built as a resort community enticing rich San Franciscan to establish second homes here.

Next stop, the ‘Little Brown Church’ is a must-see for any history buff. Nowadays known as the Coastside Museum, it opens its doors for visitors Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, from 1 pm to 4 pm. Many of the following buildings have a connection with the Little Brown Church. (6) Former Pedro school expanded their classrooms into it, (7) Mr Anderson from the Anderson’s store did all the woodwork, (11) and the pier is named after Rev. Hershel Harkins, a former priest at the Little Brown Church.

The most intriguing stop was number 10 on the list, a house on 2 Carmel Avenue. The self- guided sheet reveals juicy details about a former resident, Madam Dolly Fine. “She was arrested and forced out of business in 1938, having attracted too much attention when she claimed police bribes as business expenses.”

To hear more details about the history of Pacifica I highly recommend visiting the Coastside Museum.

Where do you walk on historic grounds?

Walk into History, Redwood City

May 13, 2022Silvia

May is National Historic Preservation Month. What better way to celebrate history than to walk a self-guided tour of the oldest city in San Mateo County, Redwood City.

One of the most interesting facts while I walked along Redwood City’s historic path was a green paving, marking the previous waterfront. I was never aware of this but you are actually walking on water! Well, “the tidal basins have since been filled, channeled and culverted” the information signage says.

But I’m walking backwards. To see the buildings that had an impact at the time Redwood City was an up and coming logger town, you can check out the map for the self-guided walking tour from the Historic Resources Society. Or as I did, stumble upon it.

The information kiosk for the ‘Path of History’ is on the north-east corner of Broadway and Main. With four major buildings from the time period on each corner: the Diller-Chamberlain general store, the American Hotel, the Sequoia Hotel, and the Bank of San Mateo County. It is a great place to start your exploration into history. I love that the rotunda holds four signs that let you read the historic significance and then look up towards that specific building.

When you walk down Broadway to go to the Courthouse Square make sure to look down and see the green pavement marking the former waterfront. Of course the San Mateo County History Museum, the old court house, is part of the tour. But did you know that this is the second court house they built? Behind it on Hamilton is the Lathrop House, a large residence even for 1863.

The Fox Theater used to be the Grammar School and the movie theater across the street was occupied by high schoolers. If you stroll down Theater Way, and no one will blame you if you stop and have a bite at the many offerings, the historic path leads you down Middlefield to the library. The library used to be Fire Station No. 1.

If you take a left on Main Street, you walk by the Odd Fellow House. This used to be the Alhambra Theater and with 1500 seats was a major destination between San Francisco and San Jose.

You can download the PDF for the Path of History walk here.

Or watch the YouTube video here.

Have you ever walked a historic route?

They wore their best... photo exhibit inside the San Bruno BART station

Revisit the Exclusion of the Japanese-American, San Bruno BART

March 25, 2022March 25, 2022Silvia

Last week I wrote about the Peninsula Museum of Art and the history of the mall where it is located. The Shops of Tanforan in San Bruno was built on the grounds of a former racetrack used as the assembly center for almost 8,000 mostly Japanese-Americans during World War II.

To remember this injustice the Tanforan Assembly Center Memorial Committee (TACMC) is in the midst of building the Tanforan Memorial, located just outside the San Bruno BART station. The bronze sculpture will picture two of the children that were detained at Tanforan based on a photograph by Dorethea Lange.

Already available is the photo exhibit: They wore their best… Inside the BART station. Photos by Dorothea Lange inspired Paul Kitagaki Jr. to search out survivors and relatives of previously detained Japanese-American. Pictures of Lange and Kitagaki Jr are side-by-side with explanations of their origins and current life. There are also photographs of historic documents and five information panels condensing the history.

While Dorothea Lange is now widely recognized for her striking images of the people in the Dust Bowl and the Internment camps, many of her photographs were deemed too honest and therefore impounded by the federal government.

If you are not a BART rider you can either ask the BART attendant to let you in or you can go to the virtual exhibit, plus additional materials, on the Tanforan Memorial website.

If you’d like to learn more about the Japanese-American internment you can visit the Japanese American Museum of San Jose.

Entrance of the Peninsula Museum of Art, San Bruno

Track down the Peninsula Museum of Art, San Bruno

March 18, 2022March 18, 2022Silvia

Inside the Peninsula Museum of Art, San Bruno.

The Peninsula Museum of Art used to be in Burlingame. These days you can find it in a mall in San Bruno. The museum is located at the Shops of Tanforan above the food court, near the movie theater. I personally found the parking lot confusing; I followed signs to the food court that disappeared and I ended up parking near Barnes & Noble. This choice turned out to be wrong and far from the Museum at the opposite end of the mall. If you happen to come by BART, you’ll be dropped off close to the entrance to the food court. Otherwise use the mall/Century Theater parking ramp, accessible off of Sneath Lane (not the BART ramp), and park on the 3rd/top level.

Regina Kong, Self portrait with lamb at the Peninsula Museum of Art.

The current exhibit at the Peninsula Museum of Art is New Voices: Art from Bay Area Universities. This is an interesting collection by ten art students from Stanford, San Jose, Berkeley, and more.This exhibit gives insight into how the pandemic affected each student, showing themes such as personal tragedies and cultural challenges.

Even with a limited showroom, the museum manages to exhibit multiple mediums: paintings, pottery, mixed media, and digital works.

New Voices can be seen until May 1st, 2022. Admission to the museum is free, but they request a donation to help fund the exhibits. Currently their hours vary due to a small volunteer staff. You should email peninsulamuseum@gmail.com and ask about their weekly hours.

Tanforan History

Statue of Seabiscuit in front of the Shops at Tanforan.

The Shops of Tanforan used to be a race track, hence the Seabiscuit sculpture on the entrance by Barnes & Noble. During World War II the Army used these stables to gather and house almost 8,000 American Japanese in order to deport them to concentration camps fulfilling Roosevelt’s executive order 9066. A memorial to remember this injustice is planned for spring 2022.

And once again Tanforan is about to transition. The property has been sold and is said to become a “megacampus” of biotech and technology firms. I will do my best to follow up on the whereabouts of the Peninsula Museum of Art.

Other ways to see art created by students in the Bay Area are the galleries at the San Jose State University and the Euphrat Museum at the DeAnza College in Cupertino.

Entrance of the Edith Heath exhibit A Life in Clay at the OMCA

Experience Three Great Female Californian Artist, OMCA

February 25, 2022February 20, 2022Silvia

Bring some time if you are going to the OMCA – the Oakland Museum of California, because this is really three museums, plus a special exhibit. You can easily spend a whole day here. More precisely, there is the California History Museum, the Science Museum, the Art Museum, and the special exhibit.

I came to see Edith Heath: A life in clay. Edith Heath, ceramist, and, as I learned, alchemist, was a trailblazer in everyday stoneware and tile design. This exhibition combines her craft with a documentation of her life story. You can enjoy this informative display until October 2022.

A mug by Edith Heath und a magnifying glass to see the texture

On the way to the Heath exhibit you’ll pass the ongoing exhibit, Dorethea Lange: Photography as Activism. The Oakland Museum owns Lange’s personal collection of more than 40,000 negatives and 6,000 prints. Lange, a photographer, is best known for her images of the Depression and a truthful depiction of the effect of World War II at home. Her images can be found in various parts of the museum.

After viewing the photos of Dorethea Lange you pass a portrait of her painted by Hung Liu. This is the third exhibit: Remembering Hung Liu. Lui was an Oakland-based artist who passed away last year. Four of Lui’s works can be seen until October, 2022.

I wish I had more time to enjoy the museum’s 110,000 square feet of gallery space. I just quickly glanced at the new garden, where they have lunchtime sessions with dances, storytelling, and more, every Saturday in February and March.

Unfortunately, the special exhibition Mothership: Voyage Into Afrofuturism ends February 27th.

Hella Feminist, celebrating the lesser-known stories of feminism in Oakland and the Bay Area will be the next special exhibition starting this summer.

Visitor Information

The Oakland Museum is located at 1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA. Museum’s hours are Wednesday–Sunday 11 am–5 pm, with extended hours on Friday 5–9 pm. General admission is $16, seniors and students $11, Youth (13–17) are free through Feb. 27, Children (12 & under) free. There is a surcharge of $5 for the special exhibition.

Please check the web site for current COVID restrictions.

Have you been to the OMCA?

Immigrant House at Heritage Park in Mountain View

Admire the Tiny House at Heritage Park, Mountain View

January 21, 2022February 17, 2022Silvia

The entrance to the Immigrant House at Heritage Park in Mountain View and an information signage in front.

Heritage Park at 771 N. Rengstorff opened in 2016 to show off Mountain View’s history as a farm town. The grand jewel of the 1.2 acre park is the 1880s-area Immigrant House. Once thousands of these tiny houses were homes for the immigrant workers of the Valley of Heart’s Delight. With a footprint of about 400 square feet it is basically a tiny bedroom and a kitchen area. Immigrant House is Mountain View’s last such cabin.

Interior of the Immigrant House, a kitchen setting.

Thanks to the Kiwanis Club, a grant from Google, Santa Clara County, private donors, and the Friends of the Immigrant House, the Immigrant House moved twice and landed at its permanent location. Currently, due to the pandemic, there are no guided tours for the inside of the house. But you can take a peak and see the lovely decorated interior. The front room shows a table with two stools, a shelf and a kitchen cabinet. The bedroom has a tiny bed.

The oven was also used for cooking. The information signage in front briefs us that the cost of rent in the 1930s and 1940s was $11 per month. A whopping $161 in today’s terms. To put this in perspective, farmworkers.org lists the farmworker wages between 1929 and 1933 to $1.90 a day.¹ Assuming a 6-day workday, monthly wages are about $46. This means rent would have been roughly 1/4 of their income, and clearly counts as affordable in today’s terms.²

80-year-old windmill at Heritage Park, Mountain View.

Other amenities of the park are the 80-year-old windmill, bees, and a community garden. The 130 trees originate from the previous owners and include 30 different varieties. There are tree identifiers placed next to them. Hopefully the annual Harvest History Festival, celebrated in September, can resume this year.

It is great to see the historic significance of the workers of the Valley of Heart’s Delight in the focus of this park.

Have you been to Heritage Park?

If you’d like to peek into local history I’d also recommend the Los Altos History Museum. They have another tiny house example of this time period, a tank house.

Footnotes

¹“As the Depression deepened, the growers slashed wages and laid off workers. Between 1929 and 1933, wages dropped from $3.50 to $1.90 a day.” https://www.farmworkers.org/strugcal.html

²Affordable Housing: Affordable housing is generally defined as housing on which the occupant is paying no more than 30 percent of gross income for housing costs, including utilities. https://archives.hud.gov/local/nv/goodstories/2006-04-06glos.cfm

Android Lawn Statues surrounded by caution tape

Hope for Reconstruction of the Android Lawn Statues, Mountain View

January 14, 2022January 14, 2022Silvia

Foam sculpture of a donut, partly destroyed.

The Android Lawn Statues were always an interesting excursion to show visitors. On my last visit, about a week ago, this place looked appalling. Caution tape was around the perimeter. The figures, which are larger than life sculptures of each new Android operating release, were either busted or completely removed. Named after sweet treats and candy, like Kit Kat and cupcake, these Android figures are made from foam.

Oreo Android figure wrapped in caution tape.

After the 2018 pie release, Google decided to go on a more boring route. The releases are now designed by numbers, starting with 10, which has an Android head peeking out of the zero.. For 11 and 12 you can see a virtual 3-D model. Interesting maybe to a nerd to find some inscription on the back – but unfortunately, it lost its cute appeal.

The lawn statues garden is located on 1981 Landings Drive; the Google merchandise store used to be steps away. Google decided to close down the store and now only has an online version.

Hope is on the horizon

Google's Charleston East building is still under construction.

Google’s Charleston East (Google’s futuristic new campus) is almost here and they promised to open the first floor to the public. Watch this video by Tech Insider (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGx-sYIFHmE). The circus-like canopy shape introduces another interesting office building to Silicon Valley, joining Apple’s spaceship and Nvidia’s triangular headquarter. Or like the Bjarke Ingles Group architects call it: “smile-shaped clerestories”. In a report from the Mountain View Voice in February of last year, Charleston East’s public access could be revised to just allowing non-Googlers to enter on the west side of the building. Amid security concerns the tech giant might also put a, none the less pretty, wall around its campus.

Funny also, that the Android Lawn Statues have a neglected Facebook page, with a link to an Android fan site, but no official Google page.

I understand that these are office buildings and there is no responsibility to share anything with the public. Nevertheless, visitors to Silicon Valley long to see evidence of the high tech giving back to the community – even if it’s only in the form of some large foam statues.

Have you been to Mountain View? Here is my list of 50 things to do in Mountain View.

Hide inside a Giant Redwood, Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park

December 31, 2021December 31, 2021Silvia

Welcome sign to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park

Start of the New Year with a hiking challenge at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. First Day Hikes is a nationwide program to promote a healthy lifestyle. To start off easy I recommend the 40-acres Redwood grove at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. The loop trail is a 0.8 miles flat hike. The loop starts at the visitor center, which is only open Friday – Sundays from 10am to 3pm. During the rain it gets muddy, so it isn’t wheelchair accessible, at least in the wet months. If you’d like to learn about the park while on the trail I recommend downloading the audio tour and then start on the right hand side of the loop. This way the audio clues are counting up. The parking fee is $10 per vehicle.

We did enjoy the rain and were somewhat covered by these 1,500 year old trees. There are a few possibilities to ‘hide’ inside one of the giants. The largest is the Fremont tree, it was the campside of the Fremont exhibition which surveyed the shortest route from the Atlantic to the Pacific. A whole family can fit inside the Fremont tree. You should bring a flashlight to look around while inside. The other options are more covers than hiding spots. But nevertheless they give you a close encounter with these majestic trees.

In addition to the 0.8 loop there are a few other trails with different difficulty levels and terrains.

In January, each Saturday at noon, there will be an Old-Growth Redwood Tour. Check out their event page for even more educational fun.

Have you ever hid inside a Redwood tree?

A couple enjoying the view at the College of San Mateo.

Enjoy the View at the Farmers’ Market, College of San Mateo

October 29, 2021October 29, 2021Silvia

Pumpkins at the farmers' market, College of San Mateo.

The farmers’ market at the College of San Mateo is most likely voted for ‘Best View for a Farmers’ Market’. Every Saturday from 9 am – 1 pm you can shop for local produce, grab some lunch, listen to some music, and sign up for your compost class. A list of vendors can be found on the webpage of the Pacific Coast Farmers Market, but they also do a great job updating their facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/CollegeofSanMateoFarmersMarket/, to highlight seasonal produce.

View of the Dumbarton Bridge from the College of San Mateo.

Nothing says fall like huge pumpkins. Other stands sold apples, one had an amazing variety of succulents, and of course there were lots of stands with everything else in season. The Buds contributed their music and had two little girls dance to it. Our discovery was the ramen stand, where you can buy concentrated broth and fresh noodles.

The Buds are playing while two little girls are dancing.

And, like I said, the view is outstanding. Even on a cloudy day you can see San Francisco and the Dumbarton Bridge. The planetarium has an atrium that is perfect for enjoying your lunch.

The College of San Mateo is located at 1700 West Hillsdale Boulevard. Parking is available at the Galileo parking lot, next to the planetarium. Don’t worry there are signs.

People eating lunch on the steps to the planetarium.

What is your favorite farmers’ market?

One of the biggest, if not the biggest, farmers’ market in Silicon Valley is in Mountain View. About every town has their own farmers’ market with their own feel. Try them all!

A fuzzy cactus with a bright red flower.

Find What’s in Bloom at the Ruth Bancroft Garden, Walnut Creek

October 22, 2021October 22, 2021Silvia

A group of cacti, one with a yellow flower.

At the entrance to the Ruth Bancroft Garden you’ll be handed a map to see what’s in bloom. If you want to come prepared, print it out from their website. The fee to see the succulent garden is $10 for adults with discounts for seniors and children. An amount well spent if you like succulents and drought resistant plants. There are large varieties and they have some in bloom each month.

Two buckets with parasols at the Ruth Bancroft Garden, Walnut Creek.

If you go on a sunny day make sure to pick up a parasol to shade you while exploring. The murals at the entrance are also noteworthy, but inside it is spectacular. Large cacti and palm trees vying for attention together with the huge varieties of succulents. The fruits are interesting as well, but please don’t touch the prickly pear, they have thorns.

Water lily at the Ruth Bancroft Garden, Walnut Creek.

This is the perfect environment for lizards. They will zip by and then stop to look at you. The koi pond with the water lilies was an added surprise.

Afterwards check out the adjacent nursery. Cute succulents arranged in a pot and, of course, a large variety of sempervivum, cacti and other drought resistant plants.

Bench at the Ruth Bancroft Garden, Walnut Creek.

The Ruth Bancroft Garden with 3.5 acres is larger than the Arizona Garden in Stanford. Both are equally spectacular. On selected evenings between 5:30 and 8:30 pm, November to January, the garden transforms into the Garden of D’Lights and they promise to ‘glow your mind’! Tickets are available at their website and cost $16 – $24 for adults and children between 6 and 15 pay $8 to $12.

Opening hours are:

March – October

Tuesday – Thursday: 9AM to 4PM (last admissions at 3:15pm)

Friday – Sunday: 10AM to 5PM (last admissions at 4:15pm)

November – February

Tuesday – Sunday: 9AM to 4PM (last admissions at 3:15pm)

Do you like seeing blooming succulents?