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I like Cal Ave partly because it's about as close as you can get in this area to my favorite neighborhood in Seattle (15th Ave). A photo I took yesterday while

I like Cal Ave partly because it's about as close as you can get in this area to my favorite neighborhood in Seattle (15th Ave). A photo I took yesterday while they were taking the last one down: http://openbs.org/photo/wehavenotrees.jpg http://openbs.org/photo/wehavenotrees.jpg Quote from the notice they sent out: "The City of Palo Alto Public Works Department ... shall be replacing most of the street trees on Cal Ave ... most of the existing trees are Holly Oaks and many of them are diseased and in poor condition. Their branches cover street lights and grow over building storefronts and roofs requiring frequent tree trimming. They bear and drop large acorn fruits that are tripping hazards for pedestrians. "The Holly Oaks will be replaced with Red Maples ... smaller seed fruits that are safer for pedestrians ... metal grates will be installed ... which will bring a uniform look to the business district. The existing tree wells in sidewalks are open wells which may be tripping hazards." Funny thing is there are maples on 15th Ave so I've seen how they are through the year. When the maples start dropping sap on people's cars and all of the restaurants' outdoor furniture is too sticky to sit on I don't know what they'll do. I'll just laugh.

unwind 17y ago
Heh ... I'm certainly not into "US-bashing", but I can't help think that someone could do quite a lot of that fueled by that particular quote. The City of P.A. thinks it needs to protect its residents from the tripping hazards of ... acorns? Hilarious. :)
- pyre 17y ago
  Sounds like the people on the beautification project had a lot of inbreeding of ideas. Crap like that just seems a way to justify a decision. I mean how many people actually tripped on those tree wells or on acorns on the ground? How much money is it costing to tear down those old trees and replace them with new ones? This is just a small number of people trying to force their idea of what will look good onto the larger community. Bringing in things like 'tripping hazard' and 'the seeds are more pedestrian friendly' are just way to try and justify their actions/views against people that are outside of their group. It sounds good and all about wanting the trees to be a uniform height, but I suspect that decision was made partially because they expected there to be public outcry. They just wanted to tear down the trees without giving people a chance to rally against the action. Now people are stuck with the decision whether they like it or not.
fnid 17y ago
When I read the post from pg, I thought, what's the big deal. I hadn't been to that particular street or remember it from one or two travels to Palo Alto, but when I saw your picture, the before and after, I got sad inside. Why do that? I felt a sense of lost power. Lost depth and age and history. The trees were tall and powerful and wise. And now they are gone. :( I miss them and I never knew them.
mr_luc 17y ago
That picture looks ... AWFUL. It looks like the bad parts of the meat-packing-plant town in rural Minnesota where I grew up. No, strike that -- it looks much, much worse.
philwelch 17y ago
That's a terrible before-and-after picture (comparing your link to the picture in pg's article). The before picture was beautiful--the after picture quite frankly looks as stark and depressing as an average eastern Washington farm town. Longer, though.
idm 17y ago
The before/after comparison is shocking.
natrius 17y ago
Sure, it looks ugly now, but I think it'll look decent in two years, and pretty good in five. I actually agree that it will look better with uniform height trees than gradually replacing trees. It just doesn't seem like that huge of a deal. The street is temporarily ugly. This too shall pass.
- barrkel 17y ago
  Hm. Tree-lined avenues don't really get into their own until a few hundred years, if you ask me.
  - pyre 17y ago
    Have you ever seen a 100 year old tree?
kevbin 17y ago
"…which will bring a uniform look to the business district…" Sweet, with a little more effort they can turn all of California avenue into a strip mall. Uniformity is great in pencil leads and spark plugs, but the fractal beauty of nature is not just a sitcom on Fox. If you want uniformity, there's a few towns due south of LA where they shave the rough, non-uniform hill-sides into perfect 45° slopes to ultra-flat plateaus on which to build uniform tract homes. This just doesn't seem like something Palo Altans would knowingly do. Well, we'll always have Los Altos: http://www.losaltospost.com/PhotoGallery/photo/fullimages/Full132109052125.jpg http://www.losaltospost.com/PhotoGallery/photo/fullimages/Fu...
- davidw 17y ago
  One of the things I love about the older bits of town here in Padova is that stuff is 'fractal' in the way you describe. You can look at some old buildings and see the interesting and somewhat random ways different portions grew together. Up close you can sometimes see an old fresco or a fancy door or something. You can walk around and see stuff you've seen before and not get bored by the sameness of it all. I think it's healthy for your brain.
physcab 17y ago
It looks like a street in LA.

unwind 17y ago

Heh ... I'm certainly not into "US-bashing", but I can't help think that someone could do quite a lot of that fueled by that particular quote. The City of P.A. thinks it needs to protect its residents from the tripping hazards of ... acorns? Hilarious. :)

pyre 17y ago
Sounds like the people on the beautification project had a lot of inbreeding of ideas. Crap like that just seems a way to justify a decision. I mean how many people actually tripped on those tree wells or on acorns on the ground? How much money is it costing to tear down those old trees and replace them with new ones? This is just a small number of people trying to force their idea of what will look good onto the larger community. Bringing in things like 'tripping hazard' and 'the seeds are more pedestrian friendly' are just way to try and justify their actions/views against people that are outside of their group. It sounds good and all about wanting the trees to be a uniform height, but I suspect that decision was made partially because they expected there to be public outcry. They just wanted to tear down the trees without giving people a chance to rally against the action. Now people are stuck with the decision whether they like it or not.

fnid 17y ago

When I read the post from pg, I thought, what's the big deal. I hadn't been to that particular street or remember it from one or two travels to Palo Alto, but when I saw your picture, the before and after, I got sad inside. Why do that? I felt a sense of lost power. Lost depth and age and history. The trees were tall and powerful and wise. And now they are gone. :( I miss them and I never knew them.

mr_luc 17y ago

That picture looks ... AWFUL. It looks like the bad parts of the meat-packing-plant town in rural Minnesota where I grew up. No, strike that -- it looks much, much worse.

philwelch 17y ago

That's a terrible before-and-after picture (comparing your link to the picture in pg's article). The before picture was beautiful--the after picture quite frankly looks as stark and depressing as an average eastern Washington farm town. Longer, though.

idm 17y ago

The before/after comparison is shocking.

natrius 17y ago

Sure, it looks ugly now, but I think it'll look decent in two years, and pretty good in five. I actually agree that it will look better with uniform height trees than gradually replacing trees. It just doesn't seem like that huge of a deal. The street is temporarily ugly. This too shall pass.

barrkel 17y ago
Hm. Tree-lined avenues don't really get into their own until a few hundred years, if you ask me.
- pyre 17y ago
  Have you ever seen a 100 year old tree?

kevbin 17y ago

"…which will bring a uniform look to the business district…" Sweet, with a little more effort they can turn all of California avenue into a strip mall. Uniformity is great in pencil leads and spark plugs, but the fractal beauty of nature is not just a sitcom on Fox. If you want uniformity, there's a few towns due south of LA where they shave the rough, non-uniform hill-sides into perfect 45° slopes to ultra-flat plateaus on which to build uniform tract homes. This just doesn't seem like something Palo Altans would knowingly do. Well, we'll always have Los Altos: http://www.losaltospost.com/PhotoGallery/photo/fullimages/Full132109052125.jpg http://www.losaltospost.com/PhotoGallery/photo/fullimages/Fu...

davidw 17y ago
One of the things I love about the older bits of town here in Padova is that stuff is 'fractal' in the way you describe. You can look at some old buildings and see the interesting and somewhat random ways different portions grew together. Up close you can sometimes see an old fresco or a fancy door or something. You can walk around and see stuff you've seen before and not get bored by the sameness of it all. I think it's healthy for your brain.

physcab 17y ago

It looks like a street in LA.