Hostess House

Palo Alto station (also called Palo Alto Transit Center) is an intermodal transit center in Palo Alto, California. It is served by Caltrain regional rail service, SamTrans and Santa Clara VTA local bus service, Dumbarton Express regional bus service, the Stanford University Marguerite Shuttle, and several local shuttle services. Palo Alto is the second-busiest Caltrain station after San Francisco, averaging 7,764 weekday boardings by a 2018 count. The Caltrain station has two side platforms serving the two tracks of the Peninsula Subdivision and a nearby bus transfer plaza. The San Francisco and San Jose Railroad was built through then-empty land north of Mayfield in 1863. The first Palo Alto station was opened in 1890 to serve the then-newly established Stanford University. It was replaced by a larger depot in 1896. The Southern Pacific Railroad opened a new station in 1941 as part of a grade separation project. Designed by John H. Christie, it was constructed in the Streamline Moderne style to match the railroad's Daylight series of streamlined passenger trains. Intercity service to Palo Alto ended in 1971; the Peninsula Commute service continued and was renamed Caltrain in 1985. The station building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Palo Alto Southern Pacific Railroad Depot in 1996.

Bike Arc LLC, located in downtown Palo Alto, California, is a Silicon Valley startup that designs secure bicycle parking racks and systems. It was founded by Joseph Bellomo and Jeff Selzer in 2008. Jeff Selzer sits on the Board of Directors of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition and is the General Manager of Palo Alto Bicycles. Joseph Bellomo, a California-licensed architect, is the founder and owner of Joseph Bellomo Architects, Inc. in Palo Alto, which he founded in 1986. In addition to collaborating on Bike Arc, Mr. Bellomo and Mr. Selzer also worked together on the Palo Alto Bikestation at the Caltrain depot. In 2009, the American Institute of Architects, California Council, gave Bike Arc the Honor Award for Small Projects.

165 University Avenue or Karma building is a small rented office building on University Avenue, the main commercial street in downtown Palo Alto, California, that gave rise to Plug and Play Tech Center and to the Amidi Group. It is run by Rahim & Saeed Amidi, whose family fled from the Iranian revolution in the 1970s. Located near Stanford University, the building has served as an incubator for several noted Silicon Valley companies, including Logitech, Google, PayPal, Danger, Inc (bought by Microsoft), BetterWorks, Milo.com (bought by eBay), and Yummly (bought by Whirlpool). YouTube also provides this location as the example address when setting the location of an uploaded video. Until 2000, the ground floor was home to a Palo Alto institution, Chimaera Books & Music. Like many independent bookstores, its closure was due, in part, to competition from the dot com economy.

The Fraternal Hall Building is a historic building in Palo Alto, California. It was built in 1898 for the Fraternal Hall Association. The founding members included Knights of Pythias and Freemasons. The association sold the building in 1925, and the second floor was home to the Elks Club.The building was designed in the Renaissance architectural style. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since February 15, 1990.

The Stanford Theatre is a classical independent movie theater in Palo Alto, California. It was designed and built in the 1920s as a movie palace styled in neoclassical Persian and Moorish architecture. Today it specializes in films produced between 1910 and 1970 and seasonal programs typically include film festivals for various genres, directors, and actors, such as Alfred Hitchcock, Bette Davis, and Cary Grant. The Stanford Theatre frequently accounts for as much as twenty-five percent of all classic film attendance in the United States.The Theatre has a "The Mighty Wurlitzer Organ" theatre organ made by Rudolph Wurlitzer Company. The organ is played live during intermissions, as well as to accompany silent films.

The Ramona Street Architectural District, in downtown Palo Alto, California, is a Registered Historic District. This portion of the street, between University Avenue and Hamilton Avenue, is a highly distinctive business block. It showcases the Spanish Colonial and Early California styles with gentle archways, wrought iron work, tile roofs of varying heights and courtyards. The development of Ramona Street, named after the 1884 novel Ramona, was an early successful attempt to expand laterally the central commercial district. Pedro de Lemos, a craftsman, graphic artist and curator of the Stanford Museum had been concerned with the larger scale and somewhat linear development along University Avenue. He believed that an informal architecture full of whimsy and integrated with nature was indeed compatible with commercial businesses. The first building to go up, in 1925, was the Gotham Shop at 520 Ramona, built by de Lemos, who had bought the property to preserve a very old oak tree (finally removed in the 1980s). He designed the building around the venerable oak and created shops with rustic benches, ceramic tiles and stucco walls. In 1938, de Lemos built another Spanish Colonial Revival commercial office building across the street at 533 - 539 Ramona, with a recessed arched entrance, an interior patio, wrought iron and more tiles. Noted local architects Birge Clark, W. H. Weeks and others added to the Spanish flavor of what de Lemos started. In 1928, Clark designed the multistory Medico-Dental Building at Hamilton and Ramona, which now houses the University Art Center on the ground floor. Across Ramona, Weeks designed the Cardinal Hotel, Palo Alto's first non-frame hotel. Excitement attended the Cardinal's debut, for it became the scene of tea dances and balls. The hotel had another purpose; it was intended to help make Hamilton a commercial street. The unified aspect of the 500 Ramona Street block was recognized by its designation in 1985 as a Historic District in the National Register of Historic Places. Since then, Plaza Ramona and other remodelings at the University Avenue end of the block have enhanced the theme.

The Pacific Art League (PAL), formally known as the Palo Alto Art Club was founded in 1921 in Palo Alto, California and is a membership-run nonprofit arts organization, school, and gallery. The group is located in a historic building at 668 Ramona Street in downtown Palo Alto.

Maum was a Korean restaurant in Palo Alto, California. The fine dining establishment had received a Michelin star before closing.

The Stanford University Arboretum is an arboretum located on the grounds of Stanford University in Stanford, California. It is open to the public daily without charge.

Rancho San Francisquito was a 1,471-acre (5.95 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Santa Clara County, California given in 1839 by Governor Juan Alvarado to Antonio Buelna. The grant was located on the southwest side of San Francisquito Creek and encompasses present-day western Menlo Park and the northern part of the Stanford University campus.

Stanford Shopping Center is an upscale open air shopping mall located on Route 82 (El Camino Real) at Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, California. It is on the campus of Stanford University although the university only owns the land and not the actual buildings or stores. Also, unlike the rest of the campus, the shopping center and the neighboring Stanford University Medical Center are part of the city of Palo Alto, not the census-designated place (CDP) of Stanford, California. The shopping center buildings are 94.4% owned by Simon Property Group, which manages the property and leases the land from the university. The outdoor center is 1,347,935 square feet (125,227.3 square meters) and includes four major department stores: Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom. Retailers at the shopping center include Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., Burberry, Ermenegildo Zegna, and Frette, as well as the first Victoria's Secret retail store.

El Palo Alto (Spanish for 'the tall pole' or 'post', or "tall stick") is a coastal redwood tree (Sequoia sempervirens) located in El Palo Alto Park on the banks of San Francisquito Creek in Palo Alto, California, United States. It is famous for its historical significance and as the namesake of the city of Palo Alto. In July 2016, El Palo Alto was 110 feet (33.5 meters) in height, down from 162.2 feet (49.4 meters) in 1814. Its top progressively died from 1865 to 1955 from lowering of the water table so that its roots could no longer reach sustenance. The landmark redwood is 90 inches (2.3 meters) in diameter, and has a crown spread of 40 feet (12 meters). In 1955, an increment boring of the tree was taken and the tree's age was accurately determined to be 1,015 years. El Palo Alto originally had 3 trunks. It is unknown what happened to the first trunk; it remains as a stump attached to the current trunk. The second trunk fell in 1886, also for unknown reasons.