Publication Date: Friday, December 05, 2003
History museum in the making?
History museum in the making?
(December 05, 2003) Proposal inches closer to reality
by Bill D'Agostino
Abuilding that made Palo Alto history when drivers came to gawk at murals featuring bare-breasted women is poised to become the home for Palo Alto's first city-history museum.
A significant step toward the Palo Alto History Museum is expected to come before the City Council in late January, when the council could vote to let the museum's founders have the first crack at leasing the historic Roth Building.
The museum's formation committee was the only group to file a proposal to use the city-owned building, located near downtown, on the corner of Homer Avenue and Bryant Street. Applications from nonprofits were due to the city at the end of November.
From the early Native Americans who lived in Palo Alto to the development of Silicon Valley, the new museum "would give you a panoramic view of how this area developed," said Tom Wyman, a member of the museum's formation committee.
Palo Alto is believed to be the only municipality in Santa Clara County, other than the much smaller town of Monte Sereno, to lack a museum celebrating its history.
"This will be a living history for the community -- which we have not had before," committee member Gloria Brown said.
The final major hurdle the museum's planners will have to jump over -- assuming the council gives it the go-ahead -- will be to raise $5.5 million for the construction. So far, $1.25 million has been secured, mostly from an anonymous $1 million donation.
The group has two years to raise the total sum. "We certainly hope it wouldn't take that long," said Karen Holman, the project's coordinator.
Currently, the Spanish Colonial-style Roth Building sits vacant, with no one to keep it company but the patients, doctors and nurses featured in the colorful murals on the building's outside walls. The Depression-era frescos were painted by Victor Arnautoff, a disciple of Diego Rivera.
When the building opened in 1932, the murals created a scandal and Palo Alto's "first documented traffic jam" after a news story was printed about the partially-naked women in the frescos, noted city historian Steve Staiger.
The city is currently in the process of demolishing the wings of the building, which abut its backside and were added in 1947.
The immediately-adjacent city-owned land is temporarily being used as a parking lot by the developers of new homes being constructed in the neighborhood. The City Council is scheduled to dedicate two acres of that land for future park use on Monday night.
Dedicating the land means that it would take a vote of the people to allow the land to be anything but a park. The still-unnamed park, scheduled to open in the fall of 2004, will be the first new park dedicated in Palo Alto in more than 20 years.
Birge Clark, one of the area's preeminent architects, designed the Roth Building. For nearly 70 years, it housed the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, which purchased the building for only $50,000. After the foundation moved in 2000, the city acquired the building and nearby land for $10 million.
The 17,000 square foot museum would house a combination of permanent and temporary exhibits, including a depiction of a historical doctor's office, a nod to the building's origins.
Other exhibits would feature the era of Spanish Exploration, the floods and earthquakes the city has endured, and Lucie Stern, the city's godmother, as well as other notable periods and people.
The museum's plans also include a community meeting room, restrooms for the nearby park, and a small café.
The committee's application to the city will be reviewed over the next few weeks by a team of city employees, who expect to report to the City Council by the end of January for a possible vote.
"If they turned it down then we're back at square one," said Bill Fellman, the city's real estate manager. But he added that it seemed to be "a very good proposal."
Other previous ideas for the building were to move the downtown library there, or to construct a new city development center there, for processing building permits.
E-mail Bill D'Agostino at bdagostino@paweekly.com
Donations for the Palo Alto History Museum can be sent to:
The Palo Alto History Museum Project
c/o Palo Alto Historical Association
PO Box 193, Palo Alto, CA 94302
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