June 30, 2004

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Palo Alto Online

Greenmeadow celebrates 50 years

by Jocelyn Dong

When Lanie Wheeler moved into the Greenmeadow neighborhood some 40 years ago, her neighbors called her a blockhead.

What had she done? Nothing at all.

"Blockhead," it turns out, was the affectionate term for the person who organizes social events on the block. In Wheeler's era, the newest family to move into the neighborhood received the honor.

Today, the blockhead system continues, one characteristic of the Greenmeadow neighborhood that makes it an anachronism in busy Palo Alto. In addition to a highly organized system of governance, the 270-home area south of Charleston Road is close-knit, according to residents -- the kind of place where going for a walk can take a long time, because residents stop and chat with one another.

This Sunday, while the nation celebrates its birthday, the residents of Greenmeadow will hail a different accomplishment -- their neighborhood's 50th anniversary. As they have for 49 years, they'll hold a picnic and parade, featuring a marching band whose members come together once a year. The mayor of Palo Alto will lead the way.

After 50 years, the neighborhood has evolved with life in Silicon Valley. Mothers no longer stay at home, and dads are more interested in raising the kids than mowing the lawn. And yet, people remark on how much Greenmeadow has stayed the same, still imparting a sense of community to those who live there.

"The cohesion is strong; it's palpable," said Sigrid Pinsky, who has lived in the neighborhood for 13 years and is organizing the 50th anniversary festivities.

She and her husband love the area so much that they refused to move outside the neighborhood when they recently bought a bigger house for their expanding family.

Because of the community's cohesion, she once told her 4-year-old daughter to knock on any neighbor's door in an emergency, and she'd be safe. As Pinsky realized what she was saying was true, it took her by surprise.

"I thought: 'Oh my gosh, that's amazing,'" she said.

"The kids who grow up here are grounded in a different way, I feel. They have a foundation and stability, a sense of safety -- people here to support them," she added. Part of the friendliness can be attributed to the neighborhood's welcoming committee.

New neighbors aren't left to fend for themselves for long. Penny Ellson remembers moving into Greenmeadow from the East Coast and receiving a visit from the membership chair, who brought her an historical Greenmeadow poster and unabashedly asked her to join the membership committee. Between that visit and the social events that followed, Ellson said she knew 30 families by the end of her first month.

Greenmeadow began as a planned community, one of the country's first, developed by Joseph Eichler and architects Jones & Emmons. The neighborhood had a unique feature -- a community center with its own private pool and park. In 1955, when residents learned that Eichler might rent the pool to a swim school, reducing neighbors' access, they formed the Greenmeadow Community Association and offered to buy the center from him.

They hired a young lawyer named Pete McClosky, who later became a U.S. Congressman, and purchased the property for $10,000.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, the shouts and squeals of kids playing in the pool drifted through the air. On the grass encircling the pool, adults on their lounge chairs chatted with one another.

Wheeler, now president of the association and a former Palo Alto mayor, believes that this joint ownership of the community center is part of what continues to draw neighbors together.

"We still come together as a community with these assets we feel a responsibility for and are grateful for having," she said.

To support the community center's upkeep, and the activities of the association, residents five decades ago formed a network of committees. The governance structure today includes groups for architectural review of the neighborhood's distinctive Eichler homes, aquatics, civic affairs, communications, facilities, finance, membership, social events, swim team, and a board of directors.

Ellson accepted the membership chair's invitation to join this committee, so she could meet people and make friends.

"It's a rewarding place to start, then you get sucked in," she laughed.

Ellson now serves on the civic-affairs committee, which gathers information affecting the neighborhood from city government and reports back to the residents.

She joked that Greenmeadow is "a small democracy ... and I'm a city staffer."

Most recently her committee joined with representatives from nine other neighborhood groups to raise concerns about the Hyatt's proposed development on El Camino Real.

"One of the great things about Greenmeadow is you get an education on how democracy works and how compromises are made," she said.

She cited a bevy of rules that volunteers follow to protect residents from being misrepresented by the governing board, including giving notice of meetings to every household, setting a quorum to vote on issues, and more.

As she participated in life in Greenmeadow, Ellson observed one quality that differentiates her neighborhood from many others: "There's a family feeling here -- in all its positive and negative meanings," she said.

It's a closeness and familiarity that comes only when people know one another well, as neighbors throughout Palo Alto used to 50 years ago. In Greenmeadow, evidently, they still do. Senior staff writer Jocelyn Dong can be reached at jdong@paweekly.com.

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