Marvin, I think that's wonderful news, but permit me to tarnish it a bit. :)

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What happened between 1999, when Gary Fazzino announced the possibility of a PA-Stanford performing arts center? Essentially, nothing!

Our development people were asleep at the wheel; we didn't have city staff going for it (they had no direction, or leadership from Council on this). So what we end up with is a lost opportunity - again! What's new?

Sure, it's going to be great that Stanford has this center, but no one can tell me that if this city had mustered the political will and tapped private donors that that center wouldn't have been closer to the center of Palo Alto, and feeding all kindd of business here.

The commercial and educational fallout from a local site would have been nothing short of stupendous.

Instead, we have Stanford-Palo Alto initiatives that help Stanford sell football tickets.

When are we going to learn how to manage and GROW our city in a way other than by accident?

Don't get me wrong; I'm happy to have Stanford build the center on its campus - that's better than nothing, but what we lost by inaction, and lack of political will makes me cringe. What's worse, there is no way to bring this opportunity back. Between Stanford and Mt.View's Center for the Performing Arts, the local entertainment venue scene is all tied up.

Palo Alto is beginning to look like a once famous actress who has let herself go, unaware that neighbors are snikering as she prances down the street, thinking about the old days.

GO BEARS-- you know we do everything just a little bit better at UC Berkeley, and all for 1/3 the tuition.

yes, rly, you do do things better at Berkeley, like spam online forums with your blather - that's really bright, and reflective of intellectual status - NOT!

it's a darned shame that Palo Alto lost the opportunity to share in a co-op with Stanford on a Performing Arts Center - let's keep the thread on track

yes, rly, you do do things better at Berkeley, like spam online forums with your blather - that's really bright, and reflective of intellectual status - NOT!

it's a darned shame that Palo Alto lost the opportunity to share in a co-op with Stanford on a Performing Arts Center - let's keep the thread on track

I'm very pleased to hear about the proposed Campus Concert Hall at Stanford, and I certainly hope it will attract more world-class performances. Until it's built, I hope Jennifer Bilfield, the new artistic and executive director will get more great artist on the bill. Cal Performances usually has many more top artists than Stanford, but it's a hassle to get over to Berkeley.

Note to JL: Lighten up.

pat, I'm very light, almost floating. You have, in fact, given me a lift, in spite of your thinly-veiled put down.

I'm delighted to see a new performing arts center at Stanford, and _completely_ agree that Stanford's Lively Arts' billings are not in the Cal Performances class.

Given the choice, wouldn't you have rather seen the performing arts center closer to town, for all the reasons stated above?

We all need to move on, but we all need to learn from our mistakes. When the latter doesn't happen, someone, anyone, needs to point that out.

JL wrote: "Palo Alto is beginning to look like a once famous actress who has let herself go, unaware that neighbors are snickering as she prances down the street, thinking about the old days."


I love it! So true (and so sad)....

Will Stanford ever let local regional performing arts groups use this venue...it's a private university. The cooperative center would have been much better.

What's especially frustrating about this is that Theatreworks, the premier theatre company on the Peninsula, and probably the most prolific in the entire South Bay, in terms of large-scale productions, had been looking to solve some of its venue-related problems in the years intervening betweem Fazzino's suggestion, and Stanford's decision not to do a co-op effort with PA. How did we miss brokering that opportunity? It was a well known situation.

This is another example of how poor our large scale development strategies are. We simply don't have the manpower, policy-making vision, or political will to get these things done.

It's especially frustrating because many of these opportunities are just "there", ripe for the picking, but get pushed to the side for small-time devlopment efforts and sound bites. That, and the incessant meddling by small groups that don't want change, create FUD, are obsessively "against" things, or are fulfilling some latent need to demostrate personal power and realizing it in the municipal realm, because it's easy to access that realm.

If you were Stanford, knowing what yuo've gone through in the past, would you want to deal with this kind of municipal neurosis?

Perhaps Stanford as have other universities can learn that intellectually sophisticated community audiences have an important role to play in the development of both their arts and their sciences. It took many, many years for Cambridge and Oxford and Harvard and Yale to learn that lesson. There is still hope for the farm although to hear students and some faculty tell it the isolation can get to them. /Marvin

Very interesting thread. J.L. mostly has it right. Even so, Stanford shares the responsibility for failing to take advantage of this rare opportunity. Many of us who worked on this potential collaboration were frustrated and disappointed by the response from the leadership of the City and Stanford.