There are dirt road bike trails in the Baylands right now. These are very scenic and great exercise for kids (and adults). Of course, getting there without a car is kind of difficult since the south Palo Alto bike trail under Hwy 101 is closed and the Embarcadero Road pedestrians bridge has brand new "no bicycling" signs.

Palo Alto's Arastradero Preserve also has mountain bike trails. These are also difficult to reach without a car since that bike lane under I-280 at Page Mill Road is really dangerous. We won't let our kids bike there.

I though the Mitchell Park Library was supposed to have an area for teens to hangout.

Some space downtown for the teens to hangout would be great, as it's accessible to many. The city would have to forego $$$rent for the space, however.

One of the problems is that many teens do not even have free time to relax and hangout due to schoolwork. Others are on a tight leash by their parents.

How about building fun into the school schedule? Paly has time in Advisory on Thursdays. Different grade levels attend: 9th always attends, 10th, hardly, 11th more than 10th, 12th, hardly. The time could be used for some social interactions between Advisory classes.

As teens around here in the good old days, my friends and I always enjoyed the traveling carnivals that would set up temporarily at Town & Country, Stanford Shopping Center, or San Antonio Shopping Center. Throngs of young people to mingle and flirt with in a festive decidedly-non-academic unstructured unsupervised atmosphere.

Another fondly-remembered habit was hanging out with friends on long warm evenings in the park behind the old Palo Alto Drive-In. "Someone" often jumped the fence to turn up the volume on nearby speakers in the back row.

Many of us had paper routes or gardening jobs or janitorial jobs at local small businesses, an identity and responsibility integrated with the community outside of school. Not exactly "pure fun" but a valuable component of well-being.

Neither the Baylands nor Mitchell Park is really on the side of town with Gunn, Terman, JB, and Bowman. Having to cross El Camino, go up El Camino way or Arastradero/cross Arastradero, cross Alma and the Railroad tracks, is a pretty significant barrier. Having to do all that and cross 101 and go across town even more so. Remember, after school it's not long til dark this time of year. And most kids have hours of homework.

Sadly, there are no community spaces on this side of town. Neighbors did ask the City Council to consider buying the orchard, many neighbors did ask to save the orchard and (through volunteers and raising funds) add some badly needed community space there.

Most City Council live on the other side of town and at least in the past, looked down their noses at this end. We no longer have the bowling alley over here. The kids hang out at Walgreens. If they hang out at all, which is rarely. They're all too busy doing homework.

Walgreens as a hangout place?????


So sad.

We must do better, we must get some better places for kids to hang out after school and weekends, at all four corners of town.

Yes Paly has T & C across the street, and Gunn has a cemetery. You can't hang out in a cemetery. Jordan is close to Midtown. JLS has Charleston Center and Mitchell Park. Terman and Gunn have a cemetery and Walgreens????

Please, let's find some hangout places. Let's find some better fun activities. Can we find some collaboration between the City, PAUSD, YMCA, JCC, local youth groups and organizations, and get some fun in town.

Most, is not all, teens in Palo Alto have NO free time, even on the weekends. Homework and long-term school projects take that away. If the kids are active in school sports, too, sleep time is lost as well. Many have weekend school, SAT school, tutors, Mandarin School, as well. Every minute of their day is already spoken for.

The kids you see hanging out at the Walgreen's stores are middle school kids. By high school, there is free time--often not even in the summer anymore. College prep, SAT prep, foreign language immersion school and summer jobs to help save for college take even that away!

Many kids don't even have a childhood any more--leading to frustrated young adults ( and some older) still trying to act out their lost childhood years inapproriately.

Perhaps one of the "mixed-development" new developments could include a bowling alley - a fresh, clean one would be welcome and an option for teens' free time, such as there is in this city, and there is practically zero chance of any trouble with this fun, casual entertainment. I know this city used to have a bowling alley, most or all had to drive to it, it was old and yucky and now it's gone. Most people had some fun times even some of us who don't really know how to bowl.

Bowling alley? That's not what kids prefer to do these days. The Palo Alto one was not overflowing with students; there was no crying when it closed. Everyone just liked the idea that it was there.

An updated arcade/dessert place downtown perhaps?

Back in the 70s and 80s, we all hung out at Lyon's, which was like Denny's but it is now Su Hong.

Frankly, there's not much time to hang out, between grades, SATs, tutoring, extracurriculars. And add technology that we didn't have and there's not even enough time for sleep. Times have changed and the current PAUSD environment of homework and technology as well as nerd genes has resulted in kids being antisocial and lacking in normal social skills. Many do not even want to go to pep rallies or school events on campus.

Work out equipment, bowling alley, beach volleyball, arcades, lounge areas, juice bar,

A Google plex type deal without the corporate stuff.

Area to bring their pets.

Quiet areas to read or work in small groups together.

Qualified counselors here and there.

THEIR SPOT

@PalyGrad, Su Hong was an actual Dennys. Lyons, the last halfway-decent 24-hour coffee shop/restaurant around here, was a bit further south and bulldozed for another one of those redevelopments that make El Camino unrecognizable now. Our famous Happy Donuts currently seems to be popular among kids and the homeless during the wee hours.

With all due respect to all the posters who live across town, on this side of town, quite literally the only place for kids to go hang out was the bowling alley. It may not have been busy but neither was it deserted. Every time I went there - taking groups of younger kids - there were older kids, safe and unchaperoned. Now they really literally have nothing else but Walgreens. If you don't believe the high school kids go to Walgreens, just ask the Asst Principal at Gunn -- they go because they literally have nothing else.

Many families have really small houses, too, it's not even that easy to hang out with multiple friends at each others' houses. And there is the problem of no time, even if some kid ekes out time, guaranteed the friends will be busy doing homework. Kids have to have some free time they can count on.

The orchard at Maybell is right here, steps from 5 schools. The Fry's site, while not as close, is reachable by separated bike path to Hanson. Crossing El Camino is the major barrier, but if it were turned into a major civic place -- even a municipal swimming pool, which we don't have over here, or a maker space with a park and some kid-centric cafe to hang out -- it could be a place to congregate.

Paly Parent,
The saddest thing of all was that after the Maybell referendum, the City had the choice to buy the orchard, which is a large orchard across from the park and some houses. Their own appraisal of the orchard part was $6 million, and when the property was resold, it sold for $6 million profit. So had they simply bought the property and held onto it for part of a year, they could have sold the houses and gotten the orchard virtually for free. Neighbors had been volunteering to try to raise money for a community building or center that we desperately need over here.

The orchard is still there. If someone wanted to approach the current owner, there is always that. It's not possible to get a free park anymore, but it's still possible to sell of the houses on Maybell and recoup part. But of course, now it's in private hands. Given the way traffic moves in the area, the place feels like the center, so it would be a good place for it.

@Parent, separated bike path to Hanson? You're thinking Hanover which then dumps onto Page Mill. The better route to the Frys area from Barron Park is on up Matadero and cross El Camino to Margarita. But of course it's a moot point as things are.

Mitchell Park used to have jr. high dances run by high school kids. Can these come back?

Some kids love video game competitions and watch them online. Can we have some video game competition Saturdays?

Can we get the City to put a page of teen events on the web page so that organizations can post anything they are arranging? Or can we have a Palo Alto Youth web page for these postings where teens can look to see if there is anything going on that would interest them.

Can we have some teen cooking events (something like the chili cook off on 4th July) that teens can present their creations and other teens can taste and vote - emphasis on fun and recipe sharing rather than high challenge.

Can we have some air guitar band competitions, lip synching competitions, once again, low challenge with emphasis on fun.

In light of the recent tragic event, I am bumping this article up in the hopes that we continue the conversation about community, what we can do to help our kids feel a sense of belonging, and what we can do to build community.

Some wonderful ideas have already been tossed around.

Also, this just came in through the JLS Online newsletter...

"Mitchell Park Teen Center will be open for special evening drop-in hours this week, Monday - Friday,
4 - 8 pm, for any students who want a place outside of the school setting to decompress, be together, talk through recent tragedies, or just be. Snacks, therapy dogs, art supplies, inspirational movies, and more will be available. The Teen Center is located in the Mitchell Park Community Center at 3700 Middlefield Rd. For more information, contact Lacee Kortsen or Amal Aziz at 650-329-2400."

Thank you, City of Palo Alto, for offering this service, your support, and a safe haven for our kids.

Can we try and keep our conversations civil, and focus on good, positive and constructive discussions?

For our kids and community.

Concerned Parent,
Thanks for your efforts.

Unfortunately, especially with all the development on this side of town increasing traffic, noise, and sadly, the ugliness of the built environment, Mitchell Park seems as much across town as Rinconada.

There really are no community spaces with the kind of "adjacency" that allows kids living near Gunn/Terman/Juana Briones to walk over and hang out, and be away from school for a bit.

We have so many people living in Palo Alto who donate tons of funds to far flung places, but wouldn't consider investing in their own Palo Alto because not enough "leverage", while in nearby Los Altos, their residents pump money into making their downtown friendlier and friendlier for families (we let the kids roam there where we would never consider it in our downtowns).

The built environment, noise level, beauty, open space, etc, are important to psychological well-being. Some things that could be done:

1) Save the Maybell orchard as community and open space.

The orchard at Maybell is psychologically like the center of this whole part of town. The trees are still there and it is yet undeveloped. It sits across from a park, facing the hills, and is steps from Gunn, Terman, Juana Briones, the OH (the program for Palo Alto's most disabled students, plus the pediatric physical rehab center for the county), Keys Middle School (private), Bowman International School (private, expanding), plus that preschool on Arastradero I forget the name of. We quite literally have nothing else in this immediate area, the development on El Camino has increased the psychological barrier of El Camino significantly.

If the City/residents really wanted to put their money where their mouths are, this would include the whole site, peeling off a little on the back end to give to the APAC apartments so they no longer had to park on Maybell, and even include the 4 houses in the community space (tearing them down), so that Maybell could be made entirely no parking along that side for a dedicated bike path and sidewalk for which there is currently no room for even one, and the community space would open up into this major center of life for that whole side of town. Pipe dream? Not if some of our most well-heeled decided charity begins at home, and that our youth are worth some community space nearby where they can be independent.

(The site is in private hands currently, but there is controversy now surrounding the sale. The City did help purchase the property for the seller and had first right of refusal....)


2) Save the Fry's site as community and open space, maybe even a community pool and teen maker space/performance space/innovation incubator on this side of town.

Note: the children's theater is on the north side, and even the Mitchell Park community center only put in a temporary stage that has to be set up in their room, not a performance space with a real stage. School stages are not available for other programs.


3) Save Buena Vista

One of the most special, unique things about this side of town is/was the greater diversity, and that's about to change big time. We don't need another giant soulless building. BV can be upgraded if the site is saved (there are even grants with specific set asides from mobile home parks). But once the low-income housing is gone, so is the true economic diversity. Doing something caring like this demonstrates caring to our youth.


3) Sidewalk Retail.

This probably ought to be two separate points. Despite the goals of the El Camino Grand Blvd Initiative, Sidewalks are a joke in this town. They are right next to traffic, too narrow to walk side by side most of the time (if you have to keep going single file, it destroys conversation, and take away conversation on a barrier-strewn path next to noisy traffic and you have a gauntlet, not a sidewalk), too narrow for anyone in a wheelchair to proceed even single file sometimes, much less walking with a friend.

What retail we had has given way to yet more hotels, which, let's face it, are there for outsiders to stay and drive to the other side of town for business. Especially when they are SO HUGE, they absolutely announce transience. We need retail, walkability, and community.


City Hall and north Palo Alto have treated our side of town like some kind of civic waste basket. This used to be a real haven from the frenetic pace and affluenza of the other side of town. I'd still take this neighborhood over living in the neighborhoods in the north I moved from, but there's definitely far more traffic, noise, a sense of being under pressure instead of the low-key friendly diverse place when we moved here just over a decade ago.

We have some 4000 students in high school and 3 middle schools. Nothing in town can support all or even 1/10th of them. I'm tired of people expecting the schools and city to take care of their children. The truth is, students in PAUSD are overall nice compared to other school districts. Other than the athletes/popular kids, the rest have poor social skills, but they are nice, although not extroverted. Palo Alto kids have always been nice - I grew up here and sent 3 through the district. They were more normal back in the 80s, but they are still nice kids now, just nerdier.

The answer is home life. Parents should volunteer to take their kids and friends to movies, restaurants, laser tag, Great America, S.F., or just plain hang out at their houses. At the very least, parents should take the family out to dinner once per week for a change of atmosphere. And family vacations during the summer to get away are important too. Dinners and vacations need not be expensive. If a Palo Alto family can't even afford those, start questioning if being housepoor is worthwhile. Kids need nurturing and support in this competitive atmosphere and parents should wake up and do their jobs as parents.

I agree that parents need to be involved with their kids, but the city is becoming noticeably less kid-friendly. Major streets are becoming much less pedestrian-friendly, with higher car speeds, drivers often not yielding to pedestrians in crosswalks, and much longer waits for pedestrian crossing lights. These changes discourage non-driving kids from socializing outside of school hours.

For example, the city's beautiful Arastradeo Preserve is on the same street as Gunn High School, but have you ever tried walking from one to the other? I do see some kids biking there, but you have to be really hardcore to try that.

Let's improve everyone's quality of life by making our city's public spaces more public friendly.

@parent: You're talking about an impossible task. I grew up in Palo Alto and we skateboarded and biked all over the city because it was safe and minimal traffic. There was minimal homework and we had a lot of free time because there were no computers, cell phones, good TV shows or videos. For sports, there was only baseball, football, basketball, softball, soccer, tennis, Winter Lodge. There is no way to turn back the clock to 1975.

I agree that parents need to take charge of their own children.

I am pleased to see that this thread has been bumped up again.

Nurturing Mom has a point, but at the same time families aren't always the place where teens like to spend their time.

I know that not one hangout place will suit or hold 4000 teens. But we don't need that as an excuse not to find some places for some of them to hang out some of the time. Their free time will vary and of course their interests vary. When I was a teen I was busy, but I did like to be out with friends on Friday evenings and Saturday evenings rather than spend time with my family. I used to want to go places rather than be in friends' homes or have them at my home. We went to movies, to discos, to coffee bars, to youth clubs or teen centers. I know times have changed to some extent as nobody plays on space invaders or pinball, but I think teens still want to experience "being out".

Apart from anything else, teens spending time away from families and away from school is part of the growing up process and becoming independent. I can't honestly see a 16 year old boy wanting to play laser quest with his parents, or a 16 year old girl wanting to be taken to see a pg movie with parents on a Saturday evening.

We definitely need to get some quality teen hang out places.

Kids have Friday off school. What will they be doing (apart from catching up on sleep, doing homework or study)? Some may have family responsibilities, what about the rest?

I am pleased to see that this thread has been bumped up again.

Nurturing Mom has a point, but at the same time families aren't always the place where teens like to spend their time.

I know that not one hangout place will suit or hold 4000 teens. But we don't need that as an excuse not to find some places for some of them to hang out some of the time. Their free time will vary and of course their interests vary. When I was a teen I was busy, but I did like to be out with friends on Friday evenings and Saturday evenings rather than spend time with my family. I used to want to go places rather than be in friends' homes or have them at my home. We went to movies, to discos, to coffee bars, to youth clubs or teen centers. I know times have changed to some extent as nobody plays on space invaders or pinball, but I think teens still want to experience "being out".

Apart from anything else, teens spending time away from families and away from school is part of the growing up process and becoming independent. I can't honestly see a 16 year old boy wanting to play laser quest with his parents, or a 16 year old girl wanting to be taken to see a pg movie with parents on a Saturday evening.

We definitely need to get some quality teen hang out places.

Kids have Friday off school. What will they be doing (apart from catching up on sleep, doing homework or study)? Some may have family responsibilities, what about the rest?

@Paly Parent: Yeah, back in the day, we had Time Zone, the arcade in Mountain View, as downtown Palo Alto was basically nothing but health food stores. Nurturing Mom was saying that parents need to transport the students, not hang out with them - "Parents should volunteer to take their kids and friends to movies, restaurants, laser tag, Great America, S.F.".

Paly Alum, yes you are right, I just reread the post.

Still, it is a shame that there's nothing for them in town here and they have to be driven to neighboring communities.

I appreciate the original poster's enthusiasm, but I don't think the city really needs to "do" anything. There is lots to do around here, and certainly very easy resources to find things to do. All the big community organizations have lots going on. Its nice to look back on old times, but life today is just very fragmented, there's a group out there for everything!

When I moved here, I couldn't believe that not only was there a "Bay Area Lego Users Group," but there was a sub group of Lego builders just for trains! I mean, this place has everything. If you have a computer or mobile device you can find any activity.

Lucie Stern has a gazillion pamphlets abour local recreation, so does REI (you don't even have to buy anything).

Hey according to the Goog, for $5.25, and some minimal walking and transfers, you could take a bus from Charleston/Middlefield to Bowlmore Lanes in Cupertino.

@ElJohnny: I completely agree that there is a lot to do outside of Palo Alto, but parents need to transport their children there and I know many Palo Alto parents who think driving to neighboring towns (even Mountain View or Redwood City) is just too far - this is totally true and I am appalled when I hear it. I will drive anywhere to get my children to fun or excellent program or coach. I suppose it's easier for parents to just tell their children to sit home and study.

I strongly disagree that there's lots for teens to do in Palo Alto.

True that there are a lot of challenging classes, programs, competitive sports, and so on that parents could sign their kids up for. True that parents could/should drive their kids to activities, to coach or to volunteer to chaperone. But that's just it. It is a scheduled activity that looks good on a college application, not hanging out. True some kids may say that they enjoy building legos and competing in a competition, but at the same time it could be another class with lots of stress.

I really think that for kids to mature they need to have unstructured time with peers, hanging out, chatting and doing things just for fun. I am not talking about hanging outside 7 - 11 and getting in with the wrong crowd, I am talking about laughing, relaxing, talking about music or tv shows, or chilling or being cool, or hanging. I think kids who are driven everywhere by helicopter parents are more likely to have a hard time fending for themselves when they move away to college. I think they need to start being a little independent and having time with other young people for no reason other than to spend some time being teenagers.

We need some hang out places and hang out time where they can be safe, unchallenged, and mentored by people who are not parents and not teachers.

If we can't help them do that now, then how will they know what is wholesome and what is not when they don't have parents planning their every activity when they leave home for college.

I'd recommend that the HSs have more sports teams that would allow good, but not stellar, athletes to participate. Perhaps this could be run by PAPD. My son is an excellent athlete who participated in multiple sports leagues outside of school in ES and MS. However, as a freshman and sophomore at Paly, he was not able to make any of the competitive sports teams (basketball, soccer) for which he tried out. I know that he's not alone. Participating in HS sports would be an excellent way to keep kids busy, and engaged in a physically and emotionally healthy environment.

@more sports teams: Intramurals have been suggested on prior threads but no one wants to take the lead. In addition, there isn't much time at lunch, and there are no fields available after school so it was deemed a failed idea. The best solution was to join a club team. AYSO takes all ages of players, and there are other club teams that have different levels of play.

@Paly Parent: Agree that unstructured time with peers is valuable. So why are you asking for more things to do in Palo Alto? Why can't they hang out in their homes without parents around? Parents can go into the back room or leave the house. This is what I do for my children. As for how they will perform in college when parents aren't micromanaging, if the parent raised them to be responsible, they will do fine. I have sent two off to college and they are appreciative, reliable, and responsible. They did not grow up with chores, allowances, or jobs (it's a complete myth that it builds independence - it builds resentment).

One of the best things a parent can do if they want to be sure their child will be fine in college is to send them off to a 1-2 week camp, such as Nike Camps or overnight camps on college campuses. These give them a glimpse into life in the dorms. Sure, it's expensive, but so is a Palo Alto mortgage. Invest in your children - you truly get back what you put in. You respect them and they will respect you.