Palo Alto Station is the main train station in Palo Alto, California. It is a regional transit center serving Santa Clara County and San Mateo County Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) transit bus passengers as well as Caltrain commuters. Palo Alto is also one of the busiest stations in the Caltrain system, second only to the 4th and King Street Station in downtown San Francisco.[3] It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places National Register of Historic Places for its architectural significance.
Location
The station building is across the tracks from Alma Street, with a car entrance to the parking lot at Alma Street and Lytton Avenue. Daily parking is $5. It is on the west side of Downtown Palo Alto and offers easy access to the downtown Palo Alto Area and the Stanford University campus. It is one of two stations in Palo Alto; the other is farther south at Alma and California Avenue. On December 11, 2009, Cafe Venetia opened inside the historic Palo Alto train station.
Architecture
The station is in the Streamline Moderne style which has connections with American history and is not typically found in Palo Alto. During the 1920s and 1930s most significant buildings in town were designed by a local architect, Birge Clark, who usually worked in the Mission Revival or Spanish Colonial Revival styles. The other major buildings of that era, such as large commercial blocks and apartment buildings, the main Post Office, the Community Center and other civic buildings were Mission Revival or Spanish Colonial Revival styles.[4]
On October 22, 1940 the cornerstone was laid for the new railroad station designed by J.H. Christie, a full-time architect employed by the Southern Pacific Railroad. It replaced an 1897 station; it was part of the grade separation project that moved the tracks a few feet southwest from the straight line that had extended south from Redwood City. The building is 215 feet (65 m) long by 25 feet (7.6 m) wide with an arcade in front and a marquee at the rear including two buildings connected by an arcade. The interior has a ticket office, waiting room, rest rooms, baggage room and a passageway between the waiting room and baggage room.[4] The interior is not open to the public now; tickets are purchased from machines on the platform.
The interior has a mural by John McQuarrie depicting Leland Stanford's dream of a University influenced by a pageant of transportation. It shows facts and events in the development of California. This one-story streamlined Southern Pacific station personifies the tendency of the 1930s to style buildings like transportation machinery, in this case the Streamline train. The building has all the trademarks: porthole windows, horizontal parallel lines to indicate speed and glass blocks.[4]
The station was refurbished in the 1980s.
This retro-style station still contains many original elements inside, from the Art Deco-like lights, clock and other elements that have survived the times. Going into this station is like stepping back in time.