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MrLaser — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:35:11 CDT

Is Cupertino History? What Happens when 10,000 more employees commute to North Vallco?

Will the streets be full again with commuters who just come and go?

What happens if Apple and HP lose their ability to attract the smart and creative?

What happens to Apple, HP, and Cupertino if this opportunity is lost? Does the community become vulnerable to a crush of people and traffic in an emergency.

Who loses if a transit plan is not in place for the coming energy crunch?

Add your story about Cupertino's Past and place in the future ! Click here to go to "My Cupertino!.

Read The Cupertino Citizen. Read the latest Version of the "Cupertino Citizen which you can download at www.Mark Brodsky.com
Lean about the issues compelling action to create a new central downtown in the Vallco Area. Understand why piecemeal approaches will no longer work as we blend the needs of the community, commerce, and the worlds finest employers

TRY THIS THOUGHT EXPERIMENT WITH THE PHOTOS BELOW

Imagine Alexanders Steak house is behind you; Freeway 280 is below you; Employees and friends are getting off high speed shuttles next to you; and the new Apple and HP campus is across the arcade (past their security check points). That allows more space for business while creating a world class workplace district and public space for the city. This also allows room for housing to the right and airspace for a top flight hotel above.

Oh yes, ...Change the word Sony to Cupertino Vallco then grab the next shuttle to a Caltrain "Baby Bullet" to San Francisco or one to Santana Row.

(Read full version in May 16 edition)
One picture may tell a thousand words, but I've only 300 to paint an image of a spectacular development on the airspace over the freeway at Vallco. Cupertino is poised to reinvent the future of suburban living for the 21st century by articulating this grand vision. It's innovative design will reshape traffic in the West Valley. It will be an iconic center for the city, a focus of community activity, and a hub for usable transit. It will be supported on a bridge that bonds needs of corporations with the public good.
And it will be beautiful and good for the environment!
Members of the North Vallco steering committee recently discussed, " What defines Cupertino"? They spoke of DeAnza, the Open Space, the foothills, our great restaurants, top schools, and impressive corporate headquarters. Yet we have problems too. Traffic is horrid, transit is a joke, and where do you take the relatives to show them Cupertino? The city needs something more. The answer is found in how we reduce the automobile impact of 10,000 employees on the North side of Vallco going to the services on the South side of the freeway.
Building pedestrian attractive developments on airspace over the freeway addresses many needs. And it serves a far greater good because Vallco is perfectly located to be the hub of express and local transit. The airspace between jobs and services can be used to create that sense of place for the community with a top hotel, meeting centers grand plaza, and magnet classrooms too. And it draws traffic away from the suburban neighborhoods.
I've put together the inputs of members of the steering committee and combined them with ideas developed at VTA PAC and Cities Association. They are in a newsletter called the "Cupertino Citizen" and it's available at www.MarkBrodsky.com. Believe me, the pictures are better than these words.Since moving from Cupertino, I've worked on many regional needs. This plan is so good that all who want a better future will soon be calling themselves "Cupertino Citizens".

My Cupertino

MrLaser — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:25:01 CDT

Here is what John remembers

I have fond memories as a teenager and young man growing up in Cupertino. We moved there from Southern California in 1958. The rural life of apricot and cherry orchards made up for the concrete jungle of the south. My mother had purchased a single family home on Colby Avenue and within a year we had a swimming pool in the back yard and became the darlings of the neighborhood. We had Hawaiian luaus for many summers. We would dig a pit in the backyard garden and into the pit would go lava rocks, banana leaf wrapped whole pig and stripped bass. Eight hours later, it was party time for adults and kids alike….swimming, eating and drinking.
Cupertino felt safe in the 50’s and 60’s. Car doors were unlocked. We didn’t need keys to get into the house…it was always open. You could walk the streets and hitchhike on Stevens Creek Blvd where people gladly gave you a lift home late at night.
My brother and I kept score at Futurama Bowl on Stevens Creek Blvd in the evenings during the week making $5 a night. $25 a week was enough to gas up and head over the hill to Santa Cruz on weekends to go fishing off the Santa Cruz Pier or walk the beach. Memories included friends, whether it was playing pool or pinball machines at valley bowling establishments, fishing and hiking on and around Stevens Creek reservoir.
During the summer months my brother and I picked apricots for $1.25 an hour at the Mariani orchards on Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road (Highway 9). After apricots came bushels of peas and by the end of summer it was pears, all in Santa Clara Valley. Between keeping score at the bowling alleys and summer jobs, my brother and I saved enough money to buy a 1957 TR-3 Triumph Roadster. We got our first loan from the Cupertino Branch Bank of America on Stevens Creek Blvd. Five Hundred dollars later we owned that car.
I was in the first graduating class at Cupertino HS. I then went on to Foothill Jr. College and San Jose State where I graduated in Chemistry. While going to college, I worked at Portal Plaza Liquors which was owned by a Japanese American whose family had to reestablish their purchase of land they lost during the relocation of Japanese Americans to camps in the 1940’s. I remember a man coming into the store one day and asked how I could work for a “Jap”. Since I was born in 1944, I haven’t formed any prejudices regarding the Japanese and wished him to take his business elsewhere. Had it not been the money I made being employed there through my college years, I might not have finished college. The diversity of the community in Cupertino helped a young man understand the meaning of America.
I now live in Los Altos Hills, but still cherish the fond memories of growing up in Cupertino and consider Cupertino a hub to points of interest in this amazing valley.

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Here is what John remembers