San Francisco Chronicle picks up story about El Palo Alto by Doug Ray '10

The San Francisco Chronicle‘s website picks up a multimedia story by Doug Ray ’10 about the iconic yet imperilled El Palo Alto, a 1,000-year-old coast redwood tree in the Bay Area now threatened by a proposed high-speed rail line. Writes Ray, “The tree stands within 10 feet of existing Caltrain tracks between the Menlo Park and Palo Alto stations, with commuter trains passing by 90 times every weekday. Initial plans by the California High-Speed Rail Authority called for widening the tracks to accommodate the new rail line, which would  put the tree in jeopardy.” Like the erstwhile Old Man of the Mountain in New Hamshire, El Palo Alto is a prominent and beloved Bay Area symbol featured on the seal of Stanford University, among other places. Ray, who majored in East Asian Studies and theater at Bates, is now studying in the Graduate Program in Journalism at Stanford. He produced the story for the Peninsula Press, the program’s news portal. View story from the San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 19, 2010.