Dr. Edith Eugenie JOHNSON Park

Location:  Between Waverley and Kipling streets, Everett and Hawthorne avenues

Description: 2.5 acre neighborhood park provides a variety of outdoor opportunities in a densely populated area just north of downtown.

Amenities:  children’s playground with wide concrete slide, basketball hoop, picnic tables, benches, volleyball sand pit, community garden plots, pathway

History note:  In 1968 Palo Alto purchased the entire block (between Waverley and Kipling, Everett and Hawthorne) to give some open space to this heavily populated area.  Houses on each of the Waverley corners were torn down, and mini parks were established.  Some years later, the remaining houses were demolished and the entire block became dedicated park land.  Originally called Downtown Park North, the park was renamed in 1986 for Dr. Edith Eugenie Johnson.  As a physician in Palo Alto from 1907 until the 1960s, she brought more than 3,500  babies into this world. She lived and worked at 375 Hawthorne.