back to article Steve Jobs' boyhood home may become protected historical shrine

The modest Silicon Valley ranch-style home where Steve Jobs spent his boyhood may soon be designated as an officially protected historical property. Not that the garage of 2066 Crist Drive, Los Altos, California isn't already a venerated shrine among the Apple faithful – it's where the Two Steves, Jobs and Wozniak, created the …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In other news...

    In other news today Kwon Oh Hyun, CEO of Samsung purchases a property at 2066 Crist Drive, Los Altos California for 3.5 million. He plans to bulldoze the existing structure and put up a parking lot to serve the new flagship Samsung store on the adjacent property..

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: In other news...

      The Fandroids couldn't wait could they!

      1. LarsG

        They don't

        They don't have many historical places in the USA, they tend to be more recent.

        We have the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Winsor, Edinburgh, York and 10 million other historical sites of interest...

        The USA has Steve Jobs boyhood home?

        Maybe they could put a blue plaque on it.....

        1. Dr_N
          Trollface

          Re: They don't

          "They don't have many historical places in the USA, they tend to be more recent"

          Oh I don't know.....

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wupatki_National_Monument

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montezuma_Castle_National_Monument

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_National_Monument

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: They don't

            >>"They don't have many historical places in the USA, they tend to be more recent"

            >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wupatki_National_Monument

            >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montezuma_Castle_National_Monument

            >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_National_Monument

            I think he meant historical places settled by white people or places that matter.

            1. Dr_N

              Re: They don't

              "I think he meant historical places settled by white people or places that matter"

              I think you may find that many historical sites in the US and around the world "that matter" aren't associated with "white people". (Apart from those in Northern Europe, perhaps.)

        2. BJS
          Meh

          Re: They don't

          Indeed, the UK has (oops, make that "had") quite a few monuments for Jimmy Savile.

    2. Jemma

      Re: In other news...

      I'm thinking I'll flatten the place and replace it with a green waste composting centre...

      Selling overpriced (former) crap to idiots who should know better. Could there be a better or more apt tribute?

      The only slight problem is compost is useful... I know, I'll dose it with anthrax & call it a 'feature'..

  2. David 45
    Facepalm

    Twaddle

    What sort of false hero-worship is this? The guy was ruthless, founding a company that sold grossly over-priced flawed products, hyping each incarnation up to the hilt to ensnare vulnerable folk who should have looked elsewhere for a cheaper product that does what they want and need. The guy was only a CEO, for goodness' sake - NOT a saviour of all mankind, as some people seem to believe in their religious fervour. This sort of ridiculous and totally absurd adulation drives me to despair. To preserve his former home, like some sort of religious shrine, is nothing short of madness. What next? Organised trips for the "faithfull" to see an absolutely bog-standard home with nothing out of the ordinary to offer? I'm now lost for words.

    1. EddieD

      Re: Twaddle

      the TL;DR version:-

      what the fucking fuck?

    2. j800rob

      Re: Twaddle

      I agree entirely - it's total twaddle. But in balance is it any less relevant than something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_Admiral_Grove or http://www.ringofstars.ru/across/?p=14955 ?

    3. Kunari

      Re: Twaddle

      How soon before we have to call him Saint Jobs?

    4. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Twaddle

      the TL;DR version:-

      The American dream

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    it will be a museum, where Iphones and ipads will be displays and sirii will speak of the life of steve jobs. children will flock in order to write reports for their history classes.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Museum

      It will be there long after Android has been consigned to history.

      Whilst Jobs, Gates and the like were bastards they have helped transform our lives tremendously. You might hate him for being who he is and also for everything Apple has and does do, even the most die-hard fandroid should grudgingly accept that the products that Apple have produced over the years cause whole areas of technology to advance. Ok so they wern't the first in pretty well anything but they have had a knack of making the technology work better than anyone else at the time.

      That is his legacy.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Museum

        The HP founding garage at 367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto is a historical site .

        Given that it's arguably the birth place of silicon valley it seems reasonable - whatever you think of their pricing of printer ink.

      2. Pascal Monett Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: Apple [...] cause whole areas of technology to advance

        Yeah, them rounded corners have really made a difference !

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It deserves to meet a fate like that of Jacking House

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackling_House

    1. AceRimmer

      Re: It deserves to meet a fate like that of Jacking House

      Good find!

  5. Mtech25
    Trollface

    Don't worry

    It will be turned into a parking lot once the apple fad dies off.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Angel

    Crist Drive?

    Why stop with memorializing the home when the Los Altos city council is just one simple consonant away from naming the street for Jobs!

    (Seriously, you have to respect the work that Jobs did at Apple and Pixar, but he definitely could have had his ego knocked down a couple pegs)

    1. Jemma

      Re: Crist Drive?

      Couple of pegs??

      I'm thinking at least a Jacobs Ladder or two...

      The guy was a nasty little sod with zero redeeming features whatsoever. His magnum opus was behind the times then & still is now arguably.. and cost twice its value. He helped destroy privacy with apparent relish and as a person was a grasping money obsessive egomaniac.

      I really do wonder how he'll be seen in the future - Jesus 2.0 or a Henry Ford or Walter Disney-esque character of the lovable old businessman who just happened to have a character flaw of being a complete & utter asocial dickwit of truly epic proportions.

      Will he be loved or cursed - that's the question...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Crist Drive?

      I think it might be a bit late to knock his ego down at this point...

      How does declaring his boyhood home a historic landmark hurt anyone, except the egos of Apple haters who would dislike the nearly 100% positive view most have of Jobs and try to make up for by having a 100% negative view of him which is equally unrealistic.

      People outside the US probably don't understand what a historic landmark designation means. In Europe it might mean something, but here it is just used for anything of even the most minor significance - specifically because the US has so little history compared to Europe. There is a house a few blocks from where I live that's on the National Register of Historic Places. It is the first Mennonite Church in the county, and other than being made of brick doesn't look any different from the homes around it. It is barely 100 years old. My entire neighborhood is a "historic district", which just means that you have to jump through a few more hoops to make changes to the structure that might change its character, like replacing windows or siding.

      It is only the Register calling it a "shrine". I doubt either the neighbors or the city would tolerate having a bunch of tourists coming through the place. It'll still be just a regular house where people live, they'll just be a bit more restricted in what they can do with it. Primarily they won't be able to knock it down and put up a bigger house there, as is pretty common in places like Palo Alto where the value of the land far exceeds the value of the structure on that land.

  7. Vociferous

    A shrine for the cult.

    Seems appropriate to me.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  8. Tom 35

    They should move it.

    It could be a shrine in the middle of the new doughnut they want to build.

  9. GBE

    Is it "Christ" or "Crist"?

    It would be appropriate if the guy that brought us the "Jesus Phone" grew up on Christ Drive...

  10. The Alpha Klutz

    some day my home will be a shrine

    im already writing my word into a holy book for you to obey later when i die

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nuke it from orbit

    It's the only way to be safe.

  12. Tom 11
    Headmaster

    *a-hem*

    *sure

  13. MrDamage Silver badge

    Whats next?

    The bag which he used to give himself green tea colonics becomes enshrined as the holy douchebag?

    1. asdf

      Re: Whats next?

      A douche bag for a douche bag.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So much hate

    So much angst.

    ??

    He was a man just like any other.

    Celebrate the new ideas.

    Enjoy the tech.

    Relax...

  15. jake Silver badge

    Frankly ...

    ... I'm surprised that it hasn't been taken down to one wall, and then had nineteen hundred (or so) extra square feet of floor-space added in a so-called "extension", resulting in yet another McMansion on a postage-stamp sized lot.

    Seriously, its not important. It's suburbia. Let it go.

  16. rcorrect
    Mushroom

    Even better...

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Looks like Heisenberg's house.

  18. cortland

    Hey!

    My 1956 Livermore "childhood home" should be one too; that's where (at age 12) I built an electronic projectile launcher , a "rail gun," in popular usage, in the bedroom.

    Except when I drove by there in 1997 the house was gone and there was a tree stump 70 cm across where it once stood. Tempus omnia vincit. And Dad conspired with the landlord to thwart my aim for fame.

  19. Electric Panda

    I wouldn't want to buy it.

    1) It's a very average property

    2) All the iFans hanging around? No thanks. Same goes for the Amityville Horrors house.

    Steve Jobs was just a businessman, a CEO. Maybe I could run bus tours past the hospital where Bill Gates was born and make a mint?

    1. Vociferous

      Really?

      > All the iFans hanging around? No thanks.

      You don't want vast numbers of people with a proven propensity to be easily swayed by commercials and proven willingness to pay over market price for products, hanging around your property, when you could be selling white plastic iBusts of Jobs to them for $300 each? Where's your entrepreneurial spirit?

      1. Electric Panda

        Re: Really?

        I hadn't actually thought of that... guess I'll never be the glorious visionary Jobs was :-(

        sniffle

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In my opinion they ought to burn it down, in consideration that Steve Jobs did more harm to humanity than Ghengis Kahn.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like