With no takers, Ampex sign comes down

Assistant City Manager Aaron Aknin said the sign was deemed non-historic during the development review process. Stanford tried to find someone to take the sign, but no one was interested.

“Stanford has reached out to a variety of local historic societies to see if they had interest in taking possession of the letters,” Stanford spokesman E.J. Miranda said in an email. “We also offered the sign to Ampex, who vacated the property years ago. To date, no one has offered to take the sign.”

Miranda said it has been placed in storage in the event that a “qualified group” comes forward to take it.

“We are primarily interested in groups that have some affiliation to preserving historic and/or technological elements of the Peninsula,” he said.

The sign has stood between Ampex’s former headquarters and Stanford’s outpatient center — visible from Highway 101 — for as long as anyone can remember. 

Ampex, which is now headquartered in Hayward, was founded in San Carlos in 1944 and relocated to Redwood City in the 1950s. It was one of the first American companies to make magnetic tape recorders.

Numerous Ampex documents, photographs and artifacts area already part of Stanford’s Special Collections Department and accessible to people researching Ampex’s role in the history of technology, Miranda said, adding that the new Stanford development will continue to honor area history.

“As part of the Redwood City project, we will commemorate important periods of land use on the project site — farming, flower fields, one of the Peninsula’s first airfields and a center for technology innovation — in one of the outdoor plaza areas,” he said.

zachary@smdailyjournal.com

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