San Jose Inside

When I was mayor, I bought my cars locally at Lon Normandin’s or Don Lucas’s, I shopped at Ed Mosher’s in the Fairmont, Teel’s jewelry there too, Navelet’s, and Valley Fair, but never crossed the Maginot Line that separated San Jose and Santa Clara, and therefore consciously made my decisions to provide the most sales tax to our city, San Jose, which was trying to sustain services like libraries and parks. It seemed the sensible thing to do, and after all, I thought, if you can’t find it in San Jose, it isn’t worth having.

The past is prologue. Here was the center of our valley’s commercial life and tax base—the heart of San Jose. The majority of hotels and department stores, movie theatres and fine restaurants were concentrated here. If you wanted a car, you had only to come to this area. Elite jewelry stores were located here as well as retail outlets for sporting goods, uniforms, ladies’ fine wear, toys, televisions, and just about anything under the sun that the consumer could want. You could even buy a tractor. This was downtown San Jose, circa 1955

City Hall Diary

Last Tuesday, we considered whether to continue preliminary discussions with the Redevelopment Agency (RDA) and three private property owners regarding San Pedro Square. The issue under consideration was should RDA spend money to do capital improvements like sidewalk widening, streetscapes and loans to rehab older buildings in the area.

One of the most nerve-racking experiences a worker can have on the job is announcing to their manager that they want a union. Doing so can be a quick way to lose your job, and lamenting about ineffective labor laws doesn’t pay the bills while looking through classifieds on your couch.  It is, by all measure, a dangerous gamble, but one that can pay off in the long run with higher wages, benefits, and a mechanism for airing grievances.

When you think of San Jose and its financial ability, its real strength, I wonder what comes to mind: downtown, and places like the TECH Museum, the beautiful Fairmont Hotel, or perhaps the Arena? I imagine it might be any of those. It might also be another place, that is, more a state of mind than a physical location, namely, Silicon Valley. But if those or similar sites leap to mind, I have one other location to conjure: North San Jose. Sometimes known as the “Golden Triangle,” it is one of the largest and richest pieces of real estate in the world. There are big plans for it still. These plans call for adding 83,000 jobs and 32,000 homes in the area north and west of Interstate 880 and south of Highway 237. About 8,000 residences are currently planned for this very special area.

As I travel to new places, I always compare them to San Jose.  I spent the weekend in San Diego and noticed that the dynamics of that city are so different from what we have here. There, the beach towns and entertainment scene in Pacific Beach cater to a college-aged crowd and have become overrun with young kids, many of them troublemakers. On the other hand, downtown San Diego is chic, popular, classy and has an entirely different feel to it. People are dressed up in suits and dresses. Clubs have heavy cover charges and $350-per-table bottle service. The big money brings a different clientele and a much different feel.

For the first time in many years, I attended a Democratic State Convention last Sunday.  The fact that it was being held at our own Convention Center made it easy, but the real hook was the fact that an Irish parliamentarian friend of mine wanted to hear Bill Clinton’s speech and say hello to him. We did both as we listened to the 45-minute speech (pretty good) and then spoke to the former president for a few minutes.

The naming of places and the honoring of icons is an often confusing and sometimes treacherous country to enter. Walking by the empty lot on Jackson between Sixth and Seventh Streets that was once the city corporation yard led me to a number of thoughts about that problem, our government, and local history. For many years this was site of the city-owned garage and maintenance facility. Its acquisition is shrouded in a bit of mystery from the sordid days of the forced internment of Japanese Americans. It is alive in the memories of many members of that community who believed their area and property were seized during that tragic time. But the story goes back even further than the recent focus on the World War Two chapter. As L. A. Chung pointed out in the Mercury News, it goes back to the destruction of our old Chinatown in the area of the Fairmont Hotel.

This past Wednesday night I hosted a community budget meeting for my district. Between City Hall and my meeting I stopped at home to pick up my laptop. As I left, I saw my neighbors out in front of their homes. My next door neighbor was tossing a ball with his son. Other neighbors were working on a car, fiddling with sprinklers and carrying groceries into their home.  I thought to myself: no one is going to show up for this meeting

This season is a fun time of year—getting together with friends and family whether it is for Christmas or Hanukah or another celebration—with holiday parties, a lighter work load due to the end of year, shopping for gifts for loved ones and getting extra rest. This is also the time of year for enjoying the plentiful decorations that compliment our city.

Why do we relish traditions around the holidays? Why do we become nostalgic about certain things that we do with family and friends? You don’t see people planning to go to the same play every March or going to see a display around Valentine’s Day. But in San Jose, the Christmas season seems to bring out some wonderful traditions.

After a brief trip outside of the U.S., I was pleased to see that 1stACT’s efforts to revitalize our downtown are meeting with great endorsements. With the strong support of Bruce Chizen of Adobe and the solid leadership of Connie Martinez, it seems like the future is quite bright. The business and arts community that care so much about our city center have every reason to be optimistic and it does not hurt to have the Knight Foundation chipping in a few million. The city, Mayor Reed and RDA honcho Harry Mavrogenes are also stalwart supporters. It is a vision that we can all rally around.

I took advantage of the great Bay Area weather that San Jose benefits from and attended two night time events that were held outdoors in downtown.

I went to the Christmas in the Park fundraiser at the Circle of Palms two weeks ago.  The night was filled with great company, a silent auction, wine and opportunities to win trips. All of this was outside in the heart of San Jose.

By Leonard McKay

Editor’s Note: As a tribute to our recently departed friend, we are repeating the piece he wrote for this site last Christmas.

Did you ever wonder how Christmas was celebrated in the past in San Jose? When our first foreign settlers, the Spaniards, were here, the birth of Christ was celebrated by going to mass at the Mission Santa Clara, the closest church. The male citizens rode their horses for the three mile trip. The women and young children went on the rough ride to the mission on a wooden wheeled, no-springs caretta. After the Americans arrived, most of the celebrations moved to the family home or local churches.

All the talk about subsidies and too much money spent on the race will hit its peak as the Grand Prix rolls into town this weekend.  But will this oppressive heat keep spectators away from a fun, novel event that brings more new people to San Jose than almost any other event we’ve had in our city’s history?