We had guests from my wife’s hometown of Baltimore visit us this weekend. We did the standard tour: San Jose, San Francisco, and Monterey. While our visitors enjoyed all three cities, their photo journal of this trip will disproportionately feature locales to the North and South. San Jose is just not a “post card” city.
A good city post card has photos of places that are unique, interesting, and renown. You don’t have to break a sweat to make a San Francisco post card. You start with the Golden Gate bridge then you have a choice of about a dozen places or things. Monterey is not tough either, especially if you include the dramatic scenery along Highway 1.
In San Jose, we have unique places. We have interesting things. But we have nothing that is renown, except regionally. The Winchester Mystery House (link) is fairly well known in Northern California. As much as I enjoyed going there for elementary school field trips, I’m not thrilled that this may be San Jose’s best known tourist attraction. The place was built because someone was misguided by a strange, mystical understanding of the future – sort of like today’s convention center tent.
So here’s the challenge: what should we have on a San Jose postcard? I like the Tech, (link) especially if you can get a photo of children playing in the fountain in the foreground.
I also like the idea written about by my fellow blogger Tom McEnery (link) that we build something to honor Cesar Chavez in the plaza that bears his name. If it could be bold and interesting, we might have a statue worthy of the man and an icon worthy of a post card.
Using the phrase “understanding of the future” for the tent or any idea that comes out of this administration is being kind.
While the light tower is fine to bring back, the concept of rebuilding an historic icon is so San Jose. The current Mayor and Council vote to demolish what is left of San Jose’s historic buildings on a regular basis. The easiest way to have buildings of historic significance is not to demolish them in the first place.
I agree with Rick. San Jose grew into a sprawling suburban mess from a small-town core and we never had the wealth of historic buildings like big-time cities of the 19th century. It was important to preserve what we had, but one after another, sitting mayors and councils have voted to destroy more than they vote to preserve. Greedy developers compound the problem. There’s not much left around here, and the History Park is a sad testament to that. We’ve got a good 100 years to go in this town before it’s going to have any sense of place.
I suggest the new, improved skyline of downtown San Jose. It looks great. The post card photo people are outdated types. We need to focus on San Jose just like San Diego. We have a lot of interesting buildings to show.
Gary makes a good point. The skyline shots we see currently on post cards and on TV news shows are not very flattering. Seems to me that a good photographer with a zoom lens could get some great shots from Oak Hill, which as I recall provides a nice view of the skyline, or from the Evergreen hills, which I had never been through until recently and noticed what a great view a lot of those people have of the downtown.
We still need some kind of landmark that will be associated with this town. Right now the . . . er . . . finger is pointing to a giant cup of chili, but I’m sure something else will come along. The planets are a nice idea but they’re not going to have much of a presence.
I have no problem with a repro of the light tower since it blew down and wasn’t demolished intentionally. So it took us about 100 years to replace it, but put it back where it was and use modern low-energy lighting. I think that’s our best bet since it was one of this town’s claims to fame back in the day.
Wish I could take credit for it – but the skyline that is at the top of this blog is pretty darn good and much better than most I’ve seen.
With all this technology, all these best and brightest thinkers, this incredible, can-do private sector – you would think that the city would have some cutting edge, jaw dropping something or other.
But instead what does the city have to show off?
Nuttin.
Unless you count the soon to be unleashed, half a billion, “tax dollars die here” city hall.
Pretty obvious to me that the public sector is woefully underpowered.
It’s so obvious that I don’t want the city to try and do anything big again – ever.
Because I know it will be yet another collosal monument to incompetence, waste, fraud, and cronyism, and back room deals, and…
Just focus on the potholes and the schools please.
Let’s take the meadow by the Children’s Discovery Museum, extend it out to the parking lot on the other side of the river and plant it as a working orchard. Put in a few varieties of heirloom peaches, ‘cots, cherries and for certain folks at City Hall some prunes. We’d be the only downtown in the US where people could enjoy fresh fruit in the warmer months, peach blossoms on a spring day and the changing leaves would add autumn color. Talk about a post card view!
You know, I’m almost serious…
The Tech is all right, but has not historic significance. San Jose needs to bring back the light tower. That was known nationally and internationally.
This town has no waterfront. There was a lot of talk back in the 70’s about using San Antonio’s model for the Guadalupe River. What happened to that? What a thriving shopping and entertainment district that would have been. Instead, it’s just a dead zone after all of that flood control work. Downtown real estate is way too expensive now to dam up the river and create a lake or something, but it seems to me that this plan would have worked out favorably for San Jose and would have provided the photo ops that Jude’s visitors found lacking here.
How about the photo of the Children’s Discovery Museum.
http://www.pbase.com/32vcobra/sanjose
Scarry thoughts. I use to run through St. James park as a kid at night. That was only in the late 60s. Go back in time. Remove the 2nd street cut through, which was installed in the 50s and build one of the best downtown parks on the West Coast. There’s your town square.
Of course we don’t do hangings in the park anymore, like in the good old days
Skyline of San Jose is great for a postcard and adding the light tower to it with a new twist… consider calling it the “the Chip” light tower with a lookout at the top and restaurant at the top. There could be a museum at the bottom … lots of great Silicon Valley historical items around here that may be gathered up. You should be able to north to the bay, east into the mountains and south and west towards the mountains as well. I am able to name all the buildings already, “Chip” light tower to our great skyline.
There are many great possibilities for San Jose, surely someone will help us to get this going.