Glossary

The words you’ll hear around Downtown San Jose — places, history, weather and local ways, explained

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Architecture

Bank of Italy Building: The 14-story tower of 1925-26 at First and Santa Clara streets, San Jose’s first skyscraper, with a green-lit spire.
Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph: The domed Catholic cathedral on the corner of the plaza, on the site of San Jose’s first parish church of 1803.
City Hall rotunda: The 110-foot glass dome of Richard Meier’s City Hall of 2005, named the Janet Gray Hayes Rotunda in 2024.
Downtown Historic District: The National Register district of about one block bounded by First, San Fernando, Third and Santa Clara streets, the city’s densest group of older commercial buildings.
Fallon House: The 1855 Italianate house across from the Peralta Adobe, built by Thomas Fallon and shown today as a furnished Victorian home.
First Unitarian Church: The Richardsonian Romanesque church of 1891-92 on North Third Street, facing St. James Park, with domes, cupolas and a triple-arched window.
Hotel De Anza: The ten-story Zig Zag Moderne hotel of 1931 on West Santa Clara Street, with its rose neon sign and the painted Diving Diva.
Hotel Montgomery: The 1911 Classical Revival hotel on South First Street that was rolled about 187 feet south in 2000 to save it.
The Sainte Claire: The six-story Renaissance Revival hotel of 1926 at Market and San Carlos streets, now The Westin San Jose.
Tower Hall: The 1910 Spanish Colonial Revival building on Washington Square, the oldest on the San José State campus.
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral: The redwood church of 1863 on St. James Park, the oldest church building in continuous use in San Jose.

Arts & Culture

California Theatre: The 1927 movie palace on South First Street, restored in 2004 as the home of Opera San José and Symphony San José.
Hammer Theatre: The theatre on the Paseo de San Antonio, completed in 1997 for the San Jose Repertory Theatre and run by San José State since 2016.
Quetzalcóatl statue: Robert Graham’s plumed-serpent sculpture at the south end of the plaza, among the city’s earliest and most argued-over public art.
San Jose Civic: The Mission Revival auditorium of 1936 on Market Street, built on land given by T. S. and Mrs. Montgomery, and still a concert hall.
San Jose Semaphore: Four rotating lights on Adobe’s Almaden Tower, an artwork by Ben Rubin that sends a coded message every 7.2 seconds.
Victory Salute: Rigo 23’s 2005 statue on San José State’s Tower Lawn of Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists at the 1968 Olympics.

Events

Christmas in the Park: The free holiday display in the downtown plaza from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, grown from Don Lima’s Nativity scene.
Cinequest: The independent film festival founded downtown in 1990, held each March.
Music in the Park: The summer concert series in the downtown plaza, started in the late 1980s to bring people back downtown.
San Jose Jazz Summer Fest: San Jose Jazz’s three-day August festival, with its main stage in the downtown plaza, begun in 1990.
Skate Under the Palms: The winter ice rink at the Circle of Palms, a downtown tradition since 1994, formerly called Downtown Ice.
South First Fridays: The monthly First Friday art walk in SoFA, when galleries and museums stay open late with free entry.
SubZERO Festival: A free two-day DIY arts festival on South First Street each June, where, in its own words, street meets geek.

History & People

Electric light tower: The iron tower that straddled Santa Clara and Market streets from 1881 to 1915, built to light downtown with arc lamps.
First state capitol: The two-story adobe on Market Plaza where California’s first Legislature met from December 1849; San Jose was the seat of government until 1851.
J. J. Owen: James Jerome Owen, editor of the San Jose Mercury, who campaigned for the electric light tower of 1881.
Juzgado: The pueblo’s adobe town hall, court and jail, over which Thomas Fallon raised the American flag in July 1846.
Legislature of a Thousand Drinks: The nickname of California’s first Legislature, which met in San Jose in 1849-50.
Market Street Chinatown: San Jose’s 19th-century Chinatown beside the plaza, home to about 1,400 people before it was destroyed by arson in 1887.
Peralta Adobe: The two-room adobe of 1797 near San Pedro Square, the oldest building in San Jose and the last structure left from the Spanish pueblo.
Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe: The Spanish farming town founded on November 29, 1777, the first civil settlement in Alta California not tied to a mission or presidio, and the origin of San Jose.
San Jose Redevelopment Agency: The city agency, once the largest of its kind in California, that rebuilt much of downtown from the 1980s.
Tamien: The Ohlone people of the Santa Clara Valley, whose name comes from the place where the first Mission Santa Clara stood on the Guadalupe River.
Thomas Fallon: The Irish-born soldier who took the pueblo for the United States in July 1846 and later became mayor; a statue of him stirred protests for decades.

Local Life & Customs

Mission street names: Downtown’s old east-west streets are named after California missions: Santa Clara, San Fernando, San Carlos, San Antonio, St. James and St. John.
San Hosay: How San Jose is pronounced, spelled out for English speakers in old guidebooks; the name means Saint Joseph.

Places

Circle of Palms: A ring of palm trees around the California state seal beside the plaza, marking the site of California’s first state capitol, 1849-1851.
Diridon station: San Jose’s main rail station at 65 Cahill Street, an Italian Renaissance Revival depot named for county supervisor Rod Diridon Sr.
Downtown San Jose: The central district of San Jose: the old pueblo plaza, the historic commercial core, SoFA, San Pedro Square and the edge of San José State, roughly from Julian Street to Interstate 280.
Fountain Alley: The narrow lane off First Street near Santa Clara Street, named after an artesian well that overflowed and flooded it.
Guadalupe River Park: A 120-acre park running about 2.6 miles along the Guadalupe River through downtown, opened in 2005.
Little Italy San Jose: A few blocks by the Guadalupe River near SAP Center, on the site of San Jose’s 1880s Italian settlement, marked by a 31-foot gateway arch.
Market Street: The pueblo-era street along the west side of the plaza, once the city’s main business street and home of its 19th-century Chinatown.
Paseo de San Antonio: The pedestrian walkway from the plaza east to San José State, made from San Antonio Street in 1988.
San José State University: The public university on downtown’s eastern edge, founded as a normal school in 1857 and on Washington Square since 1871.
San Pedro Square: The oldest district of downtown, on the northwest side, now known for San Pedro Square Market and its restaurants, with the Peralta Adobe and the Fallon House at its heart.
SAP Center: The arena at downtown’s western edge, opened in 1993 as the San Jose Arena and home of the San Jose Sharks, who call it the Shark Tank.
SoFA District: South First Area: three blocks of South First Street between San Carlos and Reed streets, downtown’s arts and nightlife district.
St. James Park: A 6.8-acre park in the northern half of downtown, mapped as St. James Square in 1848 and lined with historic churches and civic buildings.
The plaza (Plaza de César Chávez): The two-acre park on South Market Street, laid out in 1797 as the pueblo’s main square and called the oldest public open space in Northern California. In 2026 the city began choosing a new name for it.