Stories
Real stories about Downtown San Jose, from the people who published them
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- San Jose officials to weigh new name for downtown plaza ↗City staff recommend Plaza de San Jose after more than 10,500 residents weigh in.
- San José Asks for Help Renaming Plaza de Cesar Chavez ↗The ranked-choice survey for the roughly 2-acre plaza on South Market Street.
- Five finalists for renaming downtown San Jose plaza ↗The shortlist of new names for the plaza and how residents could vote.
Classic reads
- San Jose historic houses abut modern downtown marketplace ↗The adobe and the Fallon House among the high-rises and food halls of San Pedro Square.
- San Jose formally apologizes for the arson of its Chinatown more than a century ago ↗The 2021 council resolution on the 1887 burning of the Market Street Chinatown, with historians on what led to it.
- San Jose apologizes for burning down Chinatown in 1887 ↗The apology read near the old Fairmont, where the Chinatown once stood.
- Market Fresh ↗A columnist makes the case for a public market at San Pedro Square around the Peralta Adobe.
- The Italian Job ↗The early arguments over where a San Jose Little Italy should go.
- Christmas in San Jose ↗How San Jose celebrated Christmas, from the downtown department-store windows to the Limas’ crèche.
- San Jose Electric Light Tower ↗Building record for the 1881 tower, also nicknamed Owens’s Folly.
- Victory Salute ↗The story behind the statue of Tommie Smith and John Carlos on Tower Lawn.
- Little Italies of California: San Jose ↗Why San Jose’s small Little Italy is so often overlooked, and how it is being revived.
- Hotel De Anza ↗The 1931 Art Deco hotel, its neon sign and the Diving Diva.
- California Theatre a San Jose gem ↗A student’s trip downtown to find the restored 1927 movie palace.
- Saving the Montgomery ↗How the 1911 Hotel Montgomery was rolled down South First Street, with a link to the film of the move.
- Gonzales/Peralta Adobe – Fallon House Historic Site ↗Tours of the 1797 adobe and the Fallons’ Victorian house beside San Pedro Square.
- Electric Light Tower ↗The original tower, the 1977 replica, and early street lighting in San Jose.
- Walk Around Town: Christmas in the Park ↗The 1884 coyote hunt that ended at St. Joseph’s, and the history of Christmas in the Park.
- Looking Back: San Jose’s Electric Light Tower ↗The tower’s story from Owen’s idea to the 1915 collapse and the Eiffel ‘lawsuit’.