100 Things To Do In San Jose Before You Die

When I first found about about this book, I was expecting few surprises. I assumed that I would easily be checking off 90+ of the 100 items listed in its pages. I was wrong. How far did I get you ask? 54. That's right, as a hardcore San Jose aficionado that purposefully seeks out all the cool things to do in San Jose, I'm at 54/100 from this book.

"100 Things To Do In San Jose Before You Die" was written by Susannah Greenwood, the online content manager and social media princess for the San Jose Convention and Visitors Bureau. She has lived in San Jose for the past 14 years and has done a great job assembling this book. The best part is she's a clever writer with a great sense of humor. I even read through the items that I had already checked off my list to get her perspective.

I recommend the book to anyone who is a fan of San Jose and guarantee there will be items in here that you did not know about. You can buy the book now on paperback or get the digital Kindle edition over here.

Veggielution: Bounty of Heart's Delight

Each year, Veggielution throws the premier gourmet dining event for vegetarians and veggie lovers--Bounty of Heart's Delight. This year, Matthias Froeschl from Nashmarkt is preparing a five course feast. If you haven't been to Nashmarkt before, it is easily the best restaurant in Campbell and I'm sure Matthias will do an amazing job.

This event includes a tour of the farm, appetizers, the feast (featuring San Jose grown veggies), local beers and wines, hay rides, a silent auction, and even a barn dance. Tickets are not cheap, but you will get what you pay for and the proceeds go towards supporting San Jose's urban farm and their numerous community programs.

Bounty of Heart's Delight takes place on Saturday, August 22nd at Emma Prusch Park. Click here to buy your tickets!

St. James Park - Pirates in the Park, Chaco's Taco Festival, KARTMA, and More

I just stumbled upon the St. James Park Website and found a lot of great information in there about upcoming events and initiatives. One such event is called "Pirates in the Park." This is a treasure hunt for kids 11 and under as well as pirate-themed activities. It is happening on Saturday, August 8th between 10:00am and 1:00pm. If you are interested in volunteering and helping make the park a better place for everyone, head over here.

Next up we have an event more catered towards adults on August 15th called the Chacho's Taco Festival. There will be taco stands, tecate beer, live music, lucha libre, food trucks, a car show, and a taco-eating contest (which San Jose should dominate given we now have two stars in the "sport"). The event will run from 11am to 8pm and you can get all of the details along with a map over here.

There is a social entrepreneurship venture called KARTMA street cafe which is partially funded by the Knight Foundation and Ebay Foundation. This concept brings an eco-friendly coffee shop to St. James Park with the goal of employing the homeless and teaching them skills that can be used to land jobs in other cafes. For more info or to help raise the last $6k needed to get the cafe off the ground, head over to their Indiegogo campaign (10 days left, nearly fully funded).

The St. James Park website also have some great historical resources, including the full audio from a speech that John F. Kennedy gave while on the campaign trail there and a great video detailing the full history of the (in)famous park. There is a page on development happening around the park, future projects in the park such as the Levitt Pavilion, and a full list of special events. I highly recommend checking it out over here and hopefully together we can restore this park to once again be an asset we can all be proud of.

Rotary PlayGarden is Now Open!

A brand new two-acre playground built as part of the Rotary Club's 100th anniversary is now open off Coleman in the Guadalupe River Park. The $6 million playground was designed specifically so that all children can play together, even if they have special needs. There are slides, a merry-go-round, teeter-totters, swings, musical elements, sand-and-water play, and climbing structures. It is quite possibly the nicest playground in the Bay Area, so go check it out with the younger members of your family!

For more information on the Rotary PlayGarden, head over here.

San Jose Rotary PlayGarden Ribbon Cutting 2015 from WMS media Inc. on Vimeo.

Rotary PlayGarden Centennial Project

The Rotary Club of San Jose decided to do something pretty incredible as part of their 100th anniversary. They built an impressive PlayGarden on a 4.5 acre site in the Guadalupe River Park specifically designed for both children with special needs and those without to play side by side.

Again, this isn't a park exclusively for those with special needs and it isn't a park that just happens to have a couple of attractions that those with special needs can use. The idea is for all children to play together--a novel and innovative concept appropriate for Silicon Valley. Children with disabilities will gain access to the traditional playground experience and children without disabilities will learn about awareness and acceptance.

The park will officially open to the public either on the last Week of April or first week of May. Please watch the two minute video below for an idea of all the neat attractions in the park, which may be the best in all of San Jose. The Rotary did an exceptional job here!


San Jose Rotary PlayGarden Ribbon Cutting 2015 from WMS media Inc. on Vimeo.

Balermino Park Under Construction on Almaden Road

Balermino Park is being built on 1.8 acres near the Almaden Family Apartments. The most unique feature in the park will be a pavement design that resembles traditional Ohlone basket weaving (the person the park is named after was born to Ohlone-speaking parents). Balermino will also have picnic areas, play structures, and a basketball court.

Completion is scheduled by the end of the year and based on the photos below from San Jose Trails it looks like a lot of progress has already been made.

Sources: San Jose Trails, The Merc

New All-Access Play Garden Near Guadalupe River Park

The Downtown San Jose Rotary Club is planning to build an all-access play garden where children with and without special needs can play together. This would be the first of its kind in San Jose about would be located on 4.1 acres near the Guadalupe River Park and Gardens Visitor Center (Coleman and Autumn St.). Special equipment will allow wheelchair accessibility to slides, swings, merry-go-rounds, and other park attractions.

The total cost is going to be $6.35M. Groundbreaking is targeted for the end of 2013 and the opening should happen in 2014.

Source: SVBJ

Wednesday Wishlist: Year Round Snowboarding in San Jose?

Once in a while, there are still some proposals that surprise me... and this is one of them. How would you feel about being able to ski and snowboard at anytime during the year... IN SAN JOSE? Well, apparently there is an organization that is trying to do just that. Right now they are trying to collect enough signatures to get the City's attention in building an outdoor snow park at Lake Cunningham near Raging Waters. You can sign the petition at SJsnow.com. Also check out their Facebook page over here.

Source: Think Bigger San Jose

San Jose Three Creeks Trail Moves Forward!

Three different agencies have come together to make a critical land acquisition that allow San Jose's Three Creeks Trail project to come closer to realization. The City of San Jose, The Santa Clara County Open Space Authority, and the Parks and Recreation Department of Santa Clara County have jointly chipped in a total of $6M to acquire land and add an additional mile to San Jose's interconnected trail network. This will eventually connect the Guadalupe River, Coyote Creek, and Los Gatos Creek Trails.

There are currently 53 miles of trails in San Jose, with plans to bring the total to over 100 miles, making it one of the nation's largest jurisdictional networks.

For more info, I highly recommend checking out the press release right over here. Thanks to Yves for the tip!

Roosevelt Park Street Cleanup Tomorrow

This post almost didn't happen due to the Blogger outage yesterday!  Tomorrow the Roosevelt Park Neighborhood Association is putting together a street cleanup and they are looking for some volunteers. All of the info is below:

WHAT: Street Cleanup
WHEN: Saturday, 5/14 from 9:30 - 11:30 am
WHERE: South east corner of 22nd Street and E. Santa Clara
WHY: For neighbors to work together to make our neighborhood a clean place to live
Web site: http://www.rooseveltparkneighborhood.com/

Guadalupe River Park Expansion!

Great news today. Yves from the Department of Parks, Recreation & Neighborhood Services wants to share information regarding an expansion to the Guadalupe River Trail. I'm hoping that one day this will become our Central Park, and it's already off to a great start. If you haven't walked it lately, now is a great time to check it out. Full info on the improvements below.

Hi Josh,

I wanted to share some good downtown news with you and your readers.

The City of San Jose has been developing an extension to the Guadalupe River Trail over the past year.  The project starts at the Woz Way, near the Children’s Discovery Museum and follows the west bank of the river along the parking lot, beneath the freeway interchange and leads to Virginia Street.  The 0.4 mile extension provides views of the river and busy urban scene.  Along the way, trail users can stop to enjoy two interpretive signs; one discusses “Goosetown” (Italian immigrant neighborhood) and the other shares information about the Ohlone tribes that lived along the river.  Decorative pavement at both Woz Way and Virginia Street greet visitors and helps to draw attention to this new recreational and bike commuting resource.  This project came together because of collaboration between the City of San Jose, Caltrans, Santa Clara Valley Water District, Army Corps of Engineers and the State Resources Agency. 

Information about the Guadalupe River Trail including maps and photos can be found at:

http://www.sjparks.org/Trails/GRiver/index.asp

Information about San Jose’s trails can be found at:

http://www.sjparks.org/Trails/

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about the project or trail development throughout the City.  I enjoy reading your blog every morning and am happy to finally be able to share a contribution.

Thanks

- Yves Zsutty, Trail Manager

San Jose has a Beach?

Here is a little known fun fact that is in good company with "San Jose has a marina?" and "it snows in San Jose?" We have a lake beach in Almaden! I completely forgot about this until I saw the I<3SJ wall on Facebook a couple days ago. For video proof, look no further than a random family video I pulled off of YouTube below.

Enhancements Coming to St. James Park!!

Construction Happening In St. James Park

from The Bay Area Real Estate Blog by Jessie Woodyard

St. James Park, one of the many famous parks in Downtown San Jose, is marked by historic buildings that surround it in every direction.  In the past few weeks, there has been some changes to the park.  The old buildings that sat in the Eastern portion of it are no longer there.  Phase I of the Park’s newMaster Plan has commenced.
The buildings were once home for Senior Citizen activities.  Those activities have since been relocated to the Roosevelt Community Center which allowed for San Jose Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services to step in and begin construction of the Master Plan.

The St. James Park Master Plan was originally adopted in 2002 but couldn’t start due to funding limitations.  The entire park is intended to be remodeled but now, it will be remodeled in phases.
The first Phase is to demolish the existing buildings and replace them with turf.  The project was originally budgeted at $700,000 but since was scaled back to approximately $300,000.
What changed?

Well, as we’re all heard, the San Jose Redevelopment Agency is scraping for money (once a financial contributor to the project) and the City of San Jose is in the midst of a financial crisis (another contributor to the project).  St. James Park is affected as a result.  But really, there’s not much to complain.  The construction project will absolutely improve the park.

   











In an interview with Matt Cano from the San Jose Park Service he said, “I’m looking forward to more open space and better views.”  By eliminating the old buildings, the park will achieve this and more.  By the end of March the project will be completed.

When construction of future phases of the park’s Master Plan is still undetermined.  It all boils down to funding and where these funds come from is an unknown.

Cano commented about the possibility of getting grant funding but it’s stuff competition from not only other parks in the region but locally as well.  Another funding possibility is from park fees generated from new Downtown San Jose housing developments.  There are many planned or entitled residential units, all of which will be subject to parks fees, but again, this is uncertain for reasons we can all image.

For the time bring though, the San Jose construction in St. James Park is a nice change and one that can be appreciated by all.  Check it out next time you’re driving by on North 3^rd street. 

Guadalupe River Park Conservancy

I just wanted to give a quick plug to the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy, a non-profit group that provides community leadership for the development and active use of the park. They have many events going on for all ages and interest such as walks, garden tours, sustainability gardening, and environmental info sessions. I also imagine they will be the ones responsible for helping turn the Guadalupe River Park into our version of Central Park!

You can find their website right over here, and their blog over here (there is also a permanent link in the right sidebar of The San Jose Blog).

Mt. Umunhum Access Coming in 2012

A mountain peak in South San Jose that use to house the Almaden Air Force Station will be open for limited public access starting in 2012. A few years later in 2016, it should be fully open to the public who can come an enjoy panoramic views of Silicon Valley and the Monterey Bay. Check out the videos below for more information:

Tomorrow is PARK(ing) Day

If you're like me, you're probably wondering what the heck PARK(ing) Day is. Turns out, it's a worldwide event that encourages city dwellers to turn metered parking spots into temporary parks for the public good. Basically, it's an event to raise awareness for the need for more urban green space. San Jose has a group created by the Greenbelt Alliance, the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, and the San Jose Parks Foundation that will be PARK(ing) at the corner of 2nd & San Carlos tomorrow. Great timing with Zer01 hitting full swing tomorrow!

Fun In The Park! (Click to Enlarge)