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!

Sentinel Tree Gifted to History Park by Master Gardeners of Santa Clara County

San José, California – January 10, 2012 --- Long before Global Positioning Systems (GPS) or Mapquest, there were travel landmarks. In the days of wagon trains and horseback the early settlers found the way to San José marked by a giant sycamore. Anyone living in or around the Santa Clara Valley will undoubtedly be familiar with the lyrics to Do You Know the Way to San José , a hit song made popular by Dionne Warwick in 1968. The Sentinel Tree, a sycamore on North 21^st Street, was that landmark.

Nearly twelve years ago an effort was made to save the oldest tree in San José, in the Northside Neighborhood at 21^st Street, where the sycamore stood in a front yard. But it was declared ‘not possibl to safely preserve the sentinel sycamore’ by arborists. At that time, ‘a community meeting was held for the purpose of deciding where to plant genetically identical clones of the tree.’

Three cloned grafts were taken from that Western Sycamore in 2000. On Thursday afternoon (between noon and 2:30 pm), January 19, one of the clones is to be transplanted at History Park at Kelley Park. Native to California, the Western Sycamore, or California Sycamore, Platanus racemosa, is common in the Western United States.

The Master Gardeners will be moving it from its temporary location to grow and thrive in an open space at History Park, near the Greenwalt House, now home to the Immigrant Resettlement & Cultural Center (IRCC), the Museum of the Boat People & the Republic of Vietnam.

“We are really excited about having a new "living history" component to History Park,” said Alida Bray, President and CEO of History San José. “It is the perfect addition that will be incorporated into our school programs immediately!”

# # #

http://www.northside-sj.org/html/neighborhood/landmarks/lost-giant_sycamore.html

About History San José: 

History San José is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and sharing the continuing history of the Santa Clara Valley.  HSJ manages one of the largest and most comprehensive regional history collections in the State of California, from 1784 Spanish governmental records to twenty-first century Silicon Valley technology.  History San José aspires to provide innovative national leadership in preserving and sharing regional history by engaging diverse audiences in exploring the varieties of human experience that contributes to the continuing history of San José and the Santa Clara Valley. 

History San José     1650 Senter Road     San José, CA  95112      408.287.2290

www.historysanjose.org

Jill Arnone
The Arnone Group

Catch the 49er Game at the San Pedro Square Market!

San Pedro Square Market "Happenings" Newsletter 

Hi Everyone,

It's been a while since our last communication - thanks to everyone who has joined the mailing list in the meantime!

SPSM is in the midst of a growth spurt . We opened two new restaurants and expanded our seating area over the holidays. We've been enjoying steadily increasing business every week, especially at lunchtime. We've signed two new vendors in the last few weeks, Loteria Taco Bar and The Little Cheese Shoppe, bringing our total signed leases up to 18 exciting, independent local businesses.

We'd like to invite all of you down to the Market on Sunday to root the 49ers on in the NFC Championship game at 3:30. It will be Happy Hour all day at the Market Bar, which means discounts on beer, wine, well drinks, and selected cocktails. Last week we had a great crowd for the Divisional round, and we'd love to build on that this weekend!
 

In other Market news, we have two upcoming live concerts:

- Friday, February 3rd with the Burroughs Brothers Band
- Friday, February 10th, with blues rockers Pearl Alley.

We're also very excited to announce that we will begin our year-round weekly Saturday Farmers Market on April 7th, so stay tuned for more info on that.

Thank you all for your continued interest and support. If you haven't made it out to the Market yet, there's never been a better time to visit, come check us out!

San Jose Unemployment Drops Below 9%

More good news for the South Bay job market. Unemployment has fallen from 9.2% to 8.9% in December. In the previous year, unemployment was 10.6%. Having a 1.7% drop over 12 months is dramatic. This is a stellar sign for the local economy.

For more info, click here.

Alaska is Adding Flights to Reno

Starting June 4th, you'll be able to hop on a new Alaska Airlines / Horizon Air flight to the biggest little city in the world. The best part: $69 inaugural fares and double miles for flights between June 4th and July 31st. The worst part: this actually replaces a Southwest route that is being discontinued April 10th. You win some, you lose some. In this case I think we more or less broke even.

More details right over here.

Flextronics is Moving to San Jose!

Flextronics, a $4 billion public company that provides electronics design and manufacturing services, has just leased 130,000 sqft at the America Center in San Jose. It's corporate headquarters will be relocated from Milpitas into San Jose, right next to Polycom (moving May 2012). Between these 2 leases, the America Center is now 81% leased.

For more info, click here.

Wednesday Wishlist: Michelin Star Restaurants (2012 Edition)

It's time for my annual rant on San Jose not having any Michelin star restaurants. The Michelin Guide is likely the most prestigious handbook for top restaurants in the world. In the US, they only publish the guide for 3 regions: New York, The Bay Area, and Chicago. The good news is that for 2012 we now have 47 restaurants in the Bay Area with at least one Michelin star. The bad news is none of them are in San Jose (even Oakland has one).

I do think it's only a matter of time before we get a Michel-rated restaurant. In fact, I'm really surprised Le Papillon and La Foret did not make the cut yet. I've been to a quarter of Michelin restaurants in the bay, and both of these are better than many of them. Heck, I'll even call out one restaurant--Village Pub--for really not deserving to be on the list below at all.

As for the South Bay as a whole, we have the same 6 restaurants as last year (highlighted below). Thankfully we didn't lose any, and Baume in Palo Alto was upgraded from a single star to a coveted two star designation. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that next year we'll at minimum increase the South Bay's representation in the guide with a few more restaurants, and hopefully one of those will be in San Jose. I'll also add that it would be pretty slick to see a Mexican, Vietnamese, or Indian restaurant achieve this status in the South Bay. This would really stand out as something unique not only in the Bay Area, but also internationally (very few non-French ethnic restaurants get stars, Dio Deka is our South Bay exception).




Three Stars
Restaurant at Meadowood, St. Helena
French Laundry, Yountville

Two Stars
Baume, South Bay*
Benu, San Francisco
Coi, San Francisco
Cyrus, Healdsburg
Manresa, South Bay*
Saison, San Francisco*

One Star
Acquerello, San Francisco
Alexander’s Steakhouse, South Bay*
Ame, San Francisco*
Applewood, Guerneville
Atelier Crenn, San Francisco
Auberge du Soleil, St. Helena
Aziza, San Francisco
Bouchon, Yountville
Boulevard, San Francisco
Campton Place, San Francisco
Chez TJ, South Bay*
Commis, East Bay
Dio Deka, South Bay*
Etoile, Yountville*
Farmhouse Inn & Restaurant, Forestville
Fleur de Lys, San Francisco
Frances, San Francisco
Gary Danko, San Francisco*
La Costanera, Peninsula
La Folie, San Francisco
La Toque, Napa
Luce, San Francisco*
Madera, Peninsula*
Madrona Manor, Healdsburg
Masa’s, San Francisco
Michael Mina, San Francisco
One Market, San Francisco
Plumed Horse, South Bay*
Quince, San Francisco
Redd, Yountville
Sante, Sonoma
Solbar, Calistoga
Sons & Daughters, San Francisco
Spruce, San Francisco
Terra, St. Helena
Terrapin Creek, Bodega Bay
Ubuntu, Napa
Village Pub, Peninsula*
Wakuriya, Peninsula

* Restaurants Josh has been to

Three Major Updates (for the Sharks-related posts)

Hello, Sharks fans – what a long time it has been! Although my absence has been extensive and my return way overdue, I feel that this update should be quite significant (which I think it is!).

As some of you have already noticed, I have been providing updates to the Sharks games on Twitter since the Sharks took on the Washington Capitals on January 7th. This is one significant update of three that I plan to make as I make the transition to giving you, the fans, more action-packed posts.

Here are the three major updates I plan to implement in the coming days:

1) Video updates by ME.
• That’s right – I just purchased an HD camera that will soon be the tool I use to provide the fans with my personal updates and takes on the Sharks.
• If possible, will include video highlight reels to complement the video presentation.
• Updates will likely be performed on a weekly basis, although my work schedule may change the course of events (I audit for a Big 4, so this can be very true factor).

2) Live updates to every Sharks game on Twitter (@TheSanJoseBlog).
• All goals, power plays (and penalty kills), significant events, and “end of period updates” will be contributed.
• Important updates from the official Sharks twitter will be re-tweeted.
• Team updates everyone should know about will be posted or re-tweeted.
• I will also be available to reply to Sharks-related tweets sent to @TheSanJoseBlog.

3) A New Sharks statistics spreadsheet (in progress)
• All of you interested in stats of all kinds (goals, assists, penalties, hits, blocked shots, takeaways, face-offs, shots, and more) and can open Excel documents (.xlsx) on your computer – this is for you.
• This is also for those who are sick and tired of trying to interpret the multiple PDF document pages of stats for each game, typically presented in an incomprehensible format.
• Includes significant career stats for active Sharks players and all stat types for each player for the current season.
• Once completed, the document will be free to download.

Hopefully I can deliver on all three major updates in the days to come to provide you, the fans, with a clear picture of the performance of our Sharks. As far as the video updates are concerned, I will be interested in creating an intro to the videos, but that may come with time.

Hope all is well and GO SHARKS!