San jose 1950s

First Street was the principal commercial street, starting with J. Downtown retail began to decline in the s. Most significantly, the city council reversed its policy of opposing large-scale retail development outside of downtown, which allowed for the development of Valley Fair a few miles west of downtown in Places like Town and Country, Eastridge and Vallco Fashion Park were established as major regional centers, while every new neighborhood had cheap orchard land that was converted into a small shopping center with a supermarket and a dozen or more stores.

Over the course of about 15 years starting in , retailers led an exodus from which downtown has never recovered. Penney in or moved to one of the new malls. The retailers that remained were primarily furniture and jewelry stores. Many of those who continued to shop in downtown had far less discretionary income than those who frequented the surrounding suburban areas. For years, the city actively tried to bring major retail players back. Yet the owners of the very same shopping malls that had helped undermine downtown shopping were the ones who fought the perceived new competition when the redevelopment agency sought to bring downtown retail back.

Two examples illustrate the different challenges of bringing back retail. First is the construction of the Pavilion shopping and entertainment center in , the most notable attempt to inject life into downtown shopping. The developer subsequently abandoned the project. By the late s, the interior of the 27,squarefoot center had found new life as a server farm, with city officials eager to capitalize on the fiber-optic line running directly under the building.

Even into the late s and 60s, downtown remained the largest shopping district in the county. The scene on South 1st Street is shown at right.

Second, in the late s, the city and the RDA began working with Palladium Company, a New York developer, to master plan four key downtown sites including around St. James Park with 2. This billion-dollar deal fell through in early when the developer pulled out. Located across the street from the Valley Fair Mall 4 miles east of downtown , Santana Row was successful in attracting the high-end national and international retailers that city officials had long targeted for downtown.

While Santana Row directly hurt downtown retail efforts, its success also proves that there is a strong desire for a retail experience that replicates a mixed-use street environment in Santa Clara County. Today, downtown retail is showing signs of rebirth. Merchants like Philz Coffee on Paseo de San Antonio demonstrate how one popular business can reshape an entire block. Trendy Japanese retailer Muji plans to open its first U. San Pedro Square Market is a wonderful — and thriving — food-oriented redevelopment of a historic building.

But while it is unlikely that downtown San Jose will become a major retail destination, it is possible that as residents and jobs grow incrementally, the retail including restaurants to support those people will follow. The strategy seemed brilliant. Since North San Jose and Edenvale were primarily industrial business parks, the infrastructure needs were minimal.

And because they were largely undeveloped before becoming redevelopment areas, the property tax take of the RDA was very high. This allowed the RDA to take the property tax revenues from these other areas and invest them in downtown. Housing has been a different challenge, and one that was not pursued as early on. Unlike other U. Until , only 10 percent of annual construction in the city was multifamily housing.

Then, in the s and s, the construction of freeways and urban renewal destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses throughout downtown. By , there were few residents in the immediate downtown and a limited number in surrounding neighborhoods. There was an opportunity — and a need — to build residences in and around downtown as a way to support RDA goals of revitalizing retail. But there was limited market support for downtown residential development.

In , the new head of the redevelopment agency, Frank Taylor, sent out a brochure to try to interest developers in building housing around St. James Park. In his previous job in Cincinnati, such an offer would have garnered response from 10 to 15 developers competing for the opportunity to build; in San Jose there was not a single response to the request.

Given that initial failure, there were concerns about the strength of the downtown residential market. The first major downtown residential project in the s was the construction of town homes along Third and Fourth streets next to San Jose State. This was an historic area that had been torn down in the s to make way for new development. Although the RDA claimed it initially wanted to do high-rise housing, the market would only support town homes, given that this was the first major market-rate housing in many years.

The area was thus built out at moderate densities, taking up a major portion of the available land area in downtown. In the s, developers turned their attention to making downtown San Jose a place for highrise residential development.

The timing was bad, however, with the first major projects Axis, The 88, Residences opening just before the market collapse in — While not yet providing enough of a critical mass of residents to transform downtown into an urban neighborhood, they do create a sense of possibility for future high-quality urban apartment living.

Photos by Aya Brackett. This involved two key ingredients: establishing a critical mass of international brandname and historic hotels to support conventions and building or rehabilitating anchor cultural venues such as museums.

In the early s, when the Holiday Inn was the only brand-name hotel downtown, the RDA made an effort to attract the Fairmont Hotel to the center of downtown adjacent to Cesar Chavez Park. In , the not fully complete Fairmont hosted the state American Planning Association conference, and from the unfinished penthouse of the hotel, local and visiting planners felt as if they were on the cusp of the long-awaited revitalization.

To a certain extent they were: The office tower at 50 West San Fernando was then under construction, and within a few years, the RDA would invest in the historic St. They supported the Marriott and the Hyatt adjacent to the convention center. But while San Jose was able to attract a concentration of hotels in the core of downtown, the city upheld a moratorium on new hotels outside of downtown throughout the s. Exact Area tool Click here and draw a rectangle over the map to precisely define the search area.

Results See the results of your search on the right side. You can scroll down to find more maps of this location. San Jose Parent places: California. Timeline Attributes. The 41,square-foot Mediterranean villa now serves as a hotel and conference center. The 19th-century Victorian home that once belonged to the Winchester family is now a popular tourist destination. Brave guests can explore the gardens and the house itself, which is rumored to be haunted by Mrs.

Winchester's ghost. But even from the beginning, the Valley was a place of tech innovation. In , Cyril Ewell led a Palo Alto-based team that developed the first American-built arc transmitter. The very first wireless telephone station was established by Charles Herrold here in Herrold was also the first to broadcast music and news programs to a listening audience, and his wife, Sybil, was the first female DJ in the country.

Lee de Forest, considered by many to be the father of radio, worked with the Federal Telegraph Company to develop the first global radio communications system in Letcher Garage, seen on the right side of the photo, was where local residents could buy their Cadillacs and Packards.

And by , Santa Clara Valley had a population of nearly , people. First civic settlement - population 68 - San Jose mission founded. Moody becomes mayor - Peter O. Minor becomes mayor - Thomas Fallon becomes mayor. Buckner becomes mayor - population 3, - U. Murphy becomes mayor - - population 12, - Electric Light Tower built, first electrified city west of the Rocky Mountains, largest single source of electric light in the country - - Charles J.