Remembering the Dead: A Visit to San Jose’s Hacienda Cemetery
With Halloween and Día de los Muertos upon us, we dispatched a local writer to document her favorite cemetery in the Bay — which features a one-arm burial site.
Life
Experimental Beers, Paletas, and Lattes Are Fueling Downtown San Jose’s Renaissance
Post-lockdown, downtown San Jose is booming.
San Jose is a cradle of firsts. In 1777, it became the first Spanish settlement in California. Nearly a century later, in 1849, the city was designated as California’s inaugural capital. And then again, in 1881, San Jose made history as the first electrified city west of the Rocky Mountains.
Today, the city is mostly quiet suburbs with hardly a trace of its historical significance and social prowess. Downtown San Jose (DTSJ) in particular has long been dethroned as the promising core of the American West.
That’s starting to change.
Right now, DTSJ is experiencing a full-on renaissance. Though it already houses a few museums and hosts annual public events like Christmas in the Park and the San Jose Summer Jazz Fest, there’s a movement of fresh, locally minded energy led by artists, entrepreneurs, and community advocates who are reshaping what’s possible in the city’s sleepy epicenter. From San Pedro Square Market on one end to the theater- and art-focused SoFA district on the other,
DTSJ might actually have solved the post-pandemic downtown conundrum faster than San Francisco and Oakland.