Various international newspapers, including Reuters, recently announced the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of an education company that began in Naglee Park fifty years ago (1976). Dr. John G. Sperling, at one time a faculty member at San Jose State, founded the University of Phoenix (NYSE:PXED) to provide post-secondary education to working adults. It was a radical idea…
Back in 2006 the City of San Jose, in conjunction with the 13th Street NAC and others, commissioned a substantial overview study of the many interesting neighborhoods north of Santa Clara Street. That area is known to local historians as the Second Ward, since it neatly covers the geography of San Jose’s early Fire District with the…
Spring is the season of Lent and Passover; these two important holidays always go hand-in-hand. As a practicing Catholic who was born in a Jewish hospital, this season of reflection and renewal is special to me. My neighborhood of Naglee Park had several members of the Jewish community who have made important contributions to my…
We live in an old house (1908) in an old neighborhood (Naglee Park) in an old town (San Jose). Christmas is a good time to be introspective and retrospective, to think about the past and what it means. It is also time to develop perspective, if possible, from what we see around us. What was…
Without a doubt, one of the most beautiful, interesting and historic residences in Naglee Park is the Maybeck House at 62 South 13th Street. Fifty years ago it nearly disappeared, a victim of a combination of bad zoning, greed and extreme abuse. In the early 1970s it was marked as condemned by San Jose Code Enforcement,…
A friend who grew up in the neighborhood in the 500 block of South 14th reminisced that he was in awe of a house around the corner from his boyhood home. He said “I always thought the richest man in San Jose lived in that house”. He was talking about 555 South 13th (pictured above),…
There is District 3 and then there are the suburbs, the other nine Council districts. We seem to have little understanding of who we are or what we do. We are not like any of the other Districts. District 3 is the Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe, a colonial outpost of Spain. We are as old and as…
The recent survey of local public monuments by the SJToday blog is a good one. What do our monuments signify and memorialize? Monuments sometimes have a story far beyond what is presented. The Naglee monument, located in St. James Park at North 2nd and St. John streets, is an example of a monument that now…
What style is my house and why is the style important? The Rev. Francis W. Reid (1863-1949) could tell you; he wrote the answer to that question in the San Jose Mercury in 1892. On January 1, 1892 the paper published a special supplement listing the local businesses. The Francis Reid article is the earliest…
