It’s not like time ever stops changing, but there are still moments that clearly mark a transformation. I came upon a moment like this when I was taking a walk downtown this last week. I walked from the corner of Market and Santa Clara to St. James Park and around the back of San Pedro Market back to Santa Clara. To my delight, I found four pretty major construction projects in a half mile radius.
Now bulldozers, 200 foot tall cranes and a myriad of men in yellow constructions hats. And that’s exactly what I found on the Western corner of Santa Clara and Market –where, it looks like, a high rise is being built.
A few blocks up Market, across from St. James park, several old parking lots are being transformed into budding projects. It’s hard to tell the scale of them just yet. But one of them is carefully working it’s way around the old, white, domed building which was the First Church of Christ Scientist. Willis Polk, the architect, helped erect the church in 1904.
The area around St. James Park and the park itself are in need of a transformation. Historical buildings that have occupied the area for over a century, stand around the park reminding the passerby’s of the culture, aspiration and significance the area once held. But now, these buildings over look a different scene. The park is crowded with homeless people, and few passerby’s are bold enough to cut across the park down one of the paths.
The area could use a face lift, and the desolate souls crowding the park could use some support as well.
It’s stirring to see what the new buildings, that join one of San Jose’s most historical areas, will look like once juxtaposed with their predecessors and the surrounding city-scape.
Penned by Alina K. A. 