There’s a lot to love about central San Jose, especially near Santa Clara University (that’s my bias: I grew up near there) There are lovely neighborhoods with classic architecture such as The Rose Garden and Shasta-Hanchett.    There’s a lot of good eating and entertainment in that part of the valley so close to downtown San Jose too, including Greenlee’s amazing cinnamon bread (you must try their highly prized cinnamon bread), fun & upscale Santana Row.

It might be too easy to miss a local, but low key landmark  where you can find hand made chocolates: Schurra’s in San Jose – right on the Alameda, perhaps 2 miles from SCU and one or two from downtown San Jose proper.  Schurra’s has been a part of central San Jose for  100 years – it was founded in 1912 and managed to survive the Great Depression and now appears to be thriving through our Great Recession.

Step into Schurra’s and breathe deeply.  The smell of the rich chocolates is almost intoxicating!  There’s a huge variety so there should be no trouble finding something for everyone in your party!  There are chews, truffles, creams and nuts. Dark chocolate and milk chocolate.  Dried fruits. Gift boxes galore.  Holiday specials.  You name it, they seem to have it.

There’s even a little cooler full of ice cream, too.

So hop on your bike, walk or drive your car and visit this very cool old icon of San Jose.  It’s goodness that harkens to a bygone era when this valley was known for it’s produce and not its high tech, when it was called The Valley of Heart’s Delight.  Take a nibble…or two….  Enjoy a taste of living history! (While you’re in the neighborhood you ought to go to Greenlee’s too and get some of that cinnamon bread for later! It’s practically across the street and is another historic business in Santa Clara County.)

Schurra’s     840 The Alameda    San Jose, CA 95126     (408) 289-1562

Related:
Out near Los Gatos, another great shop to visit is Chocolate Dream Box.  I wrote about it on my Live in Los Gatos blog. Check it out!  Or in Santa Cruz, swing by Mackenzie’s.

The annual market report is out at popehandy.REReport.com and we can now learn how 2011 compared to 2010.  The median sales price for houses in Santa Clara County was off 5.3% overall.  But from one part of the valley to the next it varied wildly with 6 cities or areas finding themselves in positive territory while others were off by double digits.

In the image to the left, I’ve put into bold the cities where the median sales price of houses which sold and closed escrow in 2011 were ahead of 2010′s pricing.

What is it that makes Gilroy, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Mountain View and Palo Alto “in the black”?

Most of these cities/towns are upscale, west valley communities.  But so are Saratoga, Cupertino, and Monte Sereno.

Gilroy was especially hard-hit with the housing downturn so perhaps in that case, it’s just coming back into more of a balance. (Then again, so was Morgan Hill and it’s still off by 12%.)

The LinkedIn IPO and others in the Palo Alto area drove prices up for some parts of the housing market nearby and it’s likely that this explains the positive growth for Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Los Altos Hills.  That said, it would seem that Los Altos, and perhaps even Sunnyvale would have seen stronger numbers on the same account.  Perhaps school scores are the key driver here.

Los Gatos, Saratoga and Monte Sereno often behave somewhat similarly as they are adjacent to one another and often attract similar home buyers who want good schools, a nice downtown area nearby and scenic beauty with the hills.  The annual numbers show Monte Sereno down 6.7%, Saratoga down 2% but Los Gatos up 6.4%.  With Monte Sereno, there are very few sales each month and each year (only about 4,000 residents), so there can be a wider swing without it necessarily being accurate. Saratoga and Los Gatos each have about 30,000 people who call these areas home, though, so the data is much more helpful.  Saratoga and Los Gatos both have multiple school districts, views, homes with better proximity to “downtown” and more variables – I think we’d have to dig a lot deeper to learn why these two neighboring markets are so diverse.  We might also have to look at multiple years of data to see if Saratoga spiked while LG slumped to explain the difference. (more…)

Recently Jim & I had an appointment at a high rise in downtown San Jose near the Hotel De Anza. It was a clear day and the view was lovely, so I took a few photos and stitched them together to share.  Hope you enjoy it!  For those not from the Santa Clara Valley, this is looking east.  The hills you see are green during the rainy season and yellow-brown in the dry summer months.

The Little Italy San Jose Foundation is in the process of rebuilding the original Italian settlement neighborhood in San Jose, which dated back to about the 1870s, with a cultural center, authentic Italian shops and restaurants, and restored buildings.  The cultural center offers Italian language classes for adults and children both. Eventually there will be an Italian-American Historical Museum too.

Where is Little Italy San Jose?

I had mistakenly thought that Little Italy San Jose would be in Willow Glen, but that’s not the case. This little neighborhood is close to the San Jose arena in downtown and includes Henry’s Hi-Life, which was the former Torino Hotel.  You can see a map of the exact area on the LittleItalySJ site. (In the video mentioned below, we learn that originally there were 3 Italian settlements, but this one was the first. The others are Willow Glen and Goosetown.)

It’s a massive grassroots project, backed by 15 different Italian American groups or clubs, which will feature 3 archways into the neighborhood, a brick piazza, a mural underpass, a history walkway, street banners, and bocce ball courts. A few businesses are operating now, with more to come.

Volunteers have been raising both money and awareness for several years and they are making great headway. (You may recall that the old Italian cultural center, the Italian Gardens, was torn down some years ago and now is the site of apartment buildings.)  There are several projects which need donations, including the archways, bocce courts, and mural.  Or you can donate $100 or more and have an engraved brick for stage 3 of the piazza (square).

There’s a great video that can explain more about what the Little Italy San Jose Foundation is doing. Or read more on the website: LittleItalySJ.com.

Where to donate to help the Little Italy San Jose project

The Little Italy website has a number of projects that can be supported via donations:

The Archway

The Bocce Courts

The Brick Piazza

The Mural Underpass (going under Highway 87, connecting the neighborhood to downtown SJ)

Share your family’s Little Italy story

If you’d like to share some local history for this effort, your images, biographical information and more is very welcome. There’s a page for that too: http://www.littleitalysj.com/history_walk.html

On a personal note, I’m very happy to see this project moving ahead. I don’t come from Italian heritage per se but I studied Italian in college, spent a junior year abroad in Firenze (Gonzaga-in-Florence), and feel as though the Italian culture is part of my family, too.  I love the food, emphasis on family, art, music and friendliness of Italy and welcome seeing more of it here in Silicon Valley.

Greenlee’s Bakery in San Jose offers the very best (most temptingly irresistible) cinnamon bread in Silicon Valley. Located on the Alameda near Race Street, it’s just about a block from Schurra’s handmade chocolate shop (between the Shasta Hanchett neighborhood and the Shark Tank or arena & downtown San Jose) so is a good reason to visit that neck of the woods should you have company coming to town – offering a perfect excuse for stocking up on the goods!

I should add that you can now buy Greenlee’s famous cinnamon bread at many local Whole Foods markets. But they are not nearly as fresh as if you walk into the shop itself. Besides, at the Greenlee’s store you can also buy the mini size, which is a whole lot safer for most of us. (more…)

Today I was previewing a home in downtown San Jose near San Jose State and did a few other errands in the area.  My course ran me past the big sign where “San Pedro Square” usually beckons, but today instead it was ready for the playoffs and proclaimed San Jose Sharks.