I’ve often thought the seven-year battle played out between the city of San Jose and a group of community advocates over an abandoned railroad trestle would make for a great public-policy case study about how not to manage a project. But Larry Ames — who led the unsuccessful fight to save the Willow Glen trestle — did one better by writing a book on the subject.
“The Willow Glen Trestle (1922-2020)” details the history of the picturesque Western Pacific wooden bridge that once spanned Los Gatos Creek near Coe Avenue and the fight to preserve it after San Jose officials decided to demolish it to complete a segment of the Three Creeks Trail.
“It is an epic, unique story in the history of the city,” said former Santa Clara County Supervisor Rod Diridon, a well-known expert on transportation and trains. He believes the city made the wrong decision at the start and just wouldn’t back down from it. Diridon introduced Ames at a book-release party Oct. 18 in the backyard of a Willow Glen home. Appropriately, their backyard not only has a miniature railway and a full-size caboose but a view of where the old trestle was and the new steel bridge is now.
Ames’ book, which was funded in part by the Santa Clara County Historic Grant program and is available for purchase through Amazon, details the legal drama that ensued after the city purchased a prefabricated steel bridge to replace the wooden trestle in 2013. There were court cases lost, appeals won and lots of newspaper ink spent on the back-and-forth of it all. It was one of those cases where everyone involved had good intentions — from city officials and trail advocates wanting to complete a long-awaited trail to historic preservationists wanting to preserve a fading link to San Jose’s pre-Silicon Valley heritage.
But the tale ended in the summer of 2020, while we were all dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They just came in with a backhoe and ripped it up, and it’s been replaced with the generic bridge,” said Ames, who spent most of his career as an aerospace engineer with Lockheed Martin and also served as a San Jose parks commissioner. “It’s a perfectly adequate bridge. But it’s not anything special that you’d go out of your way to see.”
As with any good story, there’s potential for a sequel here. There’s another wooden trestle that spans Coyote Creek near Happy Hollow Park and Zoo that the city is looking at removing to create a link for the Five Wounds Trail. It’s not as pretty as the Willow Glen trestle was, Ames concedes, but it’s the only one of its kind left in the city.
Ames proposes that the city put in a new bridge just to the side of the old one, which could be preserved and stabilized and even fenced off to keep people from walking on it. He had hoped at one point that could have been done for the Willow Glen trestle. (He notes there’s a viewing station at the new bridge site that had been intended for visitors to see the old trestle).
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“I’m not up to another seven year legal battle,, but I’m hoping that the city has learned a lesson from the Willow Glen trestle that it’s important to listen to the community rather than simply capriciously making decisions,” he said.
CREATIVE CORNERSTONES: There was a great moment at last Friday’s Cornerstone of the Arts celebration in San Jose when Luminary Artist Award recipient Joe Miller showed a slide of many of the logos he’s designed for different organizations over the years.
They included four for Works/San Jose, the community gallery of which he’s executive director, but also as varied as KSJS radio, Arts Council Silicon Valley, the San Jose Poetry Festival and Abhinaya Dance Company. It was a nice reminder that our creative community is indeed an ecosystem.
Miller was one of three honorees at the event, held at the Hammer Theatre Center in downtown San Jose and sponsored by the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs and its Arts Commission. Entrepreneur and arts promoter Chris Esparza, who died last August, was honored with the Creative Impact Award, which was accepted by his daughter, Olivia Esparza.
Kevin Hauge, who retired this past summer as artistic director of Children’s Musical Theater San Jose, received the prestigious Cornerstone of the Arts award, and the ceremony was bookended by musical numbers featuring CMT San Jose performers.
CELEBRATE SAN JOSE: The rich cultural heritage of San Jose’s 248-year history will be in the spotlight Saturday at the annual San Jose Roots celebration on Saturday. History San Jose hosts the free event at the Gonzales/Peralta Adobe and Carmela and Thomas Fallon House sites near San Pedro Square Market, showcasing the city’s indigenous inhabitants, its Spanish and Mexican pioneers and its modern residents.
There’ll be activities like lasso throwing lessons, candle dipping and corn-husk doll making, along with a diverse lineup of performances from Jeffery Fung Tai Chi, Luna y Sol Folklorico, Viet Steps, Xpressions Dances of India and Hui Ilima of Santa Clara County. To accommodate the event, which runs from 1 to 4 p.m., St. John Street will be closed between Almaden Avenue and San Pedro Street.
