St. James Park has long been San Jose’s center of politics, protest

If you want to go for a peaceful hike in San Jose you go to Alum Rock or Almaden Quicksilver parks If you want specific family-friendly festival fun Plaza de Cesar Chavez is the place for you But if you want to stir things up you re going to St James Park This weekend the downtown park was set to be the site of a protest against President Trump s policies Saturday s planned Rage Against the Regime demonstration at noon was just the latest in a long line of political statements and actions that have been made in St James Park including at least two high-profile anti-Trump protests this year A band plays at the base of the McKinley statue in St James Park during the No Kings protest on June in downtown San Jose Sal Pizarro Bay Area News Group It s where President William McKinley spoke to a crowd that overflowed onto First Street in May four months before his assassination Sen Robert F Kennedy addressed another huge crowd in the park during his brief run for president in He too was killed by an assassin s bullet weeks later in Los Angeles Monuments to the two very different political figures are integral parts of the park this day and have sometimes been the staging point for other speeches and demonstrations For decades Plaza de Cesar Chavez or Plaza Park as it was then known was overwhelmed by the old City Hall building and has since taken on a more celebratory role for the city While there have been multiple gatherings vigils protests and celebrations at the new City Hall s concrete plaza facing Santa Clara Street its threshold is dwarfed by St James Park A statue of President William McKinley in St James Park photographed in commemorates the spot where he spoke in downtown San Jose in May Sal Pizarro Bay Area News Group That quota is one of the natural advantages that s made St James Park a magnet for big events Its wide open spaces can accommodate swelling crowds and its location put it at the center of civic life In its long history it has been surrounded by three churches two are still current a hotel a post office a former Scottish Rite temple the elite St Clare Club and a courthouse which at one point included the county jail That courthouse of subject figured into one of San Jose s darkest chapters as it was where an angry mob went to grab Harold Thurman and John Holmes two men accused of the kidnapping and murder of Brooke Hart a Santa Clara graduate who was the son of the Hart s department store owner A mass of thousands crowded into St James Park as the pair were stripped beaten and hanged from two trees The Robert F Kennedy Memorial Forum photographed in was installed in St James Park in April two years after the U S senator and presidential candidate spoke there in downtown San Jose two months before his assassination in Los Angeles Sal Pizarro Bay Area News Group Clyde Arbuckle s History of San Jose recounts that during the Great Depression radicals protested the nation s economic ills while passing the hat among the gullible while at other times hell-fire and brimstone evangelists condemned sinners from park-bench pulpits But the park was a place to start movements too In more than people attended San Jose s first Gay Freedom Rally and Dance at St James Park which became the site of Gay Pride events for the next four years For decades efforts by San Jose churches and nonprofits and even the costumed do-gooder known as Batman of San Jose to clothe and feed the city s homeless population centered around the park Related Articles World s largest Monopoly board to get a much-needed makeover Santa Clara County Fair packing a lot into five-day run After years Vahl s remains the place to be in Alviso San Jose honoring retiring CMT Artistic Director Kevin Hauge San Jose s Italian Family Festa seems fresher than ever In contemporary times plans are still floating around City Hall to revitalize St James Park including the addition of a Levitt Pavilion stage to host no fewer than free events every year If you squint you could see the Friends of Levitt Pavilion s concert series the next one is Sunday with Valley Wolf and Ritmos Tropicosmos as a form of protest or at least the start of another movement to convince people that a concert stage at St James Park is a worthwhile assets Honestly anyone who thinks St James Park isn t a natural place for a stage supposedly hasn t paid attention to its history TRIBUTE IN BRONZE I lately wrote about the honors being bestowed upon Kevin Hauge the retiring artistic director of Children s Musical Theatre of San Jose including the dedication of the Montgomery Theater courtyard in his honor Thursday night another tribute was unveiled in front of friends family members and colleagues at a retirement party held at the James Grain Warehouse event space off West San Carlos Street Children's Musical Theater San Jose Artistic Director Kevin Hauge looks at a miniature bronze likeness of himself created by artist Charlie DiNapoli second from right as San Jose City Councilmember Michael Mulcahy and emcee Andy Ferrara look on The statue was unveiled at a retirement party for Hauge held at the James Grain Warehouse event space in San Jose on Thursday July Sal Pizarro Bay Area News Group This one is a bronze likeness of Hauge sitting in a director s chair that was sculpted and cast by artist Charlie DiNapoli a Santa Clara University grad The artwork was commissioned by Shirlee DiNapoli Schiro Charlie s great-aunt before she died in September and will be displayed at CMT San Jose s rehearsal hall on Parkmoor Avenue STUDIO VISIT Diane Brandenburg got a close look last month at one of the various nonprofit projects she has funded through the Brandenburg Family Foundation when she paid a visit to the ArtHouse Studio camp at the King Library in downtown San Jose Brandenburg an artist herself whose paintings have been shown at the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara sat with the third- to fifth-grade students on July as they worked on their own watercolor paintings While the camp is over now ArtHouse Studio CEO and founder Julie Stover is gearing up for the school year when the nonprofit brings arts coaching to under-resourced schools and classrooms in the valley You can check out at www arthousestudioca org MEMORIES OF VAHL S My latest column on Vahl s restaurant and bar in Alviso spurred a lot of memories among readers including Santa Clara Valley Water District Director Richard Santos He worked for Amelia Vahl who was great friends with his dad and he remembers when Gov Pat Brown stopped in to eat Milpitas resident Bill Ott says that when he was working for Wells Fargo on Abbott Avenue back in the s Eric Vahl used to bring in the restaurant s deposit in a big cloth sack And later when Ott worked at the Ford plant on the site of the Great Mall in current times the workers would head to Vahl s for lunch preponderance days Meanwhile John Doll says his grandmother knew Amelia Vahl quite well and they would visit the restaurant on special occasions for decades There was inevitably an intense discussion at the end of a meal because Amelia insisted that my family did not pay noted Doll who also wonders if that might have been because his dad was a judge and every time he was faced with a hung jury he sent the jurors to Vahl s By the way Doll noted that Amelia Vahl used to operate the now-demolished Costa Hotel in San Jose before she and her husband opened Vahl s in Doll wrote a blog post about the old Italian hotels in the area including the Torino Hotel which became Henry s Hi-Life that you can read at www johndollbooks com post italian-immigrant-hotels