Expanding Willow Glen

Willow Glen - Personal, Friendly, Different.  What the...?

When scientist David Hubble made the discovery that the Universe was expanding in 1929, he couldn't possibly have known that in eighty years the fastest growing part of our Galaxy would be the neighborhood in San Jose in which I grew up: Willow Glen.

A sleepy farming community of orchards and dirt roads in its infancy over a hundred years ago, Willow Glen was first incorporated as a town in 1927.  The increasingly urbanized hamlet needed a sewage system to accommodate its growing population, and voted to join the city of San Jose by a 57 vote margin in 1936.

As a young child and then teenage resident of Willow Glen, I only knew it as a boring, aging bedroom community close to downtown San Jose that was far removed from the more affluent and "hip" neighborhoods in the growing southern suburbs of San Jose.

The Willow Glen Chapel on the north side of Lincoln Avenue - founded by my late stepfather and owned and managed by he and my mother.

In the late 1970's and early 1980's, many of the older residents who had lived in Willow Glen for decades started to pass away or move on,  and their homes were bought by younger, wealthier homeowners - who in many cases completely gutted the charming, unique homes built in the 1920's and 1930's and replaced them with homes twice their size.

Young couples, especially those working long hours in the growing high tech industries, flocked to Willow Glen because of its walkable neighborhoods, good schools and tree-lined streets that didn't have the traffic gridlock of the tract homes and subdivisions of the southern suburbs.  By the 1990's, Willow Glen had grown into a gentrified, prosperous neighborhood of choice for discerning real estate buyers moving away from the suburbs and looking for an attractive, livable neighborhood close to downtown San Jose and the 280 freeway.

I lived in Willow Glen from fourth grade through High School.  I graduated from Willow Glen High School (Go Rams!).  My mother and stepfather operated a mortuary on Lincoln Avenue on the north side of Lincoln Avenue - the main commercial street in Willow Glen - that was called the Willow Glen Chapel.  My first job was mowing the lawn and trimming the bushes of that family run business.  When I started running, the first race I ever ran was the Founder Day's 10K that finished on Lincoln Avenue in Willow Glen.

The beautiful facade of the late Garden Theatre.

As a youngster with a growing love of cinema, I spent many a Saturday matinee in the majestic Garden Theatre (the grand old lady was sadly gutted and remodeled in 1988 into something Willow Glen truly needed instead of a movie theater -  a strip mall). 

The business district along Lincoln Avenue only featured a few chain establishments in my youth - a Baskin-Robbins, a Jack in the Box and a Round Table pizza.  Most of the shops and restaurants in Willow Glen were privately owned by local merchants - many of whom were friends of my parents. 

There wasn't a Sushi, Indian or Thai restaurant in sight.  The idea of a spa (there are now four) or Pilates studio (two) on Lincoln Avenue would have been absurd.

Today, Willow Glen is a prototypical gentrified Bay Area neighborhood complete with a Starbucks, Peet's Coffee, Noah's Bagels, Jamba Juice and a Bev Mo'.

Growing up as a child in Willow Glen I didn't really worry about its boundaries, but I was vaguely aware of when I was in Willow Glen and when I was not.  And I never heard of anyone who lived miles away from the remotest corner of Willow Glen and still claimed that they lived in Willow Glen.  That has now completely changed.

Bucolic, tree-lined Lincoln Avenue anchors the business district of Willow Glen.

Today, as I peruse the wanted ads, real estate sections and garage sales in San Jose, I am just amazed by how much Willow Glen has seemingly grown now that it's a trendy place to live.  Pick up a real estate magazine in San Jose and you'll be astonished by how many listings are supposedly in Willow Glen. 

It wouldn't surprise me if there is a realtor with a residential listing in faraway Gilroy who is advertising it as "on the edge of Willow Glen." Yeah, in the same way that the Tenderloin in San Francisco is on the edge of Nob Hill and Culver City in Los Angeles is on the edge of Santa Monica.  These places are just not in any part of Willow Glen that I ever knew.

I guess Willow Glen proves that Mr. Hubble was correct after all.  Our universe really is expanding.  And I would bet that interstellar brokers throughout the galaxy are touting Mars as the next fashionable place to live.  It is, after all, the closest planet to Earth - making it conveniently located to Willow Glen.