Local real estate agent Holly Barr moved to Willow Glen several years ago and fell in love with it immediately. On the side, Barr and her husband, Greg, run Willow Glen’s unofficial online community, Willow Glen Charm. We caught up with Holly to talk about the quaint, bustling neighborhood she calls home and her website.
Articles by Jennifer Wadsworth
A bump-up in median income and home values brought Silicon Valley to the top spot this year as the wealthiest region in the nation. As if you needed a reminder of the increasingly exorbitant cost of living, especially if you’re one of the 24 percent of people living in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties living in poverty in the shadow of plenty.
San Jose Rock Shop, a music store near downtown, addressed a petition to Councilman Sam Liccardo this week on Change.org, asking for him to support the installation of an outdoor music stage at St. James Park.
Plans to build a synthetic snow slope in the South Bay have gained a good amount of social media traction, but not much in reality. After talks with Morgan Hill in 2009 and 2010 about building one east of Highway 101, developer Martin Benik withdrew his application because of the high cost of an environmental review. But he remains optimistic about the chances of a park in San Jose.
With its repurposed forest-green wine bottle chandeliers, exposed brick and cement walls, and cultivated Cali-Euro bistro cuisine, SP2 Communal Bar + Restaurant, adjacent to San Pedro Square in the spot once loudly occupied by Sabor, has positioned itself as a little slice of the San Francisco dining scene in the South Bay.
Temple Grandin feels a special affinity for Silicon Valley, which she believes wouldn’t exist without the brainpower of high-functioning “Aspies,” folks who fall on some measure of the Autism Spectrum Disorder. “One of the things I’m very concerned about is that people who are very quirky and different, that nothing is being done to get them turned on to things that could be good careers, careers like those in Silicon Valley,” says Grandin, chatting over the phone in her rapid-fire matter-of-fact diction.
When Psycho Donuts head chef Ron Levi and his assistant Joe Cloutier were tapped to compete in TV show Donut Showdown, the bakery’s Bay Area following had no clue. The six episodes aired in April on Food Network Canada.
Karen Gabay practically grew up with her ballet company, signing on straight out of high school with what was then the San Jose Cleveland Ballet 34 years ago. She was 18, already groomed from performing with a semiprofessional troupe in her hometown of San Diego.
While most cities in California have seen development stall in the last few years, thanks to the recession and the dissolution of state’s redevelopment agencies (RDAs), Willow Glen has become an outlier, a DIY business community.
When the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles opened in 1977, it was the first of its kind: the only museum in the nation dedicated to textiles as an art form. Now it’s the last one standing in Northern California after its San Francisco counterpart shuttered amid a funding crisis about a year ago. San Jose’s quilt museum, a sunny gallery and gift-shop space in the SoFA district, says it will close its doors unless donors come through with $80,000 before the end of March. (About $50,000 had been raised so far.)
