First Unitarian Church of San Jose | |
---|---|
Location | 160 N. Third Street San Jose, California, USA |
Coordinates | 37°20′23.02″N121°53′23.65″W / 37.3397278°N 121.8899028°W Coordinates: 37°20′23.02″N121°53′23.65″W / 37.3397278°N 121.8899028°W |
Built | 1892 |
Governing body | First Unitarian Church of San Jose |
Official name | First Unitarian Universalist Church |
Reference no. | 77000343 [1] |
Reference no. | 902 [2] |
The First Unitarian Church of San Jose is located at 160 North Third Street in downtown San Jose, California, across from St. James Park, and was designed in "Richardsonian Romanesque" style by architect George Page, who also designed the Hayes Mansion. [3] Local historian Linda Larson Boston called the building, “One of a handful of American churches patterned after Unitarian churches of Transylvania, it features a large triple-arched stained glass window on the facade, multiple domes and cupolas, and both round and square towers,” in her pamphlet, Highlights of San Jose, California’s St. James Park and Environs. The congregation purchased the site in 1888, and the cornerstone was laid in a ceremony on September 23, 1891. The building is registered on both the list of National Register of Historic Places [1] and the list of California Historical Landmarks. [2]
The church is a member of The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA) and "People Acting in Community Together". [4]
Unitarian Services in San José were first held in City Hall in November 1865, with 100 people in attendance. Mr. And Mrs. B.F. Watkins, residents of Santa Clara who belonged to the San Francisco Unitarian Church, were staunch supporters of the women's suffrage movement and organizers on behalf of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, which aided victims of the Civil War (and later became the Red Cross). They had decided that there was a need for a liberal religious presence in San José, and invited the Rev. Charles Gordon Ames to speak. Profoundly affected by his travels through the war-torn South, he devoted his first service to the freedom and dignity of all people, a theme that has echoed throughout the years at the First Unitarian Church, and which, at times, had led the church to take stands that were not popular with more conservative sections of the community. Among the early members of the church were A.T. Herman, a civil engineer who built the road up Mt. Hamilton; Dr. Benjamin Cory, San José's first physician and founder of what is now Santa Clara Valley Medical Center; J.J. Owen, editor and publisher of the San José Mercury; and J.E. Brown, state legislator. [5]
In 2016, the church celebrated its 150th anniversary as a congregation in San Jose. [6] [7]
On October 16, 1995, the church was gutted by a six-alarm fire that occurred during a major renovation project. [8] For three years the congregation met at the community center across the street until the sanctuary was ready for services in 1998. Final restoration and renovation of the building cost $8 million, with work and fundraising continuing until 2001. One notable fundraiser featured actor Dustin Hoffman, who spent several months in 1996 filming Mad City at the San Jose Athletic Club next door. [9]
As part of the renovation project, the church added classrooms and office space in its basement so that it could establish the Third Street Community Center [10] in 1998. The center is a separate, non-sectarian non-profit that houses the Don Edwards Computer Learning Academy, an after-school program, and ESL classes serving low-income and immigrant neighbors. [11]
San Jose, officially San José, is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 population of 1,013,240, it is the most populous city in both the San Francisco Bay Area and the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area, which contain 7.7 million and 9.7 million people respectively, the third-most populous city in California, and the tenth-most populous in the United States. Located in the center of the Santa Clara Valley on the southern shore of San Francisco Bay, San Jose covers an area of 179.97 sq mi (466.1 km2). San Jose is the county seat of Santa Clara County and the main component of the San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara Metropolitan Statistical Area, with an estimated population of around two million residents in 2018.
The Santa Clara Valley is a geologic trough in Northern California that extends 90 miles (145 km) south–southeast from San Francisco to Hollister. The longitudinal valley is bordered on the west by the Santa Cruz Mountains and on the east by the Diablo Range; the two coastal ranges meet south of Hollister. The San Francisco Bay borders the valley to the north, and fills much of the northern third of the valley. The valley floor is an alluvial plain that formed in the graben between the San Andreas Fault to the west and the Hayward and Calaveras faults to the east. Within the valley and surrounding the bay on three sides are the urban communities of San Mateo County, Santa Clara County, and Alameda County, while the narrow southern reaches of the valley extend into rural San Benito County to Hollister. In practical terms, the central portion of the Santa Clara Valley is often considered by itself, contained entirely within Santa Clara County.
Alviso is a district of San Jose, California, located in North San Jose on the southern shores of San Francisco Bay. Originally an independent town, founded in 1852, today Alviso is San Jose's only waterfront district, primarily residential in nature, with several Silicon Valley tech companies and recreation-oriented businesses. Alviso is named after 19th-century Californio ranchero Ignacio Alviso, who owned the area as part of his Rancho Rincón de Los Esteros.
The Mercury News is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidiary of Digital First Media. As of March 2013, it was the fifth largest daily newspaper in the United States, with a daily circulation of 611,194. As of 2018, the paper has a circulation of 324,500 daily and 415,200 on Sundays. As of 2021, this further declined. The Bay Area News Group no longer reports its circulation, but rather "readership". For 2021, they reported a "readership" of 312,700 adults daily.
Japantown, commonly known as J Town, is a historic cultural district of San Jose, California, north of Downtown San Jose. Historically a center for San Jose's Japanese American and Chinese American communities, San Jose's Japantown is one of only three Japantowns that still exist in the United States, alongside San Francisco's Japantown and Los Angeles's Little Tokyo.
The East San José Carnegie Branch Library is a Carnegie library in San Jose, California, USA. It opened in 1908 and is the last Carnegie library in Santa Clara County still operating as a public library. It is a part of the San José Public Library.
The Alameda is a historic district of Central San Jose, California, west of Downtown San Jose. The district is centered on an alameda, a historic portion of El Camino Real connecting Downtown San Jose to Mission Santa Clara de Asís, and includes the smaller, surrounding neighborhoods to the north and east, like College Park and St. Leo's.
San Jose Diridon station is the central passenger rail depot for San Jose, California. It also serves as a major intermodal transit center for Santa Clara County and Silicon Valley. The station is named after former Santa Clara County Supervisor Rod Diridon.
New Almaden, known in Spanish as Nueva Almadén, is a historic community and former mercury mine in the Capitancillos Hills of San Jose, California, located at the southwestern point of Almaden Valley in South San Jose. New Almaden is divided into two parts: the mines and much of their immediate surroundings, including historic ghost town settlements in the Capintancillas, which together form the Almaden Quicksilver County Park, and the largely residential historic district surrounding the Casa Grande.
Santa Clara Transit Center is one of two railway stations in Santa Clara, California. It is served by Caltrain from San Francisco, Amtrak Capitol Corridor trains from Sacramento and Altamont Corridor Express (ACE) trains from Stockton.
The Downtown Historic District of San Jose, California is a designated U.S. Historic District area of the city roughly the size of one square block. It is bounded by S. First Street to the west, E. San Fernando Street to the south, S. Third Street to the east, and E. Santa Clara Street to the north, but also includes the south side of E. Santa Clara Street between Third and Fourth Streets.
The Hayes Mansion is a historic mansion estate in the Edenvale neighborhood of San Jose, California. The mansion currently operates as a hotel resort and is currently known as The Hayes Mansion Hotel.
San Jose, California, is the third largest city in the state, and the largest of all cities in the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California, with a population of 1,021,795.
San José City Hall is the seat of the municipal government of San Jose, California. Located in Downtown San Jose, it was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Meier in a Postmodern style. It consists of an 18-story tower, an iconic glass rotunda, and a city council chamber wing, laid out within a two-block-long public square known as San José Civic Plaza. The tower rises 285 feet (87 m) above the plaza, making it the second tallest building in San Jose.
The First Unitarian Church is a historic church and congregation at 12 West Franklin Street in Baltimore, Maryland. Dedicated in 1818, it was the first building erected for Unitarians in the United States. The church is a domed cube with a stucco exterior. The church, originally called the "First Independent Church of Baltimore", is the oldest building continuously used by a Unitarian congregation. The name was changed in 1935 to "The First Unitarian Church of Baltimore " following the merger with the former Second Universalist Church at East Lanvale Street and Guilford Avenue in midtown Baltimore. The American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America (established 1866) representing the two strains of Unitarian Universalism beliefs and philosophies merged as a national denomination named the Unitarian Universalist Association in May 1961.
Eastridge, officially Eastridge Center, is a shopping mall in San Jose, California, located in the Evergreen district of East San Jose. Eastridge opened as the largest mall on the West Coast in 1971 and has been redesigned multiple times throughout its history, most recently in 2017. Eastridge serves as an important community hub in Evergreen and the larger East Side, hosting farmers markets, holiday celebrations, and community events. The anchor stores are JCPenney, Macy's, AMC Theatres, Round 1 Entertainment, and 24 Hour Fitness.
The Unitarian Universalist Church is a historic church building at 100 N. State Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
The following is a timeline of the history of San Jose, California, United States.
Little Portugal is a historic neighborhood of San Jose, California, and historically the center of the local Portuguese-American community. Little Portugal is home to numerous Portuguese businesses, including Adega, numerous Portuguese social clubs, and the Five Wounds Portuguese National Church.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church is a Roman Catholic church in San Jose, California, located in the Mayfair neighborhood of East San Jose. It is historically important for its association with Californian civil rights activist César Chávez, who attended the church and conducted labor and community organizing activities out of old church building, which now serves as the parish hall under the name McDonnell Hall. The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2016.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to First Unitarian Church of San Jose . |