Mosaic Festival today at History Park San Jose

The Mosaic Festival celebrates the diverse cultures in our own neighborhoods. The purpose of the event is to welcome and honor everyone's unique history while also creating a vision of our shared future. There will be music, dancing, vendors, food, and activities.

The event is free and open to all ages. It takes place from 10am to 6pm today at History Park San Jose.

7th Annual Little Italy San Jose Italian Festival

The Little Italy San Jose Italian Festival is back this Sunday, October 6th. This is an action packed event going from 11am to 7pm, with an afterparty at the Italian Cellar Speakeasy from 7pm to 11pm.

The festival includes one of the largest Italian car shows in the United States, tons of authentic Italian cuisine, wine tasting, nonstop live music, arts & crafts, children's activities, and tours of the brand new Italian Museum (San Jose's first new museum in ages).

For more information, head over here.

Blossom Hill housing project moves forward

A parking lot at the Blossom Hill VTA station is getting one step closer to becoming a 328 home project. The six-story building will have 239 market-rate homes and 14,000 SQFT of retail on the ground floor. A five-story building across the street will have 89 affordable housing units. The project would also create a new transit plaza for South San Jose VTA riders and a walking/biking trail along Canoas Creek.

While the project was approved in 2022, not a lot has happened. The affordable housing component just received a $5.5 million boost from the government.

In a best-case scenario, the affordable housing piece will start construction in the summer of 2025 with the market rate portion to follow.

Source: SVBJ

South FIRST FRIDAYS Art Walk October 2024 + STREET MRKT

South FIRST FRIDAYS is back this week with exhibits across multiple galleries in three different districts. Everything is open from at least 5-9pm. Participating venues include ANNO DOMINI, the Institute of Contemporary Art, KALEID Gallery, Works San Jose, the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, the SoFA Market, MACLA, Art Ark Gallery, MACHU PICCHU, San Jose Jazz, and Chopsticks Alley Gallery.

It all goes down on Friday, October 4th. As usual admission is free and all ages are welcome. Click here for a preview of featured art! Below is a map with all of the galleries to check out across all three different districts.

Some of the more unique items this month include an open rehearsal with Symphony San Jose at the California Theater from 7:30-10pm and an immersive video mapping exhibition at Chopsticks Alley Gallery.

This month is also the last STREET MRKT indie urban art faire of the year. This overlaps with the art walk and runs from 5pm to 10pm. This bonus event features dozens of vendors and artists, turning the streets of SoFA into an outdoor art gallery. It also includes live music, food trucks, and a beer garden with local breweries (more details below).

LAST STREET MRKT of 2024! 

Join us out on So. 1st St. as 50 artists transform the SoFA District into a unique and bustling outdoor gallery with their creative energy! Imaginative paintings & sculptures, glass art demos, classic tattoo art, counterculture zines, chic fashion and an AR community gallery hosted by Membit are just some of the rare experiences you’ll find when you come out and support our amazing arts community. 

We’ll also have a great variety of delicious food trucks and a lively beer garden sponsored by & featuring: Clandestine Brewing Co., Fox Tale Fermentation, & Strike Brewing Co.

FEATURED ARTISTS:
Anthony Alva 
Rebecca Anguiano
Delilah Bender
The Blunt Letters
Julianne Bonnet
Emmanuel Cervantes Mejia 
Crossroads Trading Co.
Dario Cruz
Current Tattooing
Christina Del Alto
Jennifer DeChenne
Deep Legends Bus
Joseph Demaree
Mario Dimas
Lorenz Dumuk
Mahsa Emoventur
Force129
Cynthia Gonzalez
Hand in Hand Henna
Higher Fire Clayspace
Maureen Holcomb
Jodi408
Look into the Future, with AI (James Morgan, Thomas Asmuth and Kathryn Funk at KALEID Gallery)
Sarah Loyola
Valentino Loyola
Joe Mandrick
Martha Gardens Arts
David Mejia
MEMBIT Inc.
Gianfranco Paolozzi 
Leslie Perez 
Betty Proper
Francisco Ramirez
Steven Reece
Steven Regalado 
Marilyn Roaf aka Purl Bailey
Jacob Sandoval
Ricardo Sandoval 
SJSU Reed Magazine
South Bay Ceramics
Suha Suha
Sundry 3D Treasures
Nikkea Takagi
Heylu Wheat
plus great music provided by
Deep Legends Bus out on S 1st Street

–>  BEER GARDEN 
5:00 – 10:00pm Great music provided by DJ No Way José!

Beer Garden sponsored by & featuring local & regional breweries: Clandestine Brewing Co., Fox Tale Fermentation, and Strike Brewing Co.

All ages welcome, must be 21+ w/ valid ID to drink beer.

San Jose Wishlist - Halloween in the Park (Part XVI)

As Halloween approaches, it is time to resurrect one of my top event wishlist items for San Jose. "Halloween in the Park."

Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year. It's the one day where you get to interact with your neighbors and the wider community. The level of creativity in decorations and costumes is also the most eclectic and interesting out of all the holidays for me--whether that's for trick-or-treating, Halloween parties, or work events.

In October it's tradition for The San Jose Blog have a wish-list post for Halloween in the Park. The idea is to build on the momentum that Christmas in the Park brings to San Jose each year and create something of similar scale for the month of October. A lot of the infrastructure such as wiring, lighting, and booths might even be able to be shared between the events. The goal would be to make Downtown San Jose the epicenter of October Halloween experiences, much as it is today with Christmas in the Park.

Below you will find brainstorming ideas we have collected for this concept so far over the years. Please have a look and provide your feedback and suggestions in the comments or on X (Twitter). Thanks!

---

The largest draw to Downtown San Jose for many years now has been Christmas in the Park. It has continued to grow year after year and brings in visitors from all over the Bay Area. It's economic impact is substantial and helps keep many Downtown businesses and restaurants alive.

What would you think about a similar event for Halloween? Picture Downtown lit up in orange and purple with elaborate Halloween displays assembled by local artists. Perhaps infrastructure could even be shared with Christmas in the Park (e.g. retail booths). A strong event in October would help maintain traffic between the summer months and Christmas in the Park. Here are the ideas we have so far:

• Animated Halloween Displays
• Created by local artists
• Analogous to the Christmas displays that attract many families during Christmas in the Park (almost half a million visitors)
• Family friendly so that everyone can enjoy it (PG/PG13, perhaps around the same level as Great America's Halloween decorations)
• Halloween Lighting
• Orange, purple, and green LED lighting on trees
• May be possible to use programmable LED lighting that can go from Halloween colors to Christmas colors with the push of a button, allowing the lights to stay up for Christmas in the Park as well and reducing setup/take-down costs.
• Halloween Food
• Booths with candied apples, chocolates, candy, pumpkin seeds, etc.
• Food trucks
• Trick-or-treating station - a free piece of candy to anyone wearing a costume any day in October (could also be used to hand out promotional flyers for Downtown events/businesses/resources)
• Retail Booths selling Halloween items, for example:
• Artwork (paintings, glass pumpkins, etc.)
• Home decor/crafts like candles
• Light-up hats/necklaces/bracelets
• Costumes
• Zombie/Halloween make-up station 
• Halloween-themed Carnival Games
• Pirates of Emerson and Candlelighters (Fremont) do a good job of providing family-friendly games themed around Halloween
• A handful of children's rides could also be added to the Paseo and reused for Christmas in the Park
• Interactive Art
• Subzero-style, but with a Halloween spin.
• Halloween-themed video game kiosks and/or arcades
• Pumpkins
• Instead of the sponsored Christmas trees in Christmas in the Park, how about decorated Pumpkins (can even be Styrofoam so there is no mess/decay)?
• Pumpkin carving station for families. 
• Pumpkin carving contest.
• Costumed Entertainers
• Walking around the area, not necessarily scaring people but adding to the ambiance and providing photo opportunities for families
• Haunts / Mazes
• Would be ideal if these were nearby, perhaps in vacant retails spaces, surface parking lots, the San Jose Convention Center tent, or at SJSU.
• Could partners with one of the established San Jose haunt providers such as the Winchestor Mystery House or The Bernal SCREAM.
• Potential Events
• Zombie Crawl / 5k Run
• Dia De Los Muertos Events (already quite a few today)
• Halloween/Dia De Los Muertos Bike Party
• Horror Movie Trivia Contest
• Weekly horror movie screening (perhaps in the Circle of Palms area?)
• Costume Ball
• Pet costume contests and pet-friendly events

Inspirations:

• Winchester Mystery House Unhinged
• Candle Lighters
• Pirates of Emerson
• The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze (photos below)

Dia de los Muertos San Jose

Dia de los Muertos is a celebration of life, family, and culture. San Jose's Dia San Jose Festival & Oldies Never Die Concert is a two day event featuring live music, food, and art. 

It takes place at Plaza de Cesar Chavez in Downtown San Jose on Friday, October 18th and Saturday, October 19th. You can find tickets and more information over here.

San Jose International Short Film Festival

The 16th Annual San Jose International Short Film Festival features over 140 films from around the globe accompanied by Q&A with filmmakers, parties, and events. The shorts are grouped together into themes and the full schedule is down below.

The film festival takes place at CineArts in Santana Row from October 24-27th. You can buy tickets and passes over here.

Inaugural Tully East Festival Sep 28-29

East San Jose is getting more and more attention these days. Earlier this year, the main San Jose fireworks show was in Lake Cunningham for the first time and the VTA Lightrail extension to Eastridge is a go. Now East San Jose is getting a new festival.

The Tully East Festival is on the weekend of September 28th-29th and will feature over 150 vendors, food trucks, and artists. There will even be a mini cat town with 30 adoptable kittens on site. The event also has live entertainment and activities for all ages. It runs from 11am-6pm in front of the Eastridge Center.