The intersection of Almaden and Auzerais is not what it used to be. In fact, it doesn’t even exist.
In the ’80s, we needed a convention center, a few more museums and a light rail. Understood.
However, any wandering scholar with poetic inclinations would remain obsessed with the ways that San Jose has constantly torn out its own insides. It makes for great travel writing.
This is where Auzerais comes in. Or, where it used to come in, 40 years ago, right where the Almaden Boulevard entrance to the convention center parking garage now appears. Before the convention center and the Children’s Discovery Museum, Auzerais continued eastward all the way to Market Street.
You see, what’s currently the multi-lane “Almaden Boulevard” was formerly just a continuation of Vine Street. There were two streets running north and south, parallel to each other, called Vine and Almaden. South of 280, these streets still exist. But once the convention center was built, thus destroying many houses, an art gallery, a few businesses, car dealerships and a church, politicians went crazy renaming streets to make everything more confusing.
Auzerais is not new to these pages. As a thoroughfare indicative of San Jose’s repeated self-mutilation, it inspired two previous columns in 2006 and 2020. Yet in those two voyages, I did not even consider walking the stretch of Auzerais that didn’t exist anymore.
In order to rectify this sense of incompleteness, I returned to Auzerais last week, inspired by the legendary travel writer Jan Morris, whose seminal book about Trieste, Italy, was a memoir told through the city’s innate sense of nowhere. Perfect. So I walked the missing parts of Auzerais Avenue. It only took a few minutes. Everyone should do this.
As a nod to Jan, I began at the Mediterranean. At Delmas and Auzerais, the WWII paraphernalia was long gone, but some killer sandwiches were available. That is, right where Lou’s Living Donut Museum once showcased the owner’s model airplanes, a fabulous café named iJAVA opened about 15 years ago. Last week it was still fabulous, both spacious and delicious. I felt transported to a port city on the Adriatic, as if sailing from Trieste to the Levant. In my own head, I probably was.
From there, it was only a quick shuffle eastward to reconnect with the long-gone segments of Auzerais. I walked underneath the hideous 87 overpass to where Auzerais ended at Woz Way. This was a poetic-historical scene worthy of another column entirely. The city smashed the rest of Auzerais and then gave Steve Wozniak his own street.
But I digress. In more ways than one. This entire walk felt like a digression.
As I crossed Woz, I could remember where Auzerais used to continue, so I continued, myself, in front of the Children’s Discovery Museum, right where a few school buses were dropping off kids and tour guides were showing families around the property. It was a wonderful world: lots of children on field trips, all interested in the building, many of whom would probably go on to learn much more than I’d ever know, as the song went. Their presence was a bright light, compared to the abandoned and crumpled shopping carts that characterized the freeway underpass.
And in the park, there were many squirrels, even black ones. I loved those squirrels.
Despite the ubiquitous graffiti, I remained upbeat and went straight to where Auzerais used to cross the river, I think. Nothing was left, so I segued over the current pedestrian bridge and into the perpetually half-empty parking lot along Almaden Blvd.
From there, I jaywalked across Almaden and straight into the convention center parking garage—formerly the corner of Vine and Auzerais, right where the WORKS Gallery first opened in 1977 before it was forced to move. Within a few more minutes, I got through the parking garage and exited the other side onto Market Street, pretty much following exactly how Auzerais used to go. I felt more whole as a result. This is why people traveled.
You can take the street out of the city, but you can’t take the wandering scholar off the street, even if it’s now a parking garage. Afterward, I went back to iJAVA for an espresso.
