Talk:Willow Glen, San Jose

This is still a stub despite recent transplantation of info from other web sites onto this page.

TODO:

• Find census bureau stats on Willow Glen population and income.
• Find census bureau stats on age of housing stock in Willow Glen zip codes centered around downtown Willow Glen. (The houses were obviously built in the early to mid part of the 20th century if you walk around them but we need a reference, not 1st person research).
• Find reference on the exact details of the sewage issue that caused the town of Willow Glen to merge with San Jose.
• Add reference to CalTrans buying the former Southern Pacific Railroad line and transferring it to Caltrain. (Should be on the Caltrain page already, just needs to be transferred to this one).
• There were actually *two* rail lines that cut across the area known as "North Willow Glen", one of which is now abandoned and removed but still on some maps (and its route still barely visible on Google Maps when you click into satellite mode, where it appears clear that construction of the Guadalupe Parkway into a freeway is what spurred its abandonment sometime in the past 20 years). What was the second one? Are we sure that the Caltrain line is the Southern Pacific one? The North Willow Glen site certainly implies that the currently-operating line is the old Southern Pacific one, but find reference to clarify this. (Note: Look forWestern Pacific Railroad history, it appears this may have been an extension of the Western Pacific line that served the Ford auto assembly plant that once was at the location of the "Great Mall of Milpitas").
• ADD MAP LINKS! That should be easy enough to do!

Coordinate error

{{geodata-check}}

The coordinates need the following fixes:

• 37° 18' 13.02" N, 121° 53' 50.36" W

The coordinates presently shown are near the extreme eastern edge of what might, arguably, be referred to as "Willow Glen". The proposed coordinates are at the intersection of Lincoln and Minnesota Avenues, much nearer the exact geographic center of the Willow Glen neighborhood, and really the heart of the neighborhood, where the Lincoln Avenue business district meets the elementary school which was founded in 1863

WillO'theGlen (talk) 21:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done — Original coords were bot–added, yours are much better, thanks. TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 20:09, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Question regarding boundries: I live in an eastern area that shows as within the Willow Glen boundries on various maps (i.e., Thompson & West 1870s, Brainard 1880s, county map 1890...). Most of this 95125 area was developed beginning in 1956 (Meadowbrook, aka "Birdland") and was listed as Willow Glen. It is still being listed by realtors as Willow Glen, our Canoas Elementary School is listed as a Willow Glen school, we have always received Willow Glen newspapers (even appearing in them), and my neighborhood high school was Willow Glen. Our neighborhood shopping center is even Willow Glen Shopping Center (Curtner & Almaden). And yet somehow our existance has been overlooked, though I'm guessing that we might be the "arguably" area referred to above. Where's the argument? We're historically part of Willow Glen (not the city, but the district). Thanks for your consideration. Ralph 1:09, 1 April 2012 (PST) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.55.220.154 (talk)

Maps/Boundaries

Update Neighborhood Boundaries

This map showing "Rough Willow Glen Boundary" is old and outdated. Current-day standards should reflect the San Jose City "Greenprint" planning area boundaries.

See this link from the City of San Jose: http://www.sanjoseca.gov/DocumentCenter/Home/View/44 As well as http://www.sanjoseca.gov/index.aspx?NID=3250 Ca.papavero (talk) 09:20, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

By the way, while making statements that imply boundaries, this should reconsider statements like that under Public Transportation, which says "Although no railway stations exist within Willow Glen, the area is served well by light rail stations on or near its border: Fruitdale, Race, Tamien, and Virginia." When citing the Greenprint map, this would appear to be an incorrect statement, because these stations are indeed within the Willow Glen Planning Area, not outside.Ca.papavero (talk) 09:41, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Other maps

By the way, there's probably a number of ways of looking at the neighborhood, from earlier history and up to the present. Plus, consider city planning areas, versus political districts and so on. There's even boundary with the City of Campbbell to the west. Ca.papavero (talk) 09:20, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I just wanted to comment that the first map I've found (1876)with "Willow Glen" on it appears as a school district (like so many other areas in San Jose), and that these boundaries are more inclusive (east to Canoas Creek). The neighborhood that I grew up in, Canoas Garden (original Meadowbrook),is within that original boundary. Our zip code is 95125 and Willow Glen was my neighborhood high school. We receive the Willow Glen Resident newspaper, and we are part of the original Kell property (1847) that's now home to the Willow Glen Shopping Center. It seems that there's an exclusiveness on the part of the "Willow Glen City" folks (c1926-36) that doesn't care to recognize that there was a district of Willow Glen that existed fifty years before the city. For me, this has nothing to do with home values or status. It has to do with both historical accuracy and remaining a part of the community that I have felt a part of most of my life (1963-present). With thanks for considering my rant, and my apologies if I've breached some posting protocol. Ralph Pearce, Canoas Garden Neighborhood in Willow Glen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.232.170.73 (talk) 05:26, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Santa Clara County Demographic Data

I just updated the map to be an interactive one generated by OSM relation data. The original source is from 2016 Santa Clara Public Health Dept. data and breaks down Willow Glen into three regions: Willow Glen North / Gardner, Willow Glen Proper, Willow Glen South. You can view the data in map form over at https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/10624947, and eventually on this wiki page whenever the Wikimedia maps cache gets flushed (see Communications Hill, San Jose for an example of what it should look like). Given the detail of included demographic statistics, I suspect these boundaries are more accurate than most presented here already. fintler (talk) 21:41, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Sources/References: Types and Criticism

Some of the sources or references in this article are seemingly less valid, reliable or relevant. For example, many are tertiary in quality, if even that. Some of the links are actually broken or no longer available or valid, etc. The points being made in this article may well be valid; but, it's citation often leads to a website that is tertiary and doesn't make a primary or secondary source readily apparent. Even if the links can eventually lead to the primary source, it should be cited within this Wikipedia article, without having to cause the reader to delve deeper along web links to find the original and more valid, reliable source. For example, the article repeatedly cites "Willow Glen History, willow-glen.com" as a reference. This Wikipedia article should more appropriately reference the second or primary source; as it even says at the website itself, "taken from 'The Willow Glen Neighborhood: Then and Now' by April Halberstadt." So, why not go directly to Halberstadt's book? Why not examine Halberstadt's book for more links; as well as find more books like her own? Such books are still available via book retailers, many of them online or on the main streets of Willow Glen or greater San Jose. You may even find these books at such places as the San Jose Public Library. There's many books available and detailing Willow Glen's history, as well as that of the larger city and county. You can even find information on early Willow Glen that relates to California State and U.S. federal history.Ca.papavero (talk) 10:26, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Please feel free to visit the California Room (local history) in San Jose's King Library. We can assist with primary sources like maps and directories. Ralph Pearce

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Geography section contradictory

the geo section says that Willow Glen is mainly 95125 (though not all) and part of 95126. While the residents may consider most of 95125 and part of 95126 the "nicer part" and what they want to call Willow Glen, its actually contradictory with the WG planning map and the boundary map cited immediately below. For example citing the northern border near 280 would bring Willow Glen into 95128. The boundary map published by the planning committee clearly go into many zip codes of San Jose outside of those two zip codes, and covers the entire 95125. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Willow+Glen,+San+Jose,+CA/@37.2759269,-121.9197069,15z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x808e349fe9fcfa03:0x8a27b4690a4f5602!8m2!3d37.2944276!4d-121.9135599!16s%2Fm%2F027ncb4?entry=ttu

It kinda feels like the residents of WG simply want to cite the nice part as some exclusive city that it is not. Its San Jose. Sanjose1976 (talk) 10:23, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Google Maps firstly is not a good source for this, but anyways it uses the planning areas map of SJ as its source. The Willow Glen planning area is much larger and not coterminous with the actual neighborhood of Willow Glen. The boundaries used by the WGNA are much smaller. But either way, neighborhood boundaries are rarely codified and official, regardless of neighborhood associations or city planning areas. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 14:39, 8 January 2024 (UTC)