New online SPUR exhibition explores Guadalupe River Park’s potential

While best known for its work in urban land-use and transportation, SPUR’s newest online exhibition takes a deep dive into a less-asphalty topic: re-envisioning the Guadalupe River Park that runs through downtown San Jose.

And the “re” part of the envisioning process is key here, SPUR leaders say, because the park as originally designed more than two decades ago isn’t meeting its potential for users — and that includes the unhoused, whose encampments have been a hot topic lately.

Noah Christman, SPUR’s director of public programming, said the group hopes that the interactive exhibit serves as a hub for stakeholders — whether that’s the city, community groups or individual users — to come together and understand that the Guadalupe River Park can be more than what it is now.

“It’s really easy to assume that what we have is what we’re going to continue having,” said Christman, who managed the exhibition based on work by SPUR’s former planning policy director, Michelle Huttenhoff. “And that’s not the case, as we’ve seen with projects around San Jose.”

The exhibit, which can be viewed at www.spur.org/guadalupe, dives into the park’s origins in a flood-control project, explores ideas about “rewilding” the river and looks at the issue of creating a safe space for everyone (including the people who currently live in the park). Different sections include opportunities for visitors to provide their own thoughts and answer questions about the park’s future. The research that went into the exhibition was done in partnership with the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy and the city of San Jose, with funding from the Knight Foundation, and is reflected in a significant resource library at the end of the exhibition that allows people to go even deeper.

Fred Buzo, SPUR’s San Jose director, said moving the park forward has been the subject of lots of conversations and plans over the years but with little progress. He hopes that having more people looking at this work and providing feedback will break that logjam.

“I see the exhibition as a tool that we’re going to use moving forward to have the city and other organizations like the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy ask some difficult questions,” he said. “Here’s potentially this great place that needs a ton of work, and here’s another vision for it. No one’s really asked the question, ‘What’s it going to take to do this?’”

SHARKS LOGO STILL NO. 1: The San Jose Sharks logo was ranked the best in pro sports, according to a survey by a marketing outfit called Quality Logo Products. While such surveys are best taken with a grain of salt, Sharks fans should just take take this as a win, especially because the study of more 1,000 participants were from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and not — as one might suspect — entirely from greater San Jose.

The respondents clearly have a thing for angry animals, since the top four selections — the Sharks, the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Baltimore Ravens — all feature mean-looking wildlife.

The Sharks brand also topped the categories of NHL’s best and Most Creative. The original teal-and-black logo featuring a shark chomping through a hockey stick was designed in 1991 by Northern California artist Terry Smith and was an immediate hit with sports fans. It also made Smith, a former Stanford basketball player, an in-demand artist for other sports logos and posters, including for the San Jose Earthquakes.

The Sharks called upon Smith again in 2013 to refresh the logo, making the Shark a little more aggressive and adding definition with a dark teal color scheme. The logo will be on full display Saturday at SAP Center when the Sharks take on the Tampa Bay Lightning and celebrate the “birthday” of another key element of the team’s branding — beloved mascot S.J. Sharkie.

VACCINE AND A MUSEUM PASS: The Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose has its second vaccination clinic with the Santa Clara County Public Health Department on Jan. 23, and as with one that happened earlier this month, a COVID-19 vaccination shot comes with a pass for up to eight people to visit the museum between now and May 31.

The clinic at the museum, at 180 Woz Way, runs from 9:30 to 4:30 p.m. and is open to anyone age 5 or up. There are no appointments, and everything is handled on a walk-up, first-come basis. If you miss this one, there’s another coming up Feb. 13, and you can get more details at www.cdm.org/vaccination.