1. When completed the San Jose Sikh Gurdwara will be over 90,000 square feet. Where is it located?
2. What do the largest cinnabar mines in North America, located here, and our newspaper have in common?
3. Why are all the streetlights in San Jose yellow?
4. Kelley Park has Happy Hollow, the Japanese Friendship Garden and San Jose History Park. What will be the newest addition to Kelley Park?
5. What was San Jose's first city hall called?
Answers -
1. 3636 Murillo Ave., San Jose, CA 95148. The Sikh Gurdwara or Sikh Gurdwara - San Jose (a Gurdwara is the Sikh place of worship) was founded in San Jose, California, USA in 1985 by leaders of the then-rapidly growing Santa Clara Valley Sikh community. Initially they met in a rented community center, but soon bought a small building in east San Jose. After buying nearby land in the early 1990s, they decided it would be too expensive to build in the city limits, so they sold that land and bought a larger property further east. The first phase of the project of almost 20,000 square feet (2,000 m²) was completed in 2004. When the second phase is completed, the project will be over 90,000 square feet (8,000 m²).
2. The name 'Mercury.' The paper claims that its name, "Mercury", refers to the importance of the mercury industry during the California Gold Rush, when the city's New Almaden Mines were the largest producer of mercury in North America, although the name Mercury is commonly used for newspapers without the quicksilver association.
3. So the glare from the light will not affect the work being conducted at Lick Observatory. In April, 1888, the observatory was turned over to the Regents of the University of California, and it became the first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory in the world. The location provided excellent viewing performance due to lack of ambient light and pollution; additionally, the night air at the top of Mt. Hamilton is extremely calm, and the mountain peak is normally above the level of the fog that is often seen in the San Francisco Bay Area.
With the growth of San Jose, and the rest of Silicon Valley, light pollution became a problem for the observatory. In the 1970s, a site in the Santa Lucia Mountains, southeast of Monterey, was evaluated for possible relocation of many of the telescopes. However, funding for the move was not available, and in 1980 San Jose began a program to reduce the effects of lighting, most notably replacing all streetlamps with low pressure sodium lamps. The result is that the Mount Hamilton site remains a viable location for a major working observatory.
Visit the Lick Observatory website for more fascinating information.
4. The Portuguese Historical Museum. Kelley Park in San Jose, California, USA is 156 acres (631,000 m²), including diverse facilities such as Happy Hollow Park & Zoo, the Japanese Friendship Garden, History Park at Kelley Park, and the Portuguese Historical Museum within the history park. Most of the rest of the park is picnic areas, lawns, groves of trees, and plenty of pathways in between. Kelley Park is located at the intersections of King and Senter Roads in East San Jose. The land was once a farm owned by Judge Lawrence Archer, a former mayor of San José.
5. Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe. El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe (Town of Saint Joseph on Wolf River) was founded by José Joaquin Moraga on November 29, 1777, the first settlement not associated with a mission or a military post (presidio) in Alta California. (Mission Santa Clara, the closest mission, was founded earlier in 1777, three miles (5 km) from the original pueblo site in neighboring Santa Clara. Mission San José de Guadalupe was not founded until 1797, about 20 miles (30 km) north of San Jose in what is now Fremont.) The town was founded by the colonists led to California by de Anza, as a farming community to provide food for the presidios of San Francisco and Monterey. In 1778, the pueblo had a population of 68. In 1797, the pueblo was moved from its original location, near the present-day intersection of Guadalupe Parkway and Taylor Street, to a location in what is now Downtown San Jose, surrounding Pueblo Plaza (now Plaza de César Chávez).
