Many in the nearby business community say it and other civic projects finally may be the critical injection of renewal their section of downtown has been waiting for. Bob Holley, operator of the vintage Tenth Street Pharmacy, said he has seen redevelopment projects come and go in the neighborhood without a great deal of lasting change. His hopes are that a new school and City Hall will at least reduce the number of sleeping derelicts. Once a month he has to pressure-clean the alley behind his store. Streets are a mix of shoppers and residents, some students from nearby San Jose State University and tenants in the many halfway houses and board and care homes that dot side streets.
Many pedestrians seem to wander without purpose, suffering from some affliction.
Police cars cruise. In the midst of what is certainly one of San Jose's most urban settings is a neighborhood school where a band of 15 full-time teachers, staff and students seem to succeed despite a general lack of accouterments. Horace Mann has no gym, no auditorium or science lab, and no real kitchen or cafeteria even though more than 80 percent of the students rely on it for a free or reduced-price breakfast and lunch every day. The last use of the portables will be for summer school, which began June 26. Starting in September, Horace Mann students will spend two years being bused across town, taught in another collection of temporary classrooms erected behind Hoover Middle School in the Rose Garden neighborhood.