North Willow Glen History Part 10 of 15: The 1960s

North Willow Glen continues to decline slowly. The neighborhood loses a few vintage homes to developers who scrape them and put up duplexes. Highway 280 cuts through to the north, cutting the community off from downtown San Jose.

Around this time, the City of San Jose attempts to make Bird Avenue into an expressway. Bird is widened to six lanes from Park Avenue south as far as Coe, and many old houses are lost on Virginia, Fuller, Hull, and Atlanta. But North Willow Glen residents south of Coe put up a fight, and eventually the City drops its plan for Bird Expressway.

Leading up to the September 21st Willow Glen Founders Day Parade on Lincoln Avenue, NWGNA is providing readers with history about the evolution of our neighborhood, largely excerpted from Ken Ecklund's North Willow Glen Neighborhood Association Page.

We view this as our history and encourage you to share. Stories and photos of North Willow Glen are very welcome and with your permission and credit we would like to archive this information to improve our understanding of life in our neighborhood throughout the years. Please post here or reach us via e-mail at board@nwgna.org.