Get Morning Report and other email newsletters

Get Morning Report and other email newsletters

Springtime in San Jose just got a little more dull, as one of its most colorful and delightful attractions won’t be coming back. Rich Santoro, known to all as “The Bulb Guy” says he’s decided to put away his hoe and will no longer open his backyard garden to visitors.

Since 1985, Santoro has planted thousands upon thousands of bulbs — tulips, lilies, irises and more — in the backyard of his home in San Jose’s Berryessa neighborhood. Every year, he would open his gate for about a week to folks, who came daily by the hundreds to enjoy the natural beauty.

“After much consternation and some constipation I’ve decided to hang up my Bulb Guy Cape,” Santoro said, with a bit of humor. “Not an easy decision, as you can imagine.”

Now that he’s not digging holes in his spare time, Santoro says he wants to focus on his family and on performing. You may not know it, but the Bulb Guy has a side hustle as a vocalist with the Swing Solution big band orchestra and the Millennium Sounds Orchestra.

As the Bulb Guy, Santoro would wear his special red hat and green cape — resembling a tulip in bloom — and  welcome visitors every spring, chatting with them about the 2,000 square-foot yard’s different sections or telling the story of Conrad, a particularly tenacious tulip who managed to bloom every year. He even turned the garden into a fundraiser, bringing in donations for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in memory of his son, Richie “Boom” Santoro who died from from neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer.

Santoro didn’t open the garden in 2020 because of the pandemic — though a video tour was available — and decided to close last year in memory of family members who died from COVID-19. And while he sounds pretty definite that he’s done, I’m going to hold onto the hope that the Bulb Guy’s garden isn’t dead, just dormant, and will bloom again one day.

HISTORY MAKERS: La Raza Historical Society of Santa Clara Valley is celebrating Mexico’s Independence Day with a Sept. 16 celebration that will honor five people who have had a significant and positive impact on the Latino community.

The inaugural La Raza Award honorees are former Assemblyman Joe Coto; Shirley Trevino, founder Mujeres of Aztlan when she was a student at Santa Clara University; Bea Mendez Robinson, who fought for affirmative action hiring by the city of San Jose and Santa Clara County and founded the Woman’s Alliance, which became Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence; Maria Fuentes, a mental health advocate and community college trustee; and Herman Gallegos, a lifelong activist who helped found the Community Service Organization and the National Council of La Raza.

The fundraiser at the Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose begins at 6:30 p.m. and tickets are available for $125 each at bit.ly/lrhsawards2022.

GOOD NEWS FOR STANFORD FANS: Like the groundhog looking at his shadow and predicting more weeks of winter, the Powers- That-Be at the Stanford Theatre must have looked at the thermometer and decided two more weekends of its summer festival were in order. The summer run, which was supposed to end with “My Fair Lady” this weekend and Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran” on Sept. 15-16, has been extended to include Kurosawa’s “The Seven Samurai” on Sept. 17-18 and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (with a TBA double feature) on Sept. 22-25.

PARK PLACES: The San Jose City Council is expected Tuesday to approve a new “pocket park” on the corner of The Alameda and Hanchett Avenue, replacing a parking lot on the 0.17-acre slice of city-owned land. The exciting new name for this park? The Alameda Park.

That name came in second place in a survey to Hanchett Park, which makes a certain degree of sense: The park fronts Hanchett Avenue and is in the Shasta-Hanchett neighborhood. But a concern was raised that Lewis Hanchett, who owned the land around the area — put racially restrictive language in deeds. The city’s research didn’t find this to be the case, but it also didn’t find Hanchett to be a significant enough person to have a park named for him, either. So “The Alameda Park” — the safer, mediocre choice — won out.

Speaking of parks, San Jose Spotlight reported recently that Alviso resident Mark Espinoza was so frustrated with the city of San Jose’s long-delayed plans to create a park in the district that he started building it himself. Of course, the city of San Jose is less than thrilled with private citizens using heavy equipment to make DIY parks, even though the 3.3-acre parcel has been waiting in the wings since 2000 because of a lack of funding.

Related Articles Local News | Mountain View art and wine festival returns for its 50th Local News | Santa Clara University gets $3.8 million donation from recent graduate Local News | Sarah Winchester still fascinates us 100 years after her death Local News | It’s the end of an era for Hijinx Comics in San Jose Local News | San Jose lowriders celebrate the end of the city’s cruising ban It is ironic that Espinoza — who has a reputation for opposing development in Alviso — has taken to building. But one wonders if the project might get some funding if he jumped on a recent trend and told the city he wanted to create a “pocket park.”

REMEMBERING 9/11 HEROES: San Jose State Interim President Steve Perez sent a message to the campus community in advance of the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, reflecting upon some of the people with ties to SJSU who were on the scene that day or were part of recovery efforts. That list was led by Capt. Jason Dahl, the 1980 SJSU grad who was the pilot of United Flight 93, which crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers and crew rebelled against the hijackers.

But it is a good time for all of us to remember those we knew and didn’t know who were killed that day or have been affected by that tragedy in the two decades since.

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

Get Morning Report and other email newsletters