San Jose Central Fire Station - San Jose, CA - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

"The former San Jose Central Fire Station, known today as Former San Jose Fire Station One, is located at the northwest corner of North Market and West St. John Streets in downtown San Jose. Situated on the southern end of a city block adjacent its modern replacement, this large, modern, two-story fire station (inactive since the year 2000), is within an urban area of moderate to large commercial and government office buildings in the northern end of the downtown. While most of these nearby buildings are contemporary in age, the area contains a mixture of building sizes and types, reflecting over a century of diverse urban development. San Jose Central Fire Station opened in 1951 during the beginnings of an expansive era of growth in San Jose. It was designed in a modernistic way as a reflection of the ambitions and goals for the future by an optimistic City intent on creating the environment for rapid industrialization. The most prestigious local architectural firm of the time, Binder & Curtis, was commissioned for the design. The execution of the project remains one of their last and finest legacies in the six decades that the firm helped define the city’s downtown skyline. International Style in its simplicity and use of unarticulated volumes and voids, but with accents referencing Art Moderne in its horizontal banding of windows, and monumental in its articulation of mass, keystones, and engaged columns, it remains one of the most well executed and unique examples of post-World War II early-modern designs in San Jose's urban core. The style itself had only begun to surface locally just before the World War II, and flourished for about 20 years, to be superseded by commercial and institutional architecture more parametric in form, or Bay Regional in style. The property maintains almost all of its historic integrity, and remains in excellent condition, exhibiting only minor changes today from its original design intent and materials. Those modifications have not changed the character of the building, but rather adapted the building to changing conditions in operations, as San Jose’s downtown grew to become the capital of Silicon Valley." (visit link)

Street address: 201 N. Market St. San Jose, CA USA County / Borough / Parish: Santa Clara Year listed: 2015 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Architecture/Engineering Periods of significance: 1951-1958 Historic function: government Current function: vacant Privately owned?: no Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Season start / Season finish: Not listed Hours of operation: Not listed Secondary Website 1: Not listed Secondary Website 2: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

Visit Instructions:
Please give the date and brief account of your visit. Include any additional observations or information that you may have, particularly about the current condition of the site. Additional photos are highly encouraged, but not mandatory.

Recent Visits/Logs:

There are no logs for this waymark yet.