Built about the same time as Heinlenville Chinatown, the one-story brick building on the northwest corner of Sixth and Jackson Streets was first home to Chinese tenants. By 1901, the first Japanese businesses in the area that would become known as Japantown appeared in the building. In the early 1930s, the building would house some of the earliest Filipino businesses in the community. Facing Sixth Street, the (then) blank brick wall on the Jackson Street side of the building was used as a community bulletin board. At some point after WWII, a door and windows were added to the Jackson Street side.
By the early 1960s, the building was owned by the Kogura family, who owned the adjacent building on Jackson Street (now Kogura Gifts), as well as a newer building next door on Sixth Street (now Nikaku and Minatos Restaurant. The Kogura’s had stucco applied to the exterior to update the building's look and also created an interior opening between the building and their gift shop. If you look along the back of the building on the Sixth Street side, you can see the original brick exterior. The building has some damage caused by the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. The building made an appearance as a Japanese restaurant (exterior only) in a 1988 film entitled The Wash, starring Mako and Nobu McCarthy.
Further Reading in the California Room
- California Room 1891 Sanborn Maps
- San Jose City directories
- Chinatown, San Jose, USA by Connie Young Yu
- Beginnings: Japanese American in San Jose by Steven Misawa
- Japanese Legacy by Lukes and Okihiro
Add a comment to: Looking Back: San Jose Japantown’s Oldest Building, a Chinatown Survivor