Pellier Park, which originally opened in 1977, is now an open and inviting urban park that has several nods to Santa Clara Valley’s agricultural history.
Renovated Pellier Park is reopened during a public ceremony, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, at Terraine and St. James streets in downtown San Jose, Calif. The half-acre park honors agricultural pioneer Louis Pellier, the renowned “Prune King” of California. It’s a real shame that Leonard McKay didn’t live to see Pellier Park finally reopen Wednesday.
The wrought-iron gates on its adobe walls were closed just a year later after the city realized it didn’t have the resources to maintain an agricultural park, even a small one, and Pellier Park essentially went dormant. When McKay died in 2006, he was looking forward to the park’s restoration and expansion the following year upon the completion of the City Heights residential building.
“What is the most unusual thing about being an artist on this project is I was not allowed to make art,” Sato said at Wednesday’s celebration. “Sometimes, it’s OK just to put art thinking into a space and not to have to always make art out of it.” There is also a single French prune tree — don’t let longtime Santa Clara Valley residents hear you call it a plum tree — in the park to honor Pellier’s introduction of the fruit to the valley’s agricultural legacy. Jon Cicirelli, San Jose’s director of parks, recreation and neighborhood services, said it was harder than you’d think to procure the tree, an irony given that thousands of them used to carpet the valley.
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