Harrison Street is one of those old Willow Glen enclaves in San Jose, a neighborhood built out as the city grew in the late 1940s and early 1950s and interrupted by railroad tracks. And, like many such streets in the city, one of its distinctive features is the canopy of camphor trees stretching from Fuller Avenue to Harrison’s dead end at the tracks.

But that may not be the case much longer. In early April, the city of San Jose posted removal notices on 15 of the 25 towering trees on Harrison Street, citing the damage to the curbs and gutters and the trees’ potential root loss when the street is repaved this year. But losing the decades-old trees and shade that comes with them is not sitting well with some neighbors who worry the city is sacrificing what makes the street special to improve it.

SAN JOSE, CA – APRIL 23: Harrison Street residents Mary Pizzo, left, Mary Jo Hyland and John Francis Maggio stand next to camphor trees which are tagged for removal by the city in San Jose, Calif., on Friday, April 23, 2021. 15 of the 25 trees which form a canopy along Harrison Street could be removed because they’re breaking up the concrete. The residents oppose to the tree removal. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) 

“This community forest is a shady slice of heaven, even with Highway 280 and Caltrain providing background music,” said resident Mary Pizzo, who moved onto the street with her husband, John Francis Maggio, in 1987. “We were the third family to occupy this home. Many of our neighbors worked at the Del Monte cannery. They walked along the railroad track at the end of our street, as a short cut to get to work.”

Any trees that are removed will be replaced, of course, but it could be many years before they provide anything close to the same canopy.

Larry Ames, a San Jose parks commissioner who lives in Willow Glen, also objects and filed a letter of protest with the city’s transportation department.

He says he’ll “forest bathe” sometimes walking under the camphor trees on Westwood Drive and planted the trees on his curb strip on Willow Street 40 years ago. “But I’ll have to admit that the camphors along Fuller and Harrison appear even larger and healthier than any of these,” he wrote. “I appreciate that San Jose is repairing and repaving residential streets, and it does make sense to do any necessary curb repair prior to repaving. But please don’t destroy the village in order to save it, and don’t deforest this beautiful tree-lined street in order to repave it.”

Ames hopes the city can find a way to repair the gutters and pave the street without taking out the trees, and his letter should trigger a hearing on the issue before the trees are removed, though nothing has been set yet. If nothing else, this is a good example of how the city trying to do the right thing — repaving older streets — can have unwanted consequences.

BOOST FOR URBAN PLANNING AT SJSU: Kelly Snider, a well-known urban planner and development consultant in Silicon Valley, has taken on a new role at San Jose State, thanks to a $1 million gift to establish the first endowed professorship at SJSU’s College of Social Sciences. She’ll be heading up the Advanced Certificate Program in Real Estate Development in the Urban and Regional Planning department, where she’s been a part-time teacher since its inception in 2014.

Scott Lefaver, a San Jose State grad who was among the first to receive a master’s in urban planning, made the seven-figure donation to create the position. An urban and regional planning lecturer himself since 1974, Lefaver — along with Mark Lazzarini, Eli Reinhardt and the late Charles W. Davidson — established the program in 2014.

“SJSU and this expanded program are going to cover the divide between for-profit development and community-serving growth,” Snider said. “We can have both. I’m delighted to be expanding my role with SJSU, and Scott Lefaver is the reason that I can.”

DONATION DELIVERED TO HARKER: DoorDash co-founder Andy Fang made a big $10 million donation to the Harker School in San Jose this month to launch an Alumni Scholarship Endowment Fund. Fang, who graduated from Harker in 2010, went on to create the food delivery service — then called PaloAltoDelivery.com — with Stanford classmates Evan Moore, Stanley Tang and Tony Xu in 2013.

Fang became a billionaire when the company went public in December, and he sees this fund — which will provide need-based financial aid for students who qualify for admission but otherwise couldn’t afford the private K-12 school — as a way to give back.

“A great education is one of the best ways to even the playing field for underprivileged kids,” Fang said in a statement. “I hope this endowment can help families from underserved communities achieve the American dream.”

A DECADE OF SUPPORT: The Jim McEntee Legacy Committee/Friends of Human Relations celebrated 10 years of helping community college students transition to four-year schools during the group’s virtual scholarship benefit Thursday night. Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez talked about the legacy of McEntee, who served as director of Santa Clara County’s Office of Human Relations for 27 years until his death in 2004. (No, we’re not talking about the HR department that deals with employees, but an office that advocates for the civil and human rights of Santa Clara County residents.)

James McEntee, Sr. Civic Center Plaza at the county government center is named in his honor, but many think he’d be even more proud of the scholarship program, which has provided more than $242,000 to fund 133 scholarships since 2007 (with plans to award $40,000 to 20 students this year). Two  previous scholarship recipients, Manuel Santana and Diana Urias, spoke during the online program.

If you missed Thursday’s event, don’t worry; you can find out more and make a donation at www.friendsofhumanrelations.org.