FOR EIGHT YEARS now, Josh Marcotte has wandered around San Jose taking photographs of abandoned buildings, neon signs, empty storefronts, defunct railroad yards, discarded couches and graffiti-stained underpasses. His photo project, “Lost San Jose,” captures every possible depiction of crumbling infrastructure he can find. His website, www.lostsanjose.com, describes his work as “insomnia, trespassing and a camera … a view of a city that’s hidden, overlooked and unwanted. It’s a eulogy for my dying neighborhood.”
But death is not the end. On Saturday, Feb. 6, Marcotte will launch a solo show of his photos at, of all places, the Blues Jean Bar in Santana Row. This is the hipster jeans place where you walk up to the counter and choose your material: dark, light or distressed—a concept perfectly fitting for the event.
Unlike most of us, Marcotte is a fourth-generation San Josean. His grandfather dropped out of Lincoln High School to fight in World War II. His great-grandfather worked for the railroad. Thanks to history lessons passed down from those earlier generations, Marcotte developed a keen sense of lost San Jose at a very early age.
“When I was growing up, every weekend I would go and mow my grandfather’s lawn,” Marcotte recalled over the phone. “He would always tell me all these great stories about the history of San Jose and downtown, and when he was a kid growing up. … He would sometimes even drive me places and show me things that either were still there or no longer there. He was so fascinated with history, and he was such a fan of San Jose—and I just enjoyed going out with him so much.”
When he arrived at San Jose State University in the late ’90s, Marcotte found himself wandering alone downtown for the very first time. He would get out of class and just roam the streets. “I was trying to connect to what my grandfather had told me, and trying to piece things together,” he said. “And what I found was that all of the buildings are empty, all the theaters were abandoned, all of the storefronts were boarded up; buildings were being torn down, hotels were being lifted up and moved across the parking lot. It was just chaos downtown, and everything seemed empty.”
As a result, Marcotte was inspired enough to start documenting his travels. At that time, he worked at the Century Theatres on Winchester and often walked from there all the way down Stevens Creek and San Carlos to downtown San Jose, habitually writing up his perceptions of the city’s seedy underbelly. To that point, his only experience with cameras was an intro to photography class at Del Mar High School, but he saved money, bought a camera and began to record his wanderings.
“It got to the point where so many things were disappearing,” he said. “I wanted to document it. I wanted to have pictures of it, so I could remember it. … I had pictures of Notre Dame High School being torn down; I had photos of the Santana Row fire; I had pictures of things that were starting to go away.”
Marcotte takes most of his photos at night, since he often has insomnia and just wanders around the dark streets. The show will feature both new and old photos. His work will also be included in a group exhibit at Kaleid Gallery at Fourth and San Fernando streets, beginning Feb. 5.
“It’s about trying to connect with the past generations of my family,” Marcotte said. “Trying to document what I felt was being lost, trying to see if I was the only one out there who enjoyed San Jose and its nightlife and its underbelly.”
Just like the Blues Jean Bar, Marcotte’s photos have something for everybody—whether you’re looking for dark, light or distressed material. I can’t think of a better reason to visit Santana Row.
