WHILE SCOPING out the kaleidoscope of underbelly scattered along Keyes Street, the urban-blight exploration junkie hazily recalled a little antiquarian booklet titled A Lute of Jade: Being Selections From the Classical Poets of China. The junkie had particularly adored the chapter on the Tang Dynasty Poets because, according to the book, “They were at once painters and poets, musicians and singers. And because they were philosophers and seekers after the beauty that underlies the form of things.” The composition and color of their work contained “a deep simplicity touching many hidden springs, a profound regard for the noble uses of leisure, things which modern critics of life have taught us to despise.”
Those passages were enough to inspire the junkie as he embarked on a journey from 12th and Keyes streets westward through an exhilarating cross-section of discarded San Jose. Right at that intersection sits a wonderful yard to prowl around in: The Art Craft Trading Company.
Need secret locales to investigate? This is one. At first, it looks like any other patio and landscaping wholesaler, but the yard itself contains a labyrinth of oddball marble giraffe statues, dolphins, Buddhas, Virgin Marys and Chinese temple adornments. Plus there are solid concrete fountains, Greek goddesses, 10-foot ceramic lizards, snakes, warehouse racks of bowls up to 5 feet in diameter and stone alligators in every earth tone imaginable. This is probably the only locale in San Jose where you can get a 15-foot-high concrete statue of Themis, the goddess of justice, for $19,500. The junkie spent at least 15 minutes just wandering around the yard, barely avoiding a head-on collision with a Vietnamese dude wielding a mean pallet jack. Yikes.
From there, Keyes unfolds with a mishmash of contemporary urban wasteland ambience. For a few blocks, tightly knit ethnic enclaves dominate the landscape, only to give way to shoddy-looking auto-repair sites. A few dilapidated but occupied homes seemingly co-exist with new-car lots. Defunct railroad tracks plunge right through fenced-off vacant lots and industrial spillover from the side streets. San Jose Furniture Warehouse holds perpetual clearance sales just across the lane from a seedy Cash ‘n’ Carry outlet. Sounds of semi trucks, buses and air ratchets dominate the audio environment.
It gets even better. Two time-tested watering holes populate this authentically derelict stretch of Keyes. What used to be S&H Keyes Club in whatever past incarnation now carries on as Tap’s Keyes Club. It is a murky establishment in many regards. Down the street sits Bar la Palma, butting up against one of the many dirt alleys running perpendicular to Keyes. If you didn’t think alleys still existed in San Jose, think again.
Approaching the home stretch and stench of the Keyes experience, the junkie reacquainted himself with the proverbial ancient transmission shop, a nonoperational Mexican market and that legendary Spartan Gas sign left over from decades ago. What a ‘hood!
The end of Keyes eventually becomes Goodyear, for whatever botched urban-planning reason, right where First and Second streets begin to merge into each other. At that point, there arrives a denouement unlike any other in our fair city. Two institutions await to refresh any world traveler after a long amble down this forgotten thoroughfare: (1) The legendary Burger Bar eatery, and (2) The Place, one of San Jose’s classic dive bars.
Albert Berger opened the Burger Bar in 1953, and it still endures. Even though the burgers have skyrocketed to five for $5.99, as opposed to five for a dollar, like they probably were in the ’50s, the joint refuses to die. The Place claims to have “the longest bar in town.” One can enter from First or Second Street. The bar stretches exactly one city block.
In that regard, a wasteland stroll down Keyes Street provides something for the entire family. In the end, you can easily dump the kids at Burger Bar while you hammer a few Pabst Blue Ribbons at The Place. The urban-blight exploration junkie gives thanks to the Tang Dynasty Poets. May their inspiration live on.
