What if Silicon Valley had an eye-catching welcome sign?
That's the question Hafid Alfonso, a De Anza College student studying speech and communications, is posing in an open letter to his neighbors and beyond in a one-man effort to possibly put up a Hollywood-like billboard in the hills near San Jose, the gateway to companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook.
"Although San Jose has a rich unique history it lacks a certain "cool" factor, call it taste, branding, or culture it is something one would expect from another large city of its caliber," he said. "So I thought to myself, why doesn't San Jose, or rather Silicon Valley have a distinguished landmark? Sure, the valley has tech companies, beta testing self driving cars, and the Adobe Semaphore, but
where’s our Golden Gate, Space Needle, or Hollywood landmark?"
Alfonso does not have all the answers to: How much will it cost, who will pay for it, what kind of bureaucratic hurdles will it take to get it done, and where exactly the sign will live. He does mention crowdfunding as a course, though, and getting the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and Chamber of Commerce behind him in the future. He also thinks the sign could sit in the hills in Santa Clara County facing downtown San Jose, or in the eastern foothills of Milpitas or Fremont.
Alfonso said he came up with the idea while running a walking tour company in downtown San Jose and realizing the Bay Area's largest city has no iconic symbol. He has not formally broached the topic with any agency, although he said he mentioned it a while back to San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, who gave the idea a lukewarm reception.
At least on social media, the reaction was swift - and mostly negative - to Alfonso's plan. "Why bother?" tweeted Naoto Sato.
"You techies really want to take over this area badly," Christopher Hurney Howard wrote on Facebook.
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Jason Gamez, 38, of San Jose, who works at a Palo Alto law firm, said it the most plainly: "NO, NO, NO, NO,NO!"
In a phone interview Wednesday, Gamez said: "I don’t think we need a landmark perse, but if someone want to do something it should be unique.”
San Jose is “suburban with homes,” he said. “Some people care about a landmark, but I don’t.”
Other critics said things like: Waste of time. Waste of money. Don't ruin the hills
But none of that pessimism seemed to get Alfonso down.
"Of course, there's going to be bad publicity at first," he said, likening the challenge to the Eiffel Tower, which had its share of early critics. "It was doomed for disaster when it was first put up. And look what it is today."
In a decade, Alfonso said, "it could be an icon."
Alfonso's plans are pretty detailed. He'd love the sign to be made of sustainable materials, stand 45-feet high and could be made with letters representing "chips on a motherboard" or studded with LED bulbs to change colors during "local major league sports" game days.
For now, Alfonso is thrilled just to be getting some attention for his vision.
"It is all imagination at this point," he said. "The journal is intended to serve as a visual aid for anyone wanting to know about this bizarre idea, or perhaps bring it to life!"
If anyone is interested in making the sign project a reality, Alfonso asks that people email him at hafidalfonso@gmail.com.
