King and Story

The intersection of King and Story serves as an important marker for a neighborhood in East San Jose, California.

The area surrounding King and Story is a hub for the East San Jose Community and for Latino culture in San Jose. The neighborhood is sometimes known as Tropicana, after the shopping center on the southwest corner of the intersection. In the 1930s, future agricultural labor union leader César Chávez and his family moved into the neighborhood. It was here that Chávez first began his political actions, registering voters and organizing English language classes for the mostly Mexican American residents. The first grocery stores targeted by the NFWA grape boycott were on King Road. In the 1980s the area was a hub of lowrider culture, and the Mural de la Raza, which depicts Chicano history and was created on a wall near the intersection in that decade, is now one of the oldest murals in the city. The Mi Pueblo Hispanic supermarket chain started at the intersection.

At the start of the 21st century, the San Jose Redevelopment Agency pursued redevelopment of the intersection, successfully locating a grocery store on the north-east corner before pursuing eminent domain to redevelop the southeast and southwest corners. On the southeast corner, in conjunction with local developers Blake-Hunt Ventures, vacant and abandoned buildings were replaced with needed banking and shopping options. However, after encountering a court challenge to its acquisition of the Tropicana shopping center on the southwest corner, the city paid $6.8 million in 2002 to the primary landowner who contended that his own redevelopment plans had been unfairly interfered with, and settled for acquisition of certain portions and the redevelopment of the remainder in conjunction with the existing owners.

In 2003, the San Jose City Council considered a bill to rename King Road, named for an 1851 settler to San Jose, after Martin Luther King, Jr. The proposal was generally supported by the African American community and opposed by the Hispanic population. The city council eventually rejected the proposal.

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