Willow Glen Resident

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Photograph by Kevin White

Take a Seat: Willow Glen Elementary students (from left) Sheridan Westlake, Anna Garcia-Daily, Alexa Westlake and Lily Garcia-Daily helped paint one of the 11 bus stop benches now gracing the downtown. This one was inspired by their school mascot.

EBus benches are more than benchwarmers

By Laura Rheinheimer

The Lincoln Avenue landscape is looking quite sassy these days thanks to a Willow Glen Beautification Project--sassy seats.

Inspired by Willow Glen schoolchildren, generic brown bus stop benches have been given a new look. Waiting riders at the 11 bus stop locations along Lincoln between Coe and Minnesota avenues are now greeted with benches painted in colorful, whimsical designs.

"They look great," said Kitty Mason, president of the Willow Glen Beautification Project.

The "Sassy Seats" idea was inspired by a similar project on Keyes Street, Mason said. San Jose Beautiful awarded the Willow Glen Beautification Project a $1,500 grant, which was used to rent fencing and a storage unit for paint supplies. The Willow Glen Neighborhood Association provided refreshments for the artists and helpers while they worked in the hot sun, Mason said.

A great deal of manpower went into the project so it would succeed, Mason added.

The program has been implemented in other neighborhoods where residents wanted to spruce up their communities, said Ron Wong, who works in Valley Transportation Agency operations and planning.

VTA provided the committee with new benches for the project. The old Lincoln Avenue bus stop benches will be used in other parts of the county, according to Wong.

Willow Glen Beautification Project member Jim Arbuckle said the project originally included refurbishing the old benches, but then the VTA came through with new benches, it was a welcome surprise. Several paint companies, including Kelly-Moore, Dunn-Edwards and Frazee, donated all of the paint and anti-graffiti varnish.

The decorative benches are located along the northern section of Lincoln Avenue at the intersections of Coe, Lester and Broadway avenues and in front of the Valero gas station, on Willow Street and Lincoln Avenue, across from Meredith Avenue, on both sides of Lincoln Avenue near Longs Drugs and on Minnesota Avenue across from Willow Glen Elementary School and Starbucks.

River Glen third-graders, Arthouse Kids, Richard Morse of Petroglyph, Christine Benjamin of CB Illustration, First Unitarian Church, San Jose Conservation Corps, Willow Glen Elementary and Broadway High schools were among the groups that adopted a bench.

The owners of Arthouse Kids, a learning center for children on Lincoln Avenue, provided much of the talent to paint the benches. Julie Stover, co-owner of the center, said many artists from the area, including some involved with the Willow Glen Artists Guild, showed an interest in the project.

Christine Benjamin, a local illustrator and member of the art guild who did the artwork for this year's Dancin' on the Avenue poster, painted "Cruisin' in Downtown," a city skyline with a fading orange and yellow background.

Students from Willow Glen Elementary School created a bench with an orange tiger and butterflies. The design was the result of combining submissions from the school's annual T-shirt contest. The students submit mascot designs for the yearly challenge, said Marylea Adams, who runs a volunteer art program at school.

Children involved with Arthouse Kids and Willow Glen Elementary were also asked to help paint the benches. First-grader Quincy Strasilla said she was excited to tell her friends that she helped paint the tiger mascot bench across from the school.

The Arthouse Kids bench was designed as a group of children with their heads peering out at anyone looking to sit down, with the back of their heads painted on the outside of the bench.

Students from River Glen School inspired the blue and green bench with the quetzal bird, the bilingual school's mascot. Tessie Scharaga, a teacher at River Glen, used the children's designs to paint the final plan on the bench.

"I like these big splashes of color," Arbuckle said as he oversaw painting on July 19.

Jenny Garcia-Daly, a Willow Glen artist, designed one bench that was a collaborative effort of six artists. The bench is painted with different symbols of peace.

"Any way of getting this message out is fine by me," Garcia-Daly said.

The centerpiece of the bench, designed by a social-justice group with the First Unitarian Church of San Jose, is a peace mandala, where a rider can trace a finger along a painted labyrinth while waiting for the bus, said Carol Stephenson, social-justice coordinator at the church.

Arbuckle said the idea behind these types of projects is to help people think differently about their communities.

"It might help people realize what's possible," he said.