San Jose desperately needs an iconic landmark. Last year, the nation’s 10th largest city was tabbed the country’s most forgettable municipality, according to a study by Nathan Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com. Fly will forgive the slight—but not the werewolf squid Silver calls a haircut, or, you know, his awful prediction in the last year’s presidential election—mainly because San Jose’s skyline has about as many peaks as Brent Burns’ smile. (Love you, Burnzie. Now please put that hockey stick down.) But there’s light at the beginning of the tunnel. Two weeks ago, San Jose Inside provided the full scoop on an effort to rebuild the city’s massive light tower, which a 100 years ago was the envy of the bay. Standing over Santa Clara Street, the beacon could be seen from as far away as San Francisco. A few San Jose Rotarians—Jon Ball, Steve Borkenhagen and Thomas Wohlmut—have since teamed up to see if they can replicate a larger version of the structure, perhaps as high as 260 feet, and place it over one of the city’s parks. Phase one of the project is funding Wohlmut’s documentary on the light tower and its rumored influence on the design of the Eiffel Tower. Last week, Borkenhagen invited 150 guests to his jazz club, Café Stritch, to build excitement for the project, and the event raised an encouraging $90,000. That was $10K short of the goal, but Borkenhagen tells Fly that “a number of people came up to me and said they don’t do public donations,” so the amount is expected to grow. After the film is released, phase two of the project will involve global submissions for the design of the new light tower, with stipends in the range of $20K-$30K, Borkenhagen says. From there, the effort will move to building the structure—in total, Borkenhagen says, the process should take four years—and working out an agreement with the city regarding placement and ongoing maintenance costs. “Our current thought is to give this as a gift to the city,” Borkenhagen says.

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The Fly is a weekly column written by San Jose Inside staff that provides a behind-the-scenes look at local politics.