Family-run business in Japantown reopens
Kogura Co. Gifts is ready to reopen today after being closed for nearly eight months because of the pandemic. Kogura says she never had a doubt that the gift store in San Jose’s Japantown would reopen. After all, she has a 92-year-old legacy to uphold.
“You walk through these doors, and this is the only place you’ll see in Japantown that looks the same as it did prior to World War II,” said Richard Kogura, Carolyn’s brother.
Their grandfather, Kohei Kogura, opened the store in 1928, and it has remained in family hands ever since. The stock has changed over the years — at one point, radios were the big seller, and there’s a 1930s vintage RCA Victor “Magic Eye” radio in one corner of the shop with a formal black-and-white framed photograph of the family from the
same era resting on it.
Richard Kogura and Bob Kumamoto, his cousin and a retired history professor at San Jose State, both credit the business’ longevity to not only their family but San Jose attorney J.B. Peckham, who helped Japanese families return to
their homes and businesses after their internment during World War II.
Like John Heinlen, the German immigrant farmer who used his nearby land to establish the Heinlen ville Chinatown from which Japantown grew, Peckham faced scorn from San Jose residents for doing the right thing. They trusted him with their lands and belongings, and he gave them back after the war.
The Kogura and Kumamoto families are betting big on the future of Japantown. They own the brick building next door, believed to be the oldest in Japantown dating to 1890, and are starting a restoration plan with Garden City Construction’s Jim Salata. He’s also working on refurbishing Kogura Co.’s vintage neon sign on Jackson Street, which has gone through a few changes over
the decades and will be altered again in the coming months. The phrase “Oriental Arts” will be replaced by “Established 1928,” both a nod to the business’ legacy and an understanding of the modern sensibilities that frown on the once-common description of Asians.
Richard Kogura said he hopes the reopening brings more activity to Japantown, which has been
slowly coming back over the past few months. “People are excited,” he said. “Once we open up, there will be more shops for people to walk into.”
‘OLD TIMES’ WITH OLD FRIENDS >>
Remember those celebrity Zoom bombs that happened at the Los Altos Stage Company board meetings this summer? It actually turned into a pretty special event for the
Peninsula theater group taking place Nov. 8.
Theater, film and TV stars Polly Draper, Brooke Adams and Tony Shalhoub will perform a livestreamed reading of Harold Pinter’s “Old Times,” a play about a married couple being visited by his wife’s old roommate — and their very complicated interrelationships. Interestingly, Adams and Shalhoub are married, and
Draper is a longtime friend of both.
“We all love the play, and it’s a perfect fit for the three of us,” Draper said in a release, noting that she and Shalhoub met and performed a scene from the play while attending the Yale School of Drama. She also met and performed with Adams in a local Connecticut production during that time, and the three have been friends for 40 years. Draper is also friends with Los Altos Stage Company board member Vivian Lufkin, which got this whole ball rolling to begin with.
Tickets to the 5 p.m. livestream reading are $50 per household, and a limited number of VIP tickets are available for $750 that include access to a virtual post-show reception with the actors, along with
a wine-and-cheese basket delivered to your home. Get more details at losaltosstage.org.
FASHIONABLE FUNDRAISER >> NBC Bay Area “Today in the Bay” co-anchor Laura Garcia will emcee a virtual event Nov. 12 for the Grand View League, the fundraising arm of the American Cancer Society, to raise funds for cancer research. She’ll be joined by a trio of cancer researchers, including two that have received funding from the Grand View League Research Funding Initiative.
In addition to the research discussion, the 4 p.m. event, “Design & Discovery,” also will feature an interactive fashion “look book,” online shopping boutiques (including Susie O’s Handbags, Social Butterflies LA and Moonlite Couture) and a silent auction. Get more details at acscacam.ejoinme.org/grandviewleague.
WALKING TALL >> This week’s big applause goes to Blake Mosher, a 22-year-old Morgan Hill resident, who is taking part this weekend in the virtual Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) One Walk. The task he’s challenged himself with is walking 70 miles in 24 hours starting at sunrise on Saturday along the Bay Ridge Trail from Skyline Ridge Preserve to the Golden Gate Bridge.
What makes this more amazing and meaningful is that Mosher was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes six years ago when he was a junior in high school. A support crew will join him on the challenge, including an endocrinologist who’ll be checking his glucose levels remotely. When he gets to the bridge, let’s hope he takes the rest of Sunday off — and off his feet.