Blackford, San Jose, CA

Blackford is a West San Jose neighborhood with a naming puzzle and a genuinely good park. The name comes from the historic Blackford school complex on Blackford Avenue, now home to a private prep school, and it is worth knowing that the current Blackford Elementary is actually several miles east near Willow Glen, so check school assignments by address before you fall for the name. Blackford's housing is mostly single-family homes along level streets between the Moorpark and Saratoga corridors. Away from the edges there is little through traffic, and the interior blocks stay quiet and residential, the kind of streets where an evening walk rarely meets more than a few passing cars. Saratoga Avenue is the food street. Moonwake Coffee Roasters roasts its beans on site each week and runs two bars, a quick counter up front and a slow bar with its own menu, in a room full of plants built around a half-moon counter. Zeni Ethiopian is just up the avenue, and Le Papillon, the long-running French restaurant, sits farther north on the same road. Westgate Center, down Saratoga Avenue, covers most errands. T&T Supermarket opened there with a bakery and ready-to-eat meals, next to Target, Nordstrom Rack, Ross and TJ Maxx, plus a cluster of dim sum, sushi and poke counters. San Tomas Expressway, Moorpark Avenue and Saratoga Avenue frame the neighborhood and carry steady traffic, and there is no rail within an easy walk, so the Green Line in Campbell is a drive rather than a stroll. Most trips, from the morning commute to a run for groceries, start with the car. The tradeoffs are the arterial edges and that school-name confusion. But with a solid park, a community center and a creek greenbelt on hand, Blackford is a livable, well-located West Side pocket for buyers who do their homework on the school lines.