San Jose State University sits just east of downtown, a compact urban campus of brick buildings, lawns, and public art. Tower Hall, the campus icon, is a Romanesque sandstone tower that survived the 1906 earthquake and remains the most photographed building on the grounds. The university is the oldest public institution of higher learning in California, founded in 1857.
The campus is worth a walk for the Olympic Black Power Statue alone, but there is also the Hammer Theatre, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library — a unique joint city-and-university library — and several student galleries that show free contemporary art. Walking from downtown takes about ten minutes, and the campus connects naturally to the rest of central San Jose.