San Jose Monopoly in the Park

Address: West San Carlos Street near Woz Way, San Jose, CA Tel: 408-995-6487. monopolyinthepark.com

San Jose Monopoly in the Park is a giant game board that you can rent, and step into the roles of the shoe, the thimble and other game pieces as you roll the giant dice and work your way around the board, trying to beat out the San Jose Police Officer's Association "Go Directly to Jail" space.  It's a game of luck, wit, and business acumen, and the person who buys up all the property and bankrupts the other players wins. Sound far too familiar?

Monopoly in the Park is the world's biggest version of the most popular board game ever.  As property is traded on a 930-square foot permanent Monopoly board, everyone has a chance to make it big in Silicon Valley real estate.  Participants play with jumbo dice and must don the jailhouse garb when they go to jail. 

Monopoly in the Park

Monopoly in the Park  in San Jose is based on the best-selling board game in the world, sold in 80 countries. The 1934 creation of Charles B. Darrow (Germantown, Pennsylvania) has many variations. The Downtown San Jose version is located on prime property near Adobe Systems Incorporated and San Jose McEnery Convention Center.

This unique attraction was created through a San Jose think tank in 1986. The mayor & council empowered citizens to actively take part in making San Jose a more beautiful place.  Monopoly in the Park, licensed by Hasbro's Parker Brothers, was built in Guadalupe River Park in downtown San Jose, just a few short blocks from the convention center and major hotels.

The giant game board was initially produced as an exhibition for a San Francisco Landscape and Design Show.  San Jose Beautiful, a nonprofit organization oversaw the permanent installation in Discovery Meadow near  Children's Discovery Museum in Downtown San Jose in an open lawn area visible from the street.  At Guadalupe River Park and Gardens a permanent cement game board was constructed on the ground, and the game pieces, money, houses & properties, and huge plastic, inflatable dice all are supplied when you rent the game out. 

"Chance" is  a part of the Monopoly game, yet when Darrow first pitched his idea to Parker Brothers executives of producing Monopoly, they turned him down, stating the game had 52 design errors. He decided to  finance 500 game sets himself and they sold out almost immediately. The rest is history.