Named for former Milpitas Mayor Ben Gross (1921-2012), Gross Street is appropriately located in Milpitas’s Sunnyhills neighborhood.
In addition to being the first black mayor (1966-1970) of a sizeable city in the US, Ben Gross was an official in the United Auto Workers Union and was central to the development of Milpitas’s Sunnyhills neighborhood, the first planned integrated housing development in California.
Ben Gross moved west to Richmond, CA in 1947, went to work in the Ford plant there, and became a member of the UAW Local 560. When Ford opened its new plant in Milpitas in 1954 (Mr. Gross was chair of the union’s Housing Committee) which saw a huge problem looming to find housing for African-American Ford plant workers in almost all-white Santa Clara County.