http://www.nps.gov/saan/planyourvisit/sanjose.htm
Known as the "Queen of the Missions", this is the largest of the missions and was almost fully restored to its original design in the 1930s by the WPA (Works Projects Administration). Spanish missions were not churches, but communities, with the church the focus. Mission San José shows the visitor how all the missions might have looked over 250 years ago.
Mission San Jose is one of those places full of people talking like tour guides to small groups of people . . . That is, maybe they have tours there, but instead of a ranger leading around a herd of 30 people all at once. they would have several other, non-official-looking civilians as tour guides, or maybe these people have some expertise and are sharing it with friends from out of town, or maybe they just like to hear themselves talk, so they latch onto people in the front office and just wont go away . . .8^D . . . Anyway . . .
I heard one of these, a plain-clothes guide, speaking somehow pompously, insinuatingly, furtively, en sotto voce, ". . .that far corner was where the brothel was, and . . . " continuing on out of my hearing . . . 8^D . . . It was a fascinating concept to me: that in that closed society there would be a place for a brothel . . . I intuit that it was an institutionalized role included in the society as a recognized role, not to say whole-heartedly-approved role . . . Oh, imagine, like the legalized prostitution in Europe. . . But this would be amongst a very small society . . . Interesting. . .
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