• Port of Alviso Historic District
• Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge
• Bayside Canning Company District
• South Bay Yacht Club

Alviso takes its name from Ygnacio Alviso, son of Corporal Domingo Alviso, a member of the De Anza expedition of 1775–76. In 1838, Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado granted Ygnacio Alviso the Rancho Rincón de los Esteros, encompassing more than 6,300 acres of tidal marsh and farmland at the southern edge of San Francisco Bay. The settlement was formally incorporated in 1852 as California's first chartered city, developing almost immediately into the principal port of San José and the commercial gateway for the Santa Clara Valley.

At its peak, Alviso operated a busy waterfront economy sustained by steamboat service to San Francisco, the Alviso Mills flour operation, and the Bayside Canning Company — a Chinese-owned enterprise that grew to become the third-largest cannery in the United States. The neighborhood's fortunes shifted when the San Francisco–San José Railroad bypassed Alviso in 1864, gradually redirecting regional commerce inland. The Port of Alviso Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, and the Bayside Canning Company District has since been found eligible for National Register listing for its significance to Chinese American history in California.

Today Alviso is San José's only waterfront district, bordered by the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge and the tidal wetlands it once shipped goods across. For those who carry the story of the South Bay's working waterfront, MY-NHD's Alviso tee is a way to wear that history close.