(rshsdepot) `Heart's Delight' photographer hustles to snap vanishing past

["James Dent" <james.dent_@_itochu.com>]

I can identify with this fellow...

Published Monday, May 14, 2001, in the San Jose Mercury News

`Heart's Delight' photographer hustles to snap vanishing past
BY MIKE CASSIDY
Mercury News
Gabriel Ibarra is in a hurry.

It's like he's rushing from a burning building, grabbing at any treasure to
save it before it's destroyed.

But his treasures are old buildings and orchards. The stuff that put the
Heart's Delight into the Santa Clara Valley. The stuff that has been in the
way of Silicon Valley progress and little match for its steamroller.

Of course, Ibarra can't pick up the pieces of the past and hold them to his
chest. So, he photographs them. Hundreds of photos of orchards, barns,
canneries, drying sheds, roadside fruit stands.

``I got it just in time,'' Ibarra, 45, says pointing to a photo of a
railroad roundhouse in San Jose. ``A short time later, vandals came and
smashed all the windows.''

For a decade he's hurried to photograph the past before it is gone.

``Yeah, I feel like somewhat stressed about that,'' he says. ``Then I have
to tell myself it's not going to go away overnight.''

Not now. The economy is sputtering. Ibarra, a buyer for Snap-On Diagnostics
in San Jose, finds himself cheering for the slowdown.

``It just seems that people are re-evaluating what they're doing rather than
rushing forward,'' he says. They're asking: ``Do we actually need all these
buildings?''

Maybe not. High-tech companies have halted big developments. But someday,
old companies might rev up. New ones will rise, hungry for land among the
patchwork of surviving orchards.

Ibarra grew up playing in an orchard near his Santa Clara home. Now the land
has sprouted condos. It's a familiar story.

Ibarra started his photo work 10 years ago, while volunteering with the
Preservation Action Council. He uses a database to keep track of his photos
and sometimes holds exhibits -- one is scheduled June 2-3 at Santa Clara's
Triton Museum.

Now he is working through Silicon Valley: downtown San Jose, Alviso, Agnews,
Berryessa, Coyote Valley, where a massive Cisco campus and a power plant
might one day be built.

``He's in love with Coyote Valley,'' says Gabriel's mother, Teresa Ibarra.

Teresa and Michael Ibarra, Gabriel's father, have lived in their Santa Clara
home for 45 years and know well what their son is talking about. They've
seen vast changes while supporting a family -- Michael, 76, as a carpenter
and Teresa, 74, as a seasonal cannery worker.

In fact, Teresa spent her summers at the Libby plant in Sunnyvale.

You know the old Libby plant. It's an office park now.


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