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

["Paul S. Luchter" <luckyshow_@_mindspring.com>]

This is where O loved, I photographed almost every relic I could find-every
water tower (not just rail), every everything in valley and on
mountain....the only road I never was on was the dirt one from Pacheco Pass
to San Antonio Valley...On Pacheco Pass there is a diner at Bell's Station,
the only surviving place name from the Butterfield Overland Stage
route...with a view of Lover's Leap not far from Lover's Lane to the east...

Alviso is neat and Cisco will ruin it (as much of what I have on slides is
gone now..the round house, the amazing wooden tower structures in Santa
Clara, even the roundhouse it seems....that great WP freight station-that
area is so not preservation oriented it is amazing....
- -----Original Message-----
From: James Dent <james.dent_@_itochu.com>
To: RSHS List <rshsdepot_@_lists.railfan.net>
Date: Monday, May 14, 2001 3:49 PM
Subject: (rshsdepot) `Heart's Delight' photographer hustles to snap
vanishing past


>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.
>
>
>z
>

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