The new lot also includes closed restaurants like Burger Pit, Race Street Fish & Poultry and Bold Knight, as well as some places that still remain like La Villa Delicatessen, Olivera Egg Ranch, Vahl’s in Alviso and Dulceria Mi Carnival, a small shop on East Santa Clara Street selling piñatas.

They are available on the PAC-SJ website, preservation.org, as well as at Kogura Gifts in Japantown, Recycle Bookstore in Campbell, the San Jose Museum of Art gift shop and Antiques Colony.

The idea began as a way to raise money for the Stephen’s Meat Dancing Pig sign, which was in dire need of restoration just a few years ago, and was included in a set of four released in December 2020, along with signs for three West San Carlos Street businesses, Western Appliance, Orchard Supply Hardware and Y Not.

Since then, the line has grown to include bowling alleys, movie theaters, classic bars and iconic figures like Babe the Muffler Man and Dealin’ Dollar Dan. There were also limited editions made for the relocation of the Pallesen apartment building, the Diridon Caltrain station, and a set made for Kogura Gifts, depicting its Jackson Street building and various versions of its neon sign over the decades.

Leech also wasn’t keen on making pins for companies that were gone as his aim was to preserve what still existed rather than cater to people’s nostalgia.

“What turned me around was when I realized that even though these things don’t exist in the real world anymore, they exist in people’s memories,” he said, noting that every city has theaters, toy stores and restaurants that were iconic to the people. who grew up there. “If we recognize what’s gone, it fits into the whole spectrum of why conservation is important.”

Old Homecoming: Back in August 1974, six people with a common interest – the owned old houses of San Jose – met for the first time and created the Victorian Preservation Association of Santa Clara Valley, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last weekend with a dinner at Teske’s in downtown Germania .

Historic preservation was gaining momentum at the time, a push back into urban renewal plans in many cities across the country, but the people who gathered in San Jose had a mission that wasn’t just advocacy: They also wanted to share ideas, tools and best practices for to renovate their old houses.

“Slowly it grew over the years, and it’s hard to imagine the sustainability of what actually happened here,” said Marcus Salomon, who has been CEO of the group for 11 of the past 13 years.

“We were able to find resources for the restoration of our houses and lend expertise and information to the newer people who were trying to restore their homes. One by one, it actually started to happen, and we were able to bring these old beauties back to their original glory,” he said. .

Probably the largest project the group ever undertook was the restoration of the Andrew P. Hill House, a late 1800s Queen Anne-style house that was moved from Sherman Street to History Park in San Jose in 1997. Volunteers from the organization led by Tony and Paulette Ornellas, took on the challenge of restoring the house, a project that took more than a decade to complete in 2009.