Sometimes I get a little bug in my head, which means research — I don’t know anyone as dorky as me, who finds research to be an interesting hobby. Of course, these days doing research is far less difficult thanks to teh interweb and apps like Google Earth.
The current version of Google Earth has a great new feature: historical imagery. It’s not at all complete, most areas don’t have any imagery before the mid 1990s. Still, there is interesting insight to be found in the small patches of old aerial photos. Luckily, the question I was asking happened to be covered by an old image.
When I was a kid, my grandparents lived here in San Jose and I have many disjointed memories of landmarks I saw. There are fragments of wineries stuck in my head, trips to vineyards with my grandfather that are still firing in the synapses. When I moved here a few years ago I was confused that so many of my memories didn’t seem to jibe with what I saw. The library on Pearl Avenue was still there, but where was the Alpha Beta supermarket? Houses sat there now.
Turns out that houses are everywhere, obliterating the landmarks of my early years. Every open space in the Santa Clara Valley was paved over and covered with housing, the orchards destroyed, and finally even landmark buildings torn down to make way for yet another residential development.
I started out looking for this building:
I remembered the distinctive spire and circular building, but had no idea what winery it was. I thought it might be Almaden Winery, but after searching images with every winery name I could think of, it finally appeared. This was the Paul Masson Champagne Cellars in Saratoga, photographed by none other than Ansel Adams. A landmark, right?
It was — for it’s now gone — located on Saratoga Avenue. Here’s what the spot looked like in 1948:
This image is pretty much the same as the entire valley in 1948: covered as far as the eye can see with orderly orchards.
Imagery at this point jumps fifty years, and we can see the Masson buildings — although in this image taken in 1991, the facility has already had its heyday and been closed.
The orchards are completely gone, replaced by tract housing and cleared for construction of highway 85. Jump ahead to today:
… and there is no sign that this area was once covered with orchards, vineyards, and a landmark wine cellar. Other than a few streets evoking Masson, of course.
In south San Jose, the historic Almaden Winery was demolished as far as the law would allow, up to the edge of the historic 1800s building. Expensive housing was built right up to it and the developer, in a sop to preservationists, created a small park around the remains of the winery. Still, what’s the point? It’s just an old building now.
This change in land use is evident everywhere in Silicon Valley. Here’s a series that spans only 10 years, showing the Mirrasou winery that once existed on the east side of San Jose. The vineyards dwindled to nothing, the winery (the oldest in San Jose) was sold, and the buildings left to rot while real estate prices rose to ridiculous levels and more condos were built.
Even as the real estate market crashes around us, we can’t go back in time. We can’t tear down the overpriced housing and rebuild the architectural landmarks that were destroyed.
