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Would you buy a pink poodle pin to celebrate San Jose’s history?

Posted on by darion

When Ben Leech became executive director of Preservation Action Council of San Jose in 2020, he likely couldn’t have predicted that he would one day be selling strip club enamel pins to help preserve the city’s historic buildings and signs.

But that day has come.

Featuring an older version of the famous Pink Poodle sign — the current version was too cartoonish for Leech’s taste — the pin is one of the latest in a series of dozens of pins featuring old San Jose business signs, some still in operation and others now a thing of the past.

The event was a surprising fundraising success for the nonprofit organization that works to preserve historic buildings in the city.

“It’s a significant portion of our operating budget, and we never expected it to be that way,” said Leech, who designs the pins himself by tracing the photos. If it were just about the money, he wouldn’t be as interested, he added. “But it’s also a public campaign, so it does double duty.”

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Preservation Action Council Executive Director Ben Leech poses with a new collection of enamel pins featuring San Jose’s historic landmarks on Sept. 9, 2024, at San Pedro Square Market in downtown San Jose. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)

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The new group will also join closed restaurants like Burger Pit, Race Street Fish & Poultry and Bold Knight, as well as a few establishments that are still operating, like La Villa Delicatessen, Olivera Egg Ranch, Vahl’s in Alviso and Dulceria Mi Carnival, a small shop on East Santa Clara Street that sells piñatas.

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

The idea came from a desire to raise money for the Stephen’s Meat Dancing Pig sign, which was in dire need of renovation just a few years ago. It was part of a set of four signs released in December 2020, alongside signs for three West San Carlos Street businesses: Western Appliance, Orchard Supply Hardware, and Y Not.

Since then, the line has expanded to include bowling alleys, movie theater marquees, classic bars, and iconic characters like Babe the Muffler Man and Dealin’ Dollar Dan. There have also been limited-edition Pallesen Apartment Building moves, the Diridon Caltrain Station, and a set for Kogura Gifts featuring the Jackson Street building and various versions of the neon sign over the decades.

Leech was not initially in favor of producing stamps for companies that no longer exist, as his goal was to preserve what was still working rather than to satisfy people’s nostalgia.

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

RETURN TO THE OLD HOUSE: In August 1974, six people with a common interest — old homes in San Jose — met for the first time and formed the Santa Clara Valley Victorian Historic Preservation Association, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last weekend with a dinner at the Germania restaurant in downtown Teske.

Historic preservation was gaining popularity at the time, and it was a backlash against urban renewal plans in many cities across the country. But the people who gathered in San Jose had a mission that went beyond historic preservation: They also wanted to share ideas, tools, and best practices for restoring old homes.

Marcus Salomon, president of the Victorian Preservation Association, speaks during the association’s 50th anniversary celebration on Sept. 7, 2024, at Teske’s Germania restaurant in downtown San Jose. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)
Marcus Salomon, president of the Victorian Preservation Association, speaks during the association’s 50th anniversary celebration on Sept. 7, 2024, at Teske’s Germania restaurant in downtown San Jose. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)

“We’ve grown slowly over the years, and it’s hard to imagine how long what’s happened here will last,” said Marcus Salomon, who has served as group president for 11 of the past 13 years.

“We found resources to renovate our homes and we lent our knowledge and information to new people who were trying to renovate their homes. Little by little, it started to actually happen, and we were able to restore these old beauties to their original glory,” he said.

The Andrew P. Hill House in San Jose’s History Park was restored by the Victorian Preservation Association, a project completed in 2009. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)
The Andrew P. Hill House in San Jose’s History Park was restored by the Victorian Preservation Association, a project completed in 2009. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)

Perhaps the largest project the group has ever undertaken was the renovation of the Andrew P. Hill House, a late 19th-century Queen Anne house that was moved from Sherman Street to History Park in San Jose in 1997. The organization’s volunteers, 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.