This might be your last chance to go down in Gilroy history.
Organizers of the downtown’s Gilroy Historic Paseo Project hope to complete the long-anticipated passageway this summer and are offering one more chance to purchase an inscribed brick for inclusion in the final design.
“It has been a long process,” said former mayor Al Pinhiero, co-chair of the project. “The panels are ready to install with the finishing touches and it’s an opportunity for community members to put their names on bricks that will be placed at the base of each panel. It’s a great opportunity to leave your family’s mark in this historic paseo,” he said.
“We’re trying to get the word out to people to purchase a brick, we’d like to have all the orders by early June,” said co-chair Joan Buchanan.
About 100 of the 240 bricks have been sold so far, she said, to individuals, families, organizations and businesses.
The public-private project demolished a store on the west side of Monterey Road, between Fifth and Sixth streets, to make a walkway for access to parking lots on the next block.
Large interpretive panels will tell the last 150 years or so of Gilroy history, the latter with graphics and vignettes about such things as the city’s historic cigar industry and Gilroy Hot Springs, once a popular mountain resort reached by horse-drawn wagons.
Paseo is a Spanish word for passage or promenade.
Bricks cost $250 and can be inscribed with a personal message.
Gilroy artist Whitney Pintello painted a mural on the paseo’s north wall.
Seven panels up to eight feet high will stretch along the walls from east to west.
They will depict the life and commerce of the city and its environs under the titles Early Settlers, Agriculture, Commerce, Hospitality, The Community, The Garlic Story and The Cowboy Era.
Each sponsored panel will explore its subject in words and photos. Among the details are James Culp’s 1870 cigar factory, Gilroy Brewery started in 1868, cowboy star Casey Tibbs, Gilroy Hot Springs and a 1920s mural of ranch life that still adorns the Milias Restaurant at the corner of Sixth Street and Monterey Road.
For more information or to purchase a personalized brick, visit gilroyfoundation.org/paseo.
