Dear Editor,
Recently four city councilman voted to put six homes on two lots
on Miller Avenue. Maybe the planning commission and those four
councilmen should make a trip to Alexander Street between Sixth and
Seventh streets.
Dear Editor,
Recently four city councilman voted to put six homes on two lots on Miller Avenue. Maybe the planning commission and those four councilmen should make a trip to Alexander Street between Sixth and Seventh streets.
My parents purchased the large white house on the west side of Alexander Street in 1940. They finally finished remodeling it in the earlier 1950s. We had great neighbors including the Brem, Kong, Sakai, Farmer, Schmidt, Berry, Schieler, Fischer and Silacci families. There was an empty large lot just south of our home.
As older neighbors died, their homes where sold to slum landlords. When I was just 11, in 1952, directly across the street a stabbing occurred. My parents decided to sell the house in 1954 because the neighborhood was deteriorating rapidly. The family that purchased Henry Kong’s house decided to buy our home. My mother was happy because a single family would be living in our home.
My parents purchased a home on Miller Avenue when the Alexander home was sold. Within two years the family that purchased the Alexander Street home sold to another slum landlord as you will see when you visit the site. The wise city planners let a local doctor/developer rezone the property to the south of our home what today would amount to a PUD. Then the lovely apartment complex was built.
The Brem home just to the south of the apartment complex burnt down and the city planners in their wisdom rezoned and let another apartment complex to be built. The city does not care about old Gilroy neighborhoods. Miller Avenue is now an old neighborhood. If they did care they would prune the dead wood out of the city’s trees, take out the two dead trees at First and Miller, remove the stump in front of my home and, of course, vote the PUD project down. Alexander Street is the bright future of Miller Avenue. The city administrator, city planners and Council do not care one iota about old Gilroy.
Naomi Steinmetz Murphy, Gilroy
