At last year's Founders' Day event, members of the Willow Glen Beautification Project group unveiled a prototype plaque made up of ceramic tiles with a picture of historic Lincoln Avenue on it.

The organization, which is a collaboration between the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association and the Willow Glen Business and Professional Association, has worked on other beautification projects that include a mural at the Willow Glen Library and sculptures along Lincoln Avenue. Now the group wants the business association to help promote it and its project, called "Sign of the Times." The organization hopes to eventually mount several plaques of historic Lincoln Avenue on various buildings to show how the buildings appeared several decades ago, making the street a sort of historic walk.

Norma Ruiz, executive director of the business association, said she thought it was "wonderful" when she saw the prototype at the association's last monthly meeting. The association agreed to promote the plaque project on its website—www.downtownwillowglen.org—asking the community for donations and old photos of Lincoln Avenue.

"The concept of creating a historic walk for Lincoln Avenue is really intriguing, and I was really pleased at the caliber of the project," Ruiz said.

The estimated cost for each plaque is about $500.

After the library mural, the organization brainstormed other beautification projects. The group dismissed the idea of placing historic kiosks along Lincoln Avenue as infeasible because they would be too susceptible to wear from sunlight and harsh weather. Instead group members decided to go with Nina Koepcke's idea to superimpose photographs onto ceramic tiles. The longtime organization member, who is an internationally recognized ceramics artist with a studio in her Willow Glen home, helped provide the expertise needed.

In 2000, Koepcke helped acquire an $800 grant from the Clay and Glass Arts Foundation of San Francisco, of which she is also a board member.

"I wish I could have asked for more, but it's a nonprofit and they could only afford the prototype," Koepcke said, which only actually came out to cost $500 so the difference was reimbursed. But making the prototype was still a challenge.

Koepcke said that the creation of the prototype took three attempts, beginning with a donated photograph of a centered shot looking down Lincoln Avenue, flanked on both sides of the street with 1950s-era cars parked diagonally at the curbs.

She said that ceramic tiles are more resilient to weather and are also easier to clean.

So far at least 15 sites along Lincoln Avenue have been identified as candidates to have a plaque mounted, provided the property or business owner will allow them, Koepcke said. However, when funding becomes available, the organization may only create eight or 10 plaques.

Committee member Marvin Bamburg, an architect whose office is on Lincoln Avenue, is eager to get other business and property owners as well as the community involved in bringing the plaques to downtown as "a tribute to the memory of what used to be here."

But he understands why the plaque project may be a long time coming.

"It's a hard time for the economy right now," Bamburg said, " and not everyone is in a good position to make donations."

The prototype is in his office's meeting room, and the group hopes that more will be made. They would have liked to have finished the plaques project sooner, but lack of funding has slowed its progress.

"This really is going to be an educational project for the business association," said Kitty Mason, the group's president.

She and Bamburg, who is the secretary for the business and professional association, believe that there are too many members of the board who are too new to remember that the business and the neighborhood associations created the organization in the mid-1990s and need to get reacquainted.

Mason said the plaque issue might be brought before the neighborhood association in the summer. But in the meantime, Mason invites the public to contact her for information on supporting the plaque project or to donate photos of old Lincoln Avenue.

Kitty Mason can be reached by calling 408.297.4316 or emailing kittymason@sbcglobal.net.