Once upon a time, the Spaghetti Warehouse in Dallas' West End was the place to go.
"The West End used to be way different than what it is now," J.J. Velez said.
Velez remembers coming to the Spaghetti Warehouse as a child for birthday celebrations and having the treat of eating inside the Old East Dallas Streetcar 707, which sat inside the restaurant.
"It's cool to be in places to eat, in a place like this, and it's cool to be in a trolley that was actually in service in Dallas.
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The bright red streetcar dates back to the 1920s. It was originally used in the Junius Heights neighborhood. The estimated cost of moving it from the Spaghetti Warehouse was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"We're doing it completely for free out of the kindness of our hearts," Velez said. He is a contractor by trade. "Preserving Dallas history is our job as people of Dallas, sons of the city."
Velez and his business partner are disassembling the old streetcar piece by piece.
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"When we see things that we grew up on being taken down, it's like a totally different place," Velez said. "Like we've been asleep for 50 years and you turn around the corner and nothing's there anymore."
Velez said it will take about a month to take the streetcar apart in pieces, and about two years to restore it and move it to its new home at Garden Cafe in Junius Heights; the neighborhood where it began.
"And 40 years from now when my kids, my grandkids go eat in it, they're gonna be like hey, my grandpa put that there," Velez said. "The cost, it's priceless."
