Look at all this fun Brise Birdsong (@breezy_bird) street art in Civita!
I took these photos during my recent walk through the large Civita residential development in Mission Valley.
Brise Birdsong is a local artist and illustrator whose street art can be seen all over San Diego. What you see here is a good example of her style. It appears all of these boxes were painted in 2017.
She particularly likes dog art. I like how the electrical box in my first few photos has had its panels mixed up, presumably by a utility worker.
Should you walk the sidewalks of Civita you’ll discover these and other happily painted boxes!
You can see more of Brise Birdsong on my blog by clicking here.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
Seven years ago I published 20 Ways To Help the Homeless in San Diego. This special page lists twenty organizations and initiatives that can use your help, to reach and assist homeless people all around San Diego.
This morning I revised the page. I’ve removed links to charitable operations and websites that no longer exist, added others.
If you find it in your heart, please visit this page again. There are many opportunities to volunteer, mentor, donate, provide hope.
Perhaps you’ll feel inspired to help out in your own way.
For over seventy-five years, the tallest structures that have ever been built in San Diego County stood atop a hill in Chollas Heights, four miles east of downtown San Diego. Three enormous towers marked the location of U.S. Naval Radio Transmitting Facility Chollas Heights, which operated the most powerful radio transmitter in North America.
A monument to these historically important towers can be viewed today at Lincoln Military Housing, across the street from the small Chollas Heights Naval Radio Transmitting Facility Museum, near the corner of College Grove Way and Transmitter Road.
The unusual monument is in fact a remnant of the old Navy communication station–an antenna that once was suspended 600 feet above ground.
While many San Diego residents saw three tall radio towers rising just north of Chollas Lake, their historical importance is less widely known. This is where the mainland United States received the first news of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
The U.S. Naval Radio Transmitting Facility Chollas Heights was purposely built beside Chollas Lake so that its water might cool the heated transmitter tubes.
Chollas Heights. Home of the world’s first global naval radio transmitting facility. 1917-1991.
A small, very badly faded sign in front of the old antenna provides interesting information. I’ve transcribed the words:
This structure once perched 600 feet above the ground atop Tower 33, which was one of three towers. In the center of the tower array, wires suspended an antenna so high it was almost invisible. Completed in 1917, the Chollas Heights complex accommodated the largest and most powerful radio transmitter in North America. The historic 200 kilowatt poulsen-arc transmitters had an unprecedented 12,000-mile range and broadcast at a frequency of 30.6 kilocycles. The innovations of the arc, or continuous wave, transmitter improved the range and reliability of communications over that of traditional “spark” transmitters. These could not be tuned to a specific frequency, so they encountered much interference. A landmark in the development of radio, the Chollas Heights facility played a vital role in Naval communications during World War I.
Built between 1915 and 1917, materials used in the Naval Radio Transmitting Facility were delivered by mules. The radio towers were visible for over 50 miles in clear weather, a familiar fixture in San Diego’s landscape for over seventy five years. Aircraft warning lights at their tips were used as a reference for pilots on their final approach to Lindbergh Field. To this day the towers were the tallest structures ever erected in San Diego County. The more modern transmitter, supporting three additional high-frequency antenna types, was used until the 1960’s, when it became outdated by advancing technology. It was then decommissioned in 1991 and dismantled in 1995.
“In behalf of the citizens of San Diego I have the honor of extending to you the season’s greetings and their good wishes and congratulate you upon the completion at San Diego of the world’s most powerful radio station. Space has been completely annihilated and the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards are as one.”
San Diego Mayor Edwin Capp’s original message sent to Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels in Arlington on the transmitter’s official testing day, January 26, 1917.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
From any angle, the Solana Beach train station appears unusual and interesting. The architecture of this Coaster and Amtrak station makes it one of the most intriguing landmarks in San Diego’s North County.
The Solana Beach station opened in 1994. The building was designed by Rob Wellington Quigley, who is also known for the San Diego Central Library and its iconic dome, The New Children’s Museum, the Ocean Discovery Institute in City Heights, Bayside Fire Station No. 2, and the Beaumont Building in Little Italy. It seems all of his architectural work is just as surprising and visually stimulating.
The last time I rode the Coaster to Solana Beach I walked around the train station, taking these photographs. To my eye, there’s something undefinably attractive about the building’s sharp lines and simple curved shape, and its singular symmetry.
I particularly like the passenger waiting room. Those artfully arranged windows on either side are bright with outdoor sunlight, as if beckoning travelers to venture out into a magical, multi-faceted, welcoming big world.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
Mexican artist Gabriel Rico has assembled objects related to a coastal desert estuary setting.
Walking around the floor of the museum gallery is like walking through a strange dreamscape of scattered symbols. Animals living and dead, stones, bones, faces, apparitions from the past, trash, a variety of abstract figures and forms stand or lie on sand by the unseen water.
Human artifacts, contemporary issues and disturbing images seem more prominent than nature’s beauty. The estuary imagined appears to be one in an urban setting.
Neon symbols dangling from the ceiling include vowels, numbers, the five senses and essential geometric shapes. They are common to every mind, but each experience of life is unique.
According to the exhibition’s description, the collected “objects are not meant to be considered individually rather experienced as a unified whole.” The art is provocative and raises questions differently in the mind of every viewer. Who are we? Where do we live and how do we live?
Does this gallery seem oddly familiar to your eyes? The Institute of Contemporary Art San Diego is a recent fusion of two organizations: the LUX Art Institute and the San Diego Art Institute. The latter used to occupy this same space inside Balboa Park’s House of Charm.
If you like to think about the world you live in, and perhaps in unexpected ways, Unity in Variety will give you pause. Like a stirring dream that lingers.
The exhibition runs through February 27, 2022.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
For a few minutes this afternoon in Balboa Park, I enjoyed watching the outdoor rehearsal of a community program coming to San Diego courtesy of the Old Globe.
Shakespeare: Call and Response, which will run from October 26 to November 14, 2021, is a three week tour of free performances with audience participation in diverse settings around the city.
What I observed was a crazy fun mixture of Shakespeare’s plays, modern romance, hip hop culture, dancing in the audience, laughter, bubbles, a Día de los Muertos altar, comedy about Halloween candy, and loads more impromptu cleverness and playful creativity!
This year’s program is part of the annual Globe For All Tour, which “brings free, live, professional productions of Shakespeare and select productions from our mainstage to diverse multigenerational audiences in the neighborhoods throughout San Diego County.”
Halloween was celebrated a bit early today in Balboa Park–if you’re a Pomeranian!
Furry participants in cute and humorous costumes were running about near the Bea Evenson Fountain when I walked through Balboa Park late this afternoon.
I had stumbled upon the 7th Annual Pom Pom Halloween Walk In Balboa Park, a fun event with members of the San Diego Pomeranian Meetup Group.
Which costume do you like best?
(I’m trying to decide: taco or cupcakes.)
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
The 2021 Rock ‘n’ Roll San Diego Marathon is taking place today!
This morning I walked through downtown San Diego to check out the action as a seemingly endless stream of marathon runners approached the finish line.
Many lined the sidewalks cheering on family, friends and complete strangers. Signs filled with encouraging words could be seen everywhere. Bands played music at stations along the race course.
I looked at the faces of the runners and saw dedication, grit, determination. I saw many arms fly upward in triumph when the finish line was only a few strides away.
Enjoy these photos, which show what it’s like to run in and watch the always extremely popular Rock ‘n Roll Marathon!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
A big K-pop dance competition was held today in San Diego, at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park. The epic event was part of “Korea Day at Balboa Park” hosted by the Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles and San Diego’s own House of Korea.
I watched the first half of the competition and saw five high energy performances by groups competing in the K-Pop Cover Dance Festival Final. The huge audience was excited, as you can plainly see, and they had good reason! The music and dance was buoyant, fun, infectious, uplifting. It’s no wonder K-pop music has become a worldwide phenomenon!
I resumed my walk through Balboa Park realizing that, even with this world’s endless troubles, there are always reasons for happiness. There is much in life that is good. And what is truly good comes from the heart.
Please enjoy the following photographs!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Walk through beautiful Civita Park in Mission Valley and you’re likely to cross paths with numerous rabbits. Rabbit sculptures, that is!
The bronze bunnies, which are pleasing to children (and the young at heart), can be encountered in surprising places around the spacious public park, which opened in 2017.
The lifelike rabbits were created by Encinitas sculptors T.J. Dixon and James Nelson. Their fantastic work can be viewed all over San Diego. (Click here to see many more of their creations!)
The above photo of a rabbit standing guard by small baby bunnies is located right next to the Civita Park welcome sign. As you can see in the next two photographs, a bronze book containing a story about two rabbits finding their home is perched on another rock nearby.
Finding Home… Once upon a time there were two little bunnies named Franklin and Alta. They were looking for the magic stone that had once covered their little doorway for so long…
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
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