Author: Richard Schulte

Downtown San Diego has been my home for many years. My online activities reflect my love for writing, blogging, walking and photography.

Oceanside post office mural painted by Hollywood actress!

This wonderful Air Mail mural inside Oceanside’s historic post office was painted in 1937 during the New Deal. The public art was commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. It was painted by Elise Seeds.

Many might not realize it, but the artist, Elise Seeds, was also a Hollywood actress!

As the Living New Deal website explains: Elise Seeds, also known as Alyse Cavanna, was a film actress, dancer, comedienne, and vegetarian as well as a painter. She was a well known artist back in the day. Here’s her bio on the askART website.

Elise Cavanna (her acting name) was W.C. Fields’ comic partner in the Ziegfield Follies. She’s mostly remembered for her role as a patient in the 1932 W.C. Fields slapstick comedy The Dentist. This website explains: As Fields attempts to pull her tooth, she recoils in pain and wraps her legs around Fields, getting her feet stuck in his pockets as he pulls her around the room. You can watch the movie on YouTube here. She appears around the 12 minute mark in a hilarious but ultimately suggestive scene that ended up being censored.

Elise Seeds led a full life and pursued many eclectic interests. She was certainly a genius. Simply take a look at her amazing Oceanside mural!

…

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

Thank you for sharing!

A unique Valentine’s Tree decorated with Love!

Have you ever heard of a Valentine’s Tree?

A unique Valentine’s Tree greets customers inside Valentine’s Mexican Food in downtown San Diego!

At first glance one might assume it’s a Christmas Tree, but decorated entirely with red tinsel, ribbons, crafted roses and glittering ornaments. With a closer look the truth is revealed. The tree is wrapped with Love!

Valentine’s Day is next Friday. It appears that Valentine’s Mexican Food is ready!

(Their Enchiladas Rancheras are super yummy. Now I’m hungry!)

…

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

Thank you for sharing!

Year of the Snake in San Diego’s Gaslamp!

Chinese New Year is being celebrated this weekend with a festival in downtown San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter. 2025 is the Year of the Snake!

The 42nd Annual San Diego Chinese New Year Fair is a free cultural event taking place along two city blocks by the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum. The food, entertainment, lion dancing and more can be found at the corner of Third Avenue and J Street–the center of San Diego’s Asian Pacific Thematic Historic District.

I’ve been under the weather the last couple days, but I found the energy today to walk down from Cortez Hill to experience a little bit of the fun. I snapped these photos.

The family-friendly 42nd Annual San Diego Chinese New Year Fair is presented by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of San Diego.

The big event is taking place Saturday and Sunday, February 8-9, 2025. Hours both days are from 10 am to 5 pm.

…

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

Thank you for sharing!

History at Carlsbad by the Sea Retirement Community.

A historical plaque can be found in front of the Carlsbad by the Sea Retirement Community. I noticed it during my last walk up Carlsbad Boulevard.

Here’s a photo:

The plaque reads:

CARLSBAD BY THE SEA RETIREMENT COMMUNITY

Dedicated June 20, 1998

In 1881, Captain John A. Frazier, a homesteader, purchased 127 acres of oceanfront land for $1200. While drilling for drinking water in 1884, Frazier tapped into an underground mineral spring. He built a 510 foot welltower and began promoting the water’s healing properties to passing travelers on the Southern California Railroad. The site became known as “Frazier’s Station”. In 1886 Gerhard Schutte and Samuel Church Smith purchased the land and renamed it “Carlsbad” with the intention of building a health resort. In 1929, after the paving of nearby Highway 101, construction began on the Spanish-Revival style “California-Carlsbad Mineral Springs Hotel” on this site. By 1939, the spa functions had ceased and the hotel changed owners several times. In 1957, Lutheran Services of San Diego purchased and re-opened the hotel as a retirement community. California Lutheran Homes acquired the community in 1964. The original building was demolished in 1996 to complete an expansion and modernization of the retirement community. The front facade has been reconstructed by California Lutheran Homes and Community Services as a replica of the original “California Carlsbad Mineral Springs Hotel.” A time capsule, buried behind this monument, will be opened 50 years from the ground breaking in October of 2046.

…

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

Thank you for sharing!

Hand-painted piano at Oceanside Museum of Art!

Do you play piano? Head over to the Oceanside Museum of Art, sit down at this very cool hand-painted instrument, and tickle the ivories!

I saw this piano during my last visit to the museum. It has a name: Henri. I believe it’s named after French pianist Henri Herbert.

Henri was painted by local artist Rene Cosby. It’s the result of the Oceanside Art Piano Project and a sponsorship by the Oceanside Cultural Arts Foundation.

There’s a great detailed article concerning this first public piano in Oceanside. To read it, click here!

(Back in 2016, the San Diego Symphony placed ten uniquely decorated pianos around San Diego for the public to play. Most of those pianos have disappeared, but you can see the photographs that I took by clicking here.)

…

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

Thank you for sharing!

Visions in downtown as San Diego sleeps.

In the darkness long before sunrise, downtown San Diego sleeps.

I often walk the city streets in the very early morning, when practically nobody is about. There are those times when I have to catch the day’s very first trolley. It can be a strange almost eerie experience. The stillness. The silence.

Here are some photographs I’ve taken during recent night walks.

There are sudden visions behind windows, on sidewalks, rising into the black sky.

…

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

Thank you for sharing!

A fence made of giant colored pencils!

Is this the most creative fence in San Diego? The fence “posts” have been made to appear like giant, many-colored pencils!

The super fun pencil fence surrounds a small garden just outside the San Diego Craft Collective.

Look for this surprising artwork in Point Loma, on the southwest side of Liberty Station’s Dorothea Laub Music & Arts Center, as you head from Rosecrans Street down Roosevelt Road.

Love it!

…

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

Thank you for sharing!

Unhoused students write Odes to Common Things.

Unhoused students at Monarch School in Barrio Logan have written powerful words concerning their life experiences. Their many compositions (each an ode to a common thing) are collected in a series of published books. Several volumes of Odes to Common Things are available at the San Diego Public Library.

Today I noticed that the big video screen near the Central Library’s entrance was cycling through some of these thought-provoking odes. I stood there reading, and lifting my camera to take a few photographs.

The Monarch School serves homeless youth–unhoused kids who live in shelters, motels, single room occupancy housing, double- or tripled-up with other families, at camp sites, in cars, or on the streets. Monarch School is the only comprehensive K-12 school in the U.S. developed specifically to serve unhoused students and their families.

Would you like to read words that might move you–words written from the heart by youth who hope to lead a secure and happy life? Yes? See the availability of the Ode to Common Things books at the San Diego Public Library by clicking here.

Ode to Memories, by Derek. …I carry memories of my life–in my head, my brain, my heart. They can be beautiful. They can be scary…
Ode to Cats, by Fabian. …My cats make me feel happy, comfortable…Cats go to heaven…
Ode to Basketball, by Deveyon. …It makes me better able to work with new people, to make new friends…basketball is what I have.
Ode to Ice Cream, by Jaylen. …What’s good is its coldness, its sweetness, its flavor. It’s as sweet as a championship and as joyful as a party.

…

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

Thank you for sharing!

Photos of San Diego Tết Festival 2025!

San Diego Tết Festival 2025 is being held all this weekend at Liberty Station. The cultural event celebrating Lunar New Year is free and a whole lot of fun! It’s the Year of the Wood Snake!

The big annual festival is a production of the Vietnamese American Youth Alliance. (In past years, this Tết Festival has been held in Mira Mesa. I went in 2017 and posted photos here.)

As the festival began late in the morning today–Saturday–excited families converged on the wide grassy field of NTC Park, drawn by tons of food, vendors, community organizations, kids activities, photo opportunities in the Cultural Village, a petting zoo and carnival rides. The main attraction, however, was the entertainment up on the main stage.

To begin the entertainment, Naruwan Taiko brought out their drums and boomed thundering, joyful energy out into the audience. This was soon followed by the day’s Opening Ceremony. Sea Cadets were introduced in front of the stage, a color guard advanced, and the national anthems of Vietnam and the United States were sung powerfully by a talented young lady.

A traditional Invocation and Prayer Ceremony followed. Elder members of the Vietnamese community made offerings and prayers for peace.

Then came politicians on stage, then firecrackers to one side, then Hoa Nghiêm Lion Dance! Much more would follow after I departed. (Would you believe it, five different lion dancing groups perform during the epic three-day festival!)

If you’d like to go to the big festival, here’s their website with all the information!

…

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

Thank you for sharing!

The new Carlsbad archway sign–ten years later.

Until I read a plaque attached to the Carlsbad archway sign, I hadn’t realized the “new” sign was already ten years old.

Starting in the 1930s, people have passed under a Carlsbad sign while traveling through this coastal city. In 2015 the original sign was replaced with a replica–the one you see in my photographs.

The landmark sign straddles Carlsbad Boulevard at Carlsbad Village Drive.

During previous walks, I hadn’t noticed two bronze plaques describing the sign. The plaques are identical. They’re attached to the posts that support the sign on either side of Carlsbad Boulevard.

These photos were taken a week ago.

This sign is a gift from TaylorMade and the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce to celebrate the important role business has played in the City of Carlsbad’s success. It is a replica of the iconic Carlsbad sign installed in the ’30s.

DEDICATED ON JANUARY 8, 2015

(Leading sports equipment manufacturer TaylorMade has its corporate headquarters in Carlsbad.)

…

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

Thank you for sharing!