Little Saigon postcard mural on the side of the Sin Lee Food Wholesale building.
Enjoy these photographs of colorful street art along El Cajon Boulevard between Highland Avenue and Euclid Avenue, the heart of an area in San Diego known as Little Saigon!
I made certain to photograph the 2018 postcard-style Little Saigon mural, which was painted by artist Victor Ving and photographer Lisa Beggs during their extensive Greetings Tour.
(Two other cool Greetings Tour murals can be enjoyed in San Diego. One at Liberty Station here, and one in North Park here!)
Come with me and let’s walk through Little Saigon to see some street art!
An imaginative San Diego version of the famous Chợ Bến Thành market, which is located in the center of Hồ Chí Minh City.
I believe this faded street art in Little Saigon celebrates the 20th Anniversary of The El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Association.Sign in front of a market in Little Saigon. Many languages are spoken here.
I love this dragon street art. I had to add contrast to many of these photos, because much of the painted artwork has been faded by time and weather.
Banners, lamp posts, and even some examples of architecture reflect Vietnamese culture in San Diego’s Little Saigon.Planter on sidewalk with tile mosaic depicting a lotus, symbol of divine beauty. The lotus is Vietnam’s national flower.Plaque on side of the planter indicates The Little Saigon District was established on June 4th, 2013. Vietnamese refugees have built a new life here.
The oft-photographed Little Saigon mural, near the corner of El Cajon Boulevard and Menlo Avenue, created by @GreetingsTour.
UPDATE!
Here’s a box I saw during a walk in May 2022…
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…You are the bright pearly moon at night…Thousands of distant stars Am I…
Little Saigon Stories can be glimpsed in the windows of a North Park building, at the corner of El Cajon Boulevard and 30th Street.
A project of Media Arts Center and The AjA Project, Little Saigon Stories celebrates and recounts the history of the Vietnamese community in East San Diego. Various events were held in 2019, including lectures and the creation of public art recounting the stories of Vietnamese refugees and immigrants.
The area called Little Saigon is generally located along El Cajon Boulevard, in the neighborhood of Euclid Avenue.
Little Saigon Stories in windows at El Cajon Boulevard and 30th Street.Despite living here for so long, I’ve actually never gone back to Vietnam…
I speak four languages. English, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Chinese…
I came here under the ODP program, parental sponsorship…I sponsored my son to come here…Now he has a child…
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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!
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I was walking along El Cajon Boulevard just east of 54th Street–part of the El Cerrito neighborhood–when I noticed lots of fun street art painted on electrical boxes.
I took photos!
Sometimes you have to make your own sunshine.
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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!
Images of Padres stars Fernando Tatís Jr. and Manny Machado anticipate the 2020 baseball season at Petco Park.
Major League Baseball will indeed have a season in 2020. The news was announced yesterday.
There will be 60 games this year, and teams will travel less and observe complicated new safety rules because of the coronavirus pandemic. There will be no roar of the crowd. No fans will fill the stands.
It’s going to be really strange.
This morning I walked by Petco Park, the home field of the San Diego Padres, to see if there are any preparations underway for the shortened season.
From atop the hill in the Park at the Park, I saw the ball field being groomed. As I passed the main box office and neared the trolley tracks, I looked up at workers on a crane who were applying the second of two huge wraps to Petco Park.
The very unusual 2020 season will begin on July 23rd or 24th.
Go Pads!
Petco Park is newly painted and appears pristine. The grounds crew is preparing the field for Padres baseball. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, no fans will be in attendance this shortened season.Large new wrap on Petco Park celebrates baseball legend and civil rights hero Jackie Robinson. Diversity. Equality. Unity.Workers at Petco Park prepare for a very strange Major League Baseball season–which will begin in July!
UPDATE!
I snapped this photo several days later…
Dave Winfield, Tony Gwynn, Johnny Ritchey and current Padres stars. We Are San Diego. Together As One.
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Fascinating public art can be found at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, in the outdoor space between the Concert Hall and the Museum. Scattered among trees and shadows are the stones of the 200-foot Blue Granite Shift, created by artist Mathieu Gregoire in 1995.
At the north end of the installation lie natural, uncarved stones. As you proceed south, the stones are subjected to human action, until they finally become sculpted and polished into smooth geometric forms.
When you walk back and forth through Blue Granite Shift, it’s like moving forward and backward through time, observing how complex natural forms that slowly evolved over eons are abruptly transformed by human ideas and cutting, reducing tools of creativity.
Every stone, touched or untouched by human hand, is part of the larger world, where all things, including the viewer, exist under one sun in a clock-like cycle of shifting shadows.
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The worldwide coronavirus pandemic is a serious matter. But this morning I didn’t expect to see two powerful Greek deities wearing face masks!
I spotted the great Olympian goddess Athena and the Muse of music Euterpe wearing face coverings during my walk along the Embarcadero!
Athena is the figurehead of HMS Surprise, and Euterpe graces the bow of Star of India. Both famous tall ships belong to the Maritime Museum of San Diego.
UPDATE!
I’ve now been told the figurehead of HMS Surprise is actually Boadicea, who, according to Wikipedia was “queen of the British Celtic Iceni tribe who led an uprising against the conquering forces of the Roman Empire.” This probably makes more sense, as HMS Boadicea was a ship commanded by fictional character Jack Aubrey during the Napoleonic Wars in the series of novels by Patrick O’Brian. Aubrey also commanded HMS Surprise.
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The old downtown San Diego Superior Court building has vanished! A city block that once contained the busy courthouse is empty!
Several years ago, a new 22-story Central Courthouse opened at Union Street and C Street, absorbing all of the functions of the sprawling old courthouse that was built in 1961. The demolition of the south part of the old courthouse has been ongoing for months, and when I walked by this morning, the entire block between Broadway and C Street was nothing but an empty lot!
A new high-rise building designed by Holland Partner Group is planned for this location. It will feature hundreds of apartments, plus office and commercial space.
A friendly construction worker who spoke to me through a fence said the next phase of the old courthouse demolition will be the section north of C Street. According to what I’ve read, the adjoining Old Jail, or Detention Center, will also be removed. A tunnel built beneath this property will connect the new Central Courthouse to the San Diego County Jail, which is located directly to the east across Front Street.
In my final photo you can see how a part of the old courthouse that bridged the trolley tracks is now being carefully removed. Check out the size of those steel beams! (In the background rises the sleek new Central Courthouse.)
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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!
Sandra Escobar paints a cool mural on the side of Super Cocina in City Heights.
This afternoon Sandra R. Escobar, a multi-award winning artist from Orange County, finished painting a large, very colorful mural in City Heights. I arrived as she was applying the final touches to her canvas–a portion of the east side of Super Cocina!
Check it out!
Her work has a unique style of its own, as you can see at the artist’s website here. Sandra Escobar is also a digital artist, and I learned this fun mural, with its crazy jumble of eyes and noses and other facial features, was designed digitally in advance.
The title of the mural is 6 Feet Apart. It’s the largest mural she’s painted yet!
The new mural appears between two others that were previously painted on the east side of Super Cocina.Finishing a very cool mural on University Avenue in City Heights!
UPDATE!
I received some photos from Love City Heights of the mural being created…
Photo courtesy Love City Heights.Photo courtesy Love City Heights.
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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!
Dr. Jim Knott helps to tend the beautiful San Diego Memorial Plumeria Garden.
There’s a garden in Balboa Park that very few people know about. I happened upon the garden today, and was told it’s called the San Diego Memorial Plumeria Garden. You can find it inside the Balboa Park Horseshoe Club.
Some members of the Southern California Plumeria Society (known for their popular plant sales in Balboa Park) have created this garden and lovingly maintain it.
Dr. Jim Knott told me a little about the garden, and showed me three rows of plumerias bordering the outdoor horseshoe pits. I was told the first plumeria was planted in 2008. He’d like to see the garden flourish and assume greater prominence. It’s a wonderful project!
Next time you walk through the southwest corner of Balboa Park, and you pass the Balboa Park Horseshoe Club, look over the fence. You’ll see the San Diego Memorial Plumeria Garden!
UPDATE!
I received a comment with additional information about the history of these plumerias:
“…My name is Robert Chubinsky, I put them there. I was President of Balboa Park Horseshoe Club for a while and planted them starting in 2012. I grew them on my patio in South Mission Beach. My patio was getting crowded, I had over 40 plants many too big for my patio and started planting them. It was my legacy to the park. All that was there before were weeds and dirt with no blocks. I had the outer bank built with the landscape blocks to give an outside border and filled it with dirt and planted the trees…”
Plumeria flowers are beloved by many.Stones at the San Diego Memorial Plumeria Garden remember loved ones.A small plumeria nursery at the Balboa Park Horseshoe Club.A labor of love.
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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!
Cool San Diego Sights! 