Tag: activism

Community gathers for Green Corridor Holiday!

A special event was held today in National City, near that city’s border with Southeast San Diego. The Green Corridor Holiday brought together local families to celebrate the holidays and to connect with community organizations.

The Green Corridor is a name for the area north of Division Street and east of Palm Avenue/47th Street. Transforming the bare space, near a tangle of Interstate 805 and ramps, has been the subject of much discussion. Many in the community have advocated making this Green Corridor into a proud cultural center and green space.

I was told many would also love to have the freeway pillars painted with beautiful murals–a sort of smaller Chicano Park. I’m no expert concerning the project, or where it stands, but it all sounds great to me! The place does seem ideally located for a native garden and park.

The Green Corridor Holiday event brought families together for music, tasty food, arts and crafts, a toy distribution, a tree giveaway, fun with Santa Claus and the Grinch, and Azteca dancing (which I unfortunately missed). I did notice an artist was painting one of the freeway pillars.

Organizations working to improve the neighborhood were present, including Mundo Gardens, the Urban Collaborative Project, Caltrans, the San Diego Library, and others. They were happy to connect with one and all, listen to community members, and provide empowering information.

If you’d like to get involved, check out the two links above!

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La Jolla’s historic Post Office and the New Deal.

In ten years the historic post office in the Village of La Jolla will celebrate its 100th anniversary.

It’s very fortunate the 1935 building has been preserved. The result of a Great Depression-era works program, the post office was threatened by a planned U.S. Postal Service downsizing in 2011. The historic building was saved by an outpouring of community activism.

The handsome La Jolla Post Office was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013 and remains a beloved landmark in La Jolla at 1140 Wall Street.

The architectural style is considered Mission Revival. You can read about its construction and history on the Living New Deal website here.

It’s interesting to note the building’s plaque states the La Jolla Post Office’s creation was the result of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The Living New Deal website, however, states it was the Public Works Administration (PWA). The two were separate programs.

Inside the post office lobby, a beautiful New Deal-era mural was painted by renowned local artist Belle Baranceanu. The art shows a hilly panorama of La Jolla and the Pacific Ocean. If you’d like to see photos of the mural, click here!

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Help our environment at San Diego EarthFest!

If you read this in time, you might head down to Balboa Park to enjoy San Diego EarthFest. The big environmental festival is being held on the grass near Park Boulevard and Presidents Way today–Saturday, April 19, 2025–until 5 pm.

Numerous organizations are present, providing education and volunteering opportunities to those who want to help protect our environment.

This the third year of EarthFest, not to be confused with the gigantic EarthFair that filled the entire park years ago. A smaller space, but still numerous participants! Non-profit organizations are joined by food trucks, artists, and vendors. There are several stages offering entertainment and education.

Because it’s mid-afternoon as I type this, I’ll quickly share these photographs. That might give you time to head on down!

These friendly guys with two puppets are Magic Jacket Productions! They’re putting on a fun show this and next weekend at the Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theater in Balboa Park!

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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.

Feel free to share!

Advocates work for accessibility in Tijuana.

An important presentation was made this evening in San Diego’s Balboa Park. A thoughtful audience, assembled inside the World Design Capital’s Exchange Pavilion, learned how the organization Tijuana Access is working to make Tijuana and Mexico more accessible for the disabled.

Eduardo Lopez Ruiz explained how Tijuana Access is raising awareness and lobbying for greater accessibility south of the border. He explained that our neighbors to the south are a bit behind the United States when it comes to making buildings, streets and city facilities more friendly for those who have difficulty functioning in a world full of potential obstacles.

Working to make our world more accessible, Eduardo affirmed, is a matter of compassion. Not only are a significant number of people born with or develop a disability, but most of us become elderly–right?

There are all sorts of ways to make a city more accessible. Automatic doors, ramps, lifts, slip resistant materials and tactile paving can be adapted to enhance mobility. Handrails, rest furniture, properly placed buttons and switches, Braille printing and other changes can make life much easier and safer for many.

The presentation was mostly in Spanish with an interpreter helping us English speakers. I asked how I could link to Tijuana Access with my blog, because readers might like to help in some way. The Tijuana Access Instagram page is here. Their Facebook page is here.

To my readers in Mexico, perhaps this is a cause you’d like to support. Or simply spread the word to help to raise awareness!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

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.

Barrio Logan exhibit during Archives Month!

We are now in the middle of San Diego City Clerk’s 6th Annual Archives Month!

Through October 18th, 2024, the public can experience a fascinating San Diego City Clerk Archives exhibit concerning the history of Barrio Logan. Extensive displays can be viewed just inside the front entrance of San Diego’s downtown City Administration Building, at 202 C Street.

The exhibit is titled Telling Our Stories–Preserving Our Histories: The Chicano Movement in San Diego. It features photographs, articles and City Clerk documents that pertain to the culturally rich Barrio Logan neighborhood and how it has changed over time. There is an emphasis on the creation of Chicano Park, the work of Chicano activists, the origin and influence of Neighborhood House, and the tuna canning industry that once thrived in Barrio Logan down by the water.

In addition, there’s a video that visitors to the exhibit are invited to watch. It shows how residents were adversely affected by the construction of Interstate 5 and the Coronado Bay Bridge, and how they worked together to help preserve the community’s identity and establish Chicano Park.

The exhibit is curated by the San Diego City Clerk Archives in partnership with the Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center.

I enjoyed looking at the displays and learning important facets of San Diego history. I encourage anyone who travels downtown to check it out. The City Administration Building is open on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Here are a few photographs that I took…

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

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.

Votes For Women at San Diego History Center.

The Women’s Museum of California has made its home inside the San Diego History Center in Balboa Park. Visitors who walk into the history center can now view a museum exhibit concerning the struggle by women to obtain the right to vote in the United States.

Votes For Women: A Portrait of Persistence follows the efforts of suffragists to amend the U.S. Constitution and change state election laws by lobbying in their community and in the halls of Congress. As one display explains, the suffragists wrote articles, circulated petitions, gave speeches, organized marches, and were sometimes imprisoned for their protests. Over time these tactics won support for woman suffrage that led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.

Visitors will learn how the fight for women’s right to vote lasted more than 80 years. Even after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was required to eliminate the suppression of voting by women.

In addition to many interesting posters, there are garments on display that suffragists might have worn, including a bloomer costume, named for writer and women’s rights advocate Amelia Bloomer.

Kids can also enjoy fun activities. There’s a San Diego History Center image scavenger hunt and the opportunity to take selfies with a suffragist sash and protest signs!

After you check out the Votes For Woman exhibit, take a stroll around the rest of the San Diego History Center. There’s a lot of history to see!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

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.

Photos of annual MLK Parade in San Diego!

Kindness. Smiles. Laughter. Compassion.

This morning I saw this and more as participants prepared for the 42nd Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade along San Diego’s beautiful Embarcadero.

Every year the MLK Day parade along the waterfront is a big deal. Thousands come out to watch community groups celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. and his enduring message of human dignity, equality and love.

Dancers, marching bands, students, veterans, beauty queens, activists, club members, law enforcement, politicians, businesses, car lovers, charitable organizations . . . all would move proudly down Harbor Drive.

I took photographs of everyone coming together before the start of the parade.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

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 (formerly known as Twitter)!

Lemon Grove Women’s Club history remembered.

An inspiring exhibit at the Lemon Grove Parsonage Museum celebrates friendship and community service. It’s titled Marching Forward.

The history of the Forward Club of Lemon Grove (later known as the Lemon Grove Women’s Club) is detailed with photographs, newspaper clippings and assorted documents. Visitors to the museum can learn about the club’s beginning in early 1913 (when Lemon Grove was a small ranch community) to its “last meeting” in 1998 to its very recent rebirth.

The exhibit describes: The club began, like many of its time, as a place for women to study literature and discuss current events. They didn’t stay inside studying for long; they were soon outside planting trees. In 1922, when the club was just nine years old, they built their own clubhouse… By the 1950s, a time when Lemon Grove was one of the fastest growing communities in the state, the club had 150 members… In 2022 the clubhouse 100th anniversary celebration inspired a group of Lemon Grove women to resurrect the club. They voted to use the historic name, so once again the Forward Club is going about doing good.

Community service that club members have performed over the years include helping the needy, the encouragement of youth, and neighborhood beautification. In addition, cultural events in their old clubhouse brought joy to many.

If you’d like to enjoy a glimpse of Lemon Grove history, and see how a group of pioneering women made (and continue to make) their community a much better place, plan a fun visit to the Parsonage Museum in beautiful Treganza Heritage Park!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

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 (formerly known as Twitter)!

The beautiful new Piazza Costanza in Little Italy.

On November 28, 2023, the new Piazza Costanza was dedicated in San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood. The public space, filled with inviting tables and umbrellas, honors Margaret “Midge” Costanza, a trailblazer who became the first woman to hold the title of Assistant to a United States President.

Costanza was a daughter of Sicilian immigrants. Her illustrious career included fighting for the cause of civil rights. In 1978 she moved to Southern California and eventually worked in the San Diego District Attorney’s office advocating for senior citizens.

The beautiful Piazza Costanza is located at the corner of Columbia Street and Ash Street. It features a bronze bust, historical photographs and several inspiring quotes.

I walked through the piazza late yesterday afternoon…

It is the link from the present to the past that gives us a spirit to address the future.

I will never apologize for allowing people to participate in a government they help select and that belongs to them.

Human dignity is a right, not a privilege, a right inherited at birth.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

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 (formerly known as Twitter)!

Pillars exhibit at the Chicano Park Museum!

Have you ever visited the Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center in Barrio Logan? During my recent visit I was surprised to find a fantastic exhibit inside, titled PILLARS: Stories of Resilience and Self-Determination.

Two large rooms are filled with colorfully painted pillars that resemble the towering supports of the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge just outside the museum.

While the outdoor pillars are home to the many famous murals of Chicano Park, these miniature indoor pillars pay homage to diverse groups that have worked to preserve the legacy and integrity of the local community, and the park itself. The exhibit also features related works of art, and historical photos of community members and artists (particularly Visionary Elder Artist, Salvador Roberto Torres) and their grassroots fight against the powers-that-be to create Chicano Park.

The Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center contains other great exhibits, too, and its corridors are brimming with work by many different artists. I was interested to observe a community event room, a workspace containing printing equipment for the production of fine art, and a large gift shop that’s also filled wall-to-wall with artwork that you can purchase!

If you never been, make sure to check the museum out! Go soon, however, because PILLARS: Stories of Resilience and Self-Determination will be on display through September 9, 2023.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

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 Twitter!