Day of the Dead begins today, the 1st of November. This is the perfect time to share these photographs!
A new restaurant named Kalaveras is coming to 340 Third Avenue in Chula Vista. The building it will occupy has been painted with super colorful skulls, or calaveras!
I happened to notice this bold new artwork while walking to the community Day of the Dead event in Chula Vista last weekend.
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Those who approach the Hotel del Coronado from the south will see a handsome yellow building that stands beside Orange Avenue. The old building is called The Oxford, and it was built in 1887 near the ferry landing on the other side of Coronado!
The Oxford was Coronado’s first hotel. In 1911 the building was relocated a couple blocks east of the Hotel del Coronado, where the post office is today. It was used to provide housing for the hotel’s female employees.
In 1983 the building was saved from demolition and in 1986 it was moved again to this spot on the hotel property. In 2021 it was carefully restored. The Oxford today is home to the Hotel del Coronado administrative offices.
An old photo on display in the hotel’s Ice House Museum shows the building being moved in 1986. The large structure was temporarily divided into two halves, and obstructions had to be removed from the streets during its move!
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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)!
For well over a year, the Research and Development District (RaDD) has been rising on downtown San Diego’s waterfront. I’ve been watching the ongoing construction of this project and have posted photographs from time to time. In June I posted these.
I rode the Coronado ferry last weekend and got a good look at how San Diego’s skyline has been altered by RaDD, as seen from across the bay. (The above photo shows the long Tuna Harbor pier in the foreground.)
RaDD is a project of IQHQ. It’s described as a life science district–five new buildings occupying six city blocks–the largest urban commercial waterfront site on the West Coast. It appears to be nearing completion.
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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)!
This old two-story brick building in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter has a fascinating history.
The property has been home to a factory that made crackers for ships, several other bakeries including the Royal Pie Bakery, and in the early 20th century, an upstairs hotel that was described as a den of rampant immorality!
Standing at 554 Fourth Avenue, the building was most recently home to Dublin Square Irish Pub.
The property’s history is so complex and interesting that one should read this detailed article by the Gaslamp Quarter Historical Foundation.
An aging plaque on front of the building reads:
Royal Pie Bakery 1884
Originally known as the San Diego Steam Cracker Factory, this brick structure has remained a bakery since its construction in 1884. During the first part of the 20th century, when the Gaslamp was deteriorating into a red-light district, the upper floor housed the notorious Empire Hotel, and later the Anchor Hotel. In 1920, Alois Kuhnel and F. A. Smith purchased the bakery. They were partners until 1939. The building was sold to Alois Kuhnel in 1950.
The Royal Pie Bakery finally closed in 1998.
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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)!
Border Sign, circa 1920. San Ysidro The Gateway to the U.S.
Those interested in the history of San Diego should visit the San Ysidro Library. Inside the library’s community room, fascinating historical photographs of San Ysidro (one of San Diego’s southernmost districts) can be viewed.
I visited the library yesterday. I wanted to check out the old photos and visualize how San Ysidro appeared long ago.
I learned how this border community began as the Little Landers colony, a family farming cooperative created by agricultural reformer, journalist and writer William E. Smythe in 1908. The motto of Little Landers was “A little land and a living surely is better than desperate struggle and wealth possibly.” It was one of the nation’s first communes. The colony was named San Ysidro, probably after the patron saint of farmers, Isidore the Laborer, and was formally inaugurated on January 11, 1909.
I was also surprised to learn San Ysidro had a Pony Express station!
Here are just a few of the photographs you will see should you visit the library…
Little Landers Colony School, circa 1907. The schoolhouse was located on East San Ysidro Boulevard (old Tia Juana Boulevard) where I-805 is today.Little Landers Colony Sign by San Ysidro Post Office, circa 1913.U.S. and Mexico Border Crossing officials, circa 1924. Looking north from Tijuana toward San Ysidro. The train in the background is on the San Diego Arizona Eastern Railway built by John D. Spreckels.Pony Express Station, circa 1916. Refugees from the Great Flood of 1916, worst natural disaster in the history of the South Bay.San Ysidro Library, circa 1930. The original 1924 library–first Branch Library owned by the County of San Diego. It was the only library in the country with a smoking room for men!
I took outside photos of the old 1924 library several years ago. See them here!
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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!
Perhaps you remember the Centennial Railway Garden, which was built in a small outdoor space at the San Diego Model Railroad Museum in 2015 for the centennial of Balboa Park. (You can see it here.) That model train layout is now history. Those 3D printed models of Balboa Park buildings have been replaced with beautiful handmade buildings that represent the late 1800s Victorian era.
Check out these photographs of the new Freight and Flora: A Garden Railway Exhibit!
A company called Applied Imagination constructed and donated the awesome little buildings. You can view other similar garden railways on their website!
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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!
Should you ever walk down Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach, keep a sharp lookout for the Ocean Beach Arcade. It’s the brick building you see in the next photograph. Inside you’ll discover a number of small businesses, including a coffee shop, vintage store and art supply store. And you’ll find yourself surrounded by all sorts of fun artwork!
The mural of a boy peering into a window with his dog immediately brought out my camera. As I looked around, I snapped more photos!
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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!
Did Charles Lindbergh, first aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, devour sandwiches in Ocean Beach? Historical information posted on the Kraft Building at Newport Avenue and Bacon Street suggests that!
A sign explains that the 1927 Kraft Building had a drug store and soda fountain downstairs, and that “local legend states Charles Lindbergh ate sandwiches at Kraft while waiting for his plane the Spirit of St. Louis to be finished at nearby Ryan Aviation (near the site later dedicated as Lindbergh Field).”
On May 10, 1927, after a series of test flights, Lindbergh took off from San Diego in the The Spirit of St. Louis.
On May 20, 1927, Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island and began the daring solo transatlantic flight that would make world history.
Public domain image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
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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!
Everywhere one turns in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter there’s an explosion of color. Building wraps and banners are now rapidly appearing for Comic-Con 2023!
This is some of what I saw late Thursday afternoon, with less than a week to go before the start of Comic-Con.
And there will almost certainly be much more to come!
After the big Esri User Conference concludes today at the San Diego Convention Center, huge building wraps will likely appear on the sides of Petco Park, and on the Hilton San Diego Bayfront and the Marriott Marquis hotels!
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I’m covering Comic-Con again this year. To see all my current and past blog posts concerning Comic-Con, click here and scroll down!
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!
Cool San Diego Sights! 