This morning, during a downtown San Diego walk, I spotted two huge new murals! They’re on the north side of the 800 Broadway high-rise, which has been under construction for some time. The tall building, when completed, will offer apartments with great city views.
People strolling down the sidewalk will have great views, too–of these big, super colorful murals!
I presently know nothing about the artwork. Should I find out more, I’ll provide an update. If you know something, feel free to leave a comment below!
On the Eighth Avenue side:
And on the Ninth Avenue side:
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Would you like to own a genuine historical artifact from Balboa Park that dates back to just before 1915, when the park debuted for the Panama-California Exposition? You can!
The original light bulb sockets have all been replaced on the façade of the Spreckels Organ Pavilion building and colonnades. If you’ve been to a concert after dark, you know the beautiful lights that add magic to the night.
The Spreckels Organ Pavilion was one of only four structures in Balboa Park meant to remain permanently after the 1915 exposition. Well, these decorative sockets and their hidden wiring deteriorated after a century of use and constant exposure to outdoor elements.
I learned today that for a twenty dollar donation, one socket (with light bulb) will be yours! Simply attend a two o’clock free Sunday organ concert and look for them on tables as you enter the pavilion.
Get them while they last and own a genuine piece of San Diego history! And you’ll help support the Spreckels Organ Society, too!
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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.
Many ordinary appearing buildings in downtown San Diego have surprising histories. That is certainly the case for the Olde Cracker Factory Building at 448 West Market Street.
The 1913 brick building might now contain retail, office and residential spaces, but would you believe it was once a cracker and candy factory?
According to its website, the building was home to the Bishop and Company Cracker and Candy Factory from 1913-1931, and then Nabisco Biscuit Company until 1941. In 1930, the Bishop Cracker and Candy Factory employed 100 men and women who produced cookies, crackers and peanut butter. Over ten tons of products were produced here annually…
Check out the above website for more detailed history and intriguing old photographs. You’ll see antique delivery trucks parked in front of the Bishop & Company building, and busy factory workers and machinery inside.
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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.
People in San Diego could experience the thrill of a lifetime today! The annual fundraising Over The Edge event was held downtown, on the vertical side of the Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel tower!
People who raised a certain amount of money for Reality Changers could rappel 34 stories straight down! I stood at ground level in front of the hotel and zoomed my camera lens to capture a bit of the action.
Reality Changers helps disadvantaged high school students go to college. They prepare youth to become first-generation college graduates and agents of change in their community. You can donate to this worthy cause by visiting the Reality Changers website here.
That’s rather high, don’t you think? Looks scary! But these events, running for many years now, have never had an accident. Safety is the first priority.
Why don’t you consider participating next year?
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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.
A beautiful sunrise illuminated San Diego this morning. Walking through Old Town, I watched scattered clouds to the east turn brilliantly yellow and orange.
The present-day Immaculate Conception Catholic Church stands adjacent to Old Town San Diego State Historic Park.
A modest adobe chapel that was built nearby in 1851 would be replaced by this church building. Its construction was begun in 1868 and, after various setbacks, was completed half a century later, in 1917.
In these photographs, you can glimpse a bit of the church’s façade and bell tower, elements of its Spanish Mission style architecture.
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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.
An extraordinary mural officially debuted yesterday in downtown Escondido. Back in the Day was painted by local artist and prolific muralist Zane Kingcade on The Photographer’s Eye building, a few steps east of Heritage Park. The mural recalls Escondido as it appeared years ago. Look for this new public art near the intersection of Grand Avenue and Juniper Street.
On Saturday afternoon an enthusiastic group gathered to celebrate the new mural. Escondido’s Mayor White presented long-time resident and author Arlene Cook Shuster with a plaque in appreciation for her generous contribution to the project, then Arlene spoke at length about the historical places depicted in the mural.
We heard the history of the Escondido Lumber, Hay & Grain Company, Sunkist (founded in Escondido!), Shelby’s Grocery, the Times-Advocate, Havens’ Studio, Grape Day, Rube’s Fabulous Country Corner, Homer Heller Ford, The Wagon Wheel, and 15 cent Burgers! We learned that some of the places shown in the mural have vanished entirely, while a few of the old buildings, or remnants of buildings, remain to this day.
Zane Kingcaid then spoke about his creation of the mural–how in the dark of early morning over the course of a couple weeks he sketched images from old photos that were projected onto The Photographer’s Eye building.
Escondido artist Zane Kingcade gestures toward his newly created mural Back in the Day.Escondido Mayor Dane White introduces Arlene Shuster.Arlene Cook Shuster tells those who’ve gathered about the history of special places in Escondido.A special day in Escondido as history is painted into the present.
I also learned that Zane Kingcade recently finished another mural, one block north of Heritage Park on Valley Parkway. The artwork decorates the exterior of Joor Muffler & Complete Auto Service, not far from the big iconic Joor Muffler man! This mural is titled All Roads Lead to Esco.
I had to check it out!
Joor Muffler man.
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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.
Big news in San Diego today! After 14 long years, the unused Starlight Bowl in Balboa Park appears to be on the road to recovery!
The City of San Diego has announced that it is looking for organizations or individuals interested in bringing the historic and famed Starlight Bowl in Balboa Park back to life. The city has issued a Request for Proposals for the lease and renovation of the open-air amphitheater. Interested to learn more? Visit the pertinent City of San Diego web page by clicking here.
When I heard this news today I cheered. I voiced my support for the restoration of the Starlight Bowl back in 2016. I, like many others in San Diego, have fond memories of the unique outdoor venue. You can read what I wrote by clicking here.
Over the years, many people have worked hard to pull weeds, paint and rehabilitate parts of the building, and advocate tirelessly for the historic Starlight Bowl’s survival. Congratulations to the organization Save Starlight and to all who have been involved in this effort.
That photograph above is of a performance in the Ford Bowl (now the Starlight Bowl) during the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition in Balboa Park. The photograph below was taken with my camera eight years ago…
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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.
Look at these photographs that were taken last week!
I was heading through Balboa Park to the Comic-Con Museum (for my Comic-Con coverage) when I noticed that the restoration of the Botanical Building appears to be near completion. Look how amazingly beautiful it’s going to be!
Workers were busy painting the non-lath lower part of the immense structure. The area in front of the Botanical Building behind the construction fence, where grassy lawns and a small section of the lily pond have existed, was still mostly bare dirt.
If you’d like to see photos showing different stages of the Botanical Building’s deconstruction and restoration, and read more info concerning it (going back over two years), you can click here and here and here and here and 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 X.
It’s less than a week to go before the start of Comic-Con 2024. Preparations for the big international event in downtown San Diego have accelerated into high gear!
If you’ve been following this blog, you’ve seen a number of trolley and building wraps that are already finished or in the process of being applied. Today, however, completely new building wraps are appearing by the waterfront, and “offsite” activations have begun construction!
I walked around East Village early this morning and the Gaslamp Quarter late this afternoon. I’ve captured a number of photographs that provide a taste of the exciting pre-Comic-Con action in downtown San Diego!
Peacock’s Those About to Die Chariot Racing offsite is under construction in Gaslamp Square. It’s near the big new video board, which is showing an advertisement for the Roman gladiator series that premiered yesterday! (You can spy the growing wrap for FOX’s Animation Domination on the Omni hotel in the background.)Presumably chariots will be racing here!Here’s a relatively new trolley wrap design that I hadn’t seen until today. It promotes The Boys on Amazon Prime.The Hard Rock Hotel is being wrapped with SpongeBob graphics. I posted other photos recently.Is this Comic-Con? No, this is Patrick!Wrapping the Fifth Avenue side of the Hard Rock Hotel is now beginning in earnest.On the convention center side of the Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter, a wrap goes up promoting Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe on AMC. I’ve photographed a couple of other related wraps on the hotel already–one of which you can glimpse here.I’ve spotted a couple of Comic-Con logos now on the San Diego Convention Center.On the Marriott Marquis, looks like a Star Trek wrap is going up. The thing on the left is an Esri User Conference wrap now being removed. That convention in San Diego is over.A huge wrap is also going up on the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. It will likely promote a show on FX.Advertisements posted along Fifth Avenue promote a special Comic-Con cruise!Walking Dead’s Daryl Dixon, The Book of Carol characters in the windows of the Pendry hotel.Graphic in the window of the Sonic the Hedgehog Speed Cafe pop-up. I plan to go there tomorrow!A simply painted Dungeons & Dragon 50th Anniversary expanded into this awesome mural a few days ago. It’s outside Super7.Some of the fun collectibles in BAIT in the Gaslamp Quarter. They’re going to have all sorts of activities during Comic-Con 2024!
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If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!
FOX has returned to San Diego Comic-Con in 2024 to assert their Animation Domination!
This afternoon I saw that a huge building wrap is now being applied to the Omni San Diego Hotel. Over the years, the tall building has been Fox Broadcasting Company’s canvas during Comic-Con, strategically overlooking Gaslamp Square and the San Diego Convention Center. Their past wraps have promoted their perpetually popular animated shows.
How long has The Simpsons been running now? Almost four decades? Is that possible?
Here are some photographs. I’ll take more photos as the wrap grows and post them as an update below.
What’s this? Alvin has arrived and is photobombing me!
He must be jealous of FOX’s Animation Domination.
Alvin! ALVIN! ALLVINNNNN!!!
UPDATE!
The next day (with no pesky Alvin)…
ANOTHER UPDATE!
And later…
ANOTHER UPDATE!
The next day…
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!
Cool San Diego Sights! 