Tag: buildings

The historic Starlight Bowl on road to recovery!

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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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.

Restoration of Botanical Building in Balboa Park looks amazing!

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.

Photos of San Diego preparing for Comic-Con!

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!

Animation Domination returns to Comic-Con!

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!

Comic-Con building wraps, banners appear in San Diego!

Here we go! Comic-Con 2024 is a little over a week away, and gigantic building wraps and banners have begun to appear in downtown San Diego!

Late this afternoon I walked near the San Diego Convention Center and through the Gaslamp Quarter, and observed how many workers must have been very busy today!

First, I noticed the tall Park 12 high-rise near Petco Park has a humungous double building wrap promoting Nickelodeon’s Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which will be streaming on Paramount+ on August 9.

On the Harbor Drive side of the Hilton San Diego Bayfront hotel parking garage there’s now a big banner advertising the video game Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree.

On the San Diego Convention Center side of the same parking garage there’s an even bigger banner anticipating DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO. The video game is coming on October 11, 2024.

On the corner of the parking garage is this…

While walking near Gaslamp Square, I looked up at that new big video board and discovered a long advertisement for Those About to Die, a Roman gladiator series on Peacock that begins on July 18! NBCUniversal usually has their offsite here.

Look what’s going up on the Hard Rock Hotel! A wrap that celebrates SpongeBob’s 25th anniversary! SpongeBob Squarepants premiered on July 17, 1999.

Finally, I noticed a big mural at Happy Does on Fifth Avenue. It indicates that Paramount+ offsite The Lodge will be here!

Woohoo! Comic-Con 2024 is getting very close, so I’m taking Cool San Diego Sights into “Comic-Con mode” for the next couple weeks!

Don’t fret if you don’t care for this stuff, however. I’ve got San Diego photos that I’ll share after Comic-Con ends that many of you might like. Stay tuned!

UPDATE!

The following day (July 16) I took this photograph of the Hard Rock Hotel. I learned from a hotel employee that the interior will have a SpongeBob theme this year.

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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!

U.S. Navy SEAL stares out a window!

I was walking past One America Plaza in downtown San Diego this morning when I had to stop in my tracks and do a double take. Staring out a window at 1001 Kettner Boulevard was a U.S. Navy SEAL!

The surprising window graphic draws attention to the fact that this building is the future home of Navy SEAL Museum San Diego. You might recall how years ago this space, across from Santa Fe Depot, was used as a gallery by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. (MCASD has since moved everything from their downtown San Diego location to La Jolla.)

As you can see from my photo, construction of the new Navy SEAL museum is now underway. According to their website, Navy SEAL Museum San Diego is scheduled to open in 2025.

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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 new hotel, and zoo animals in the basement!

The Granger Building in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter is undergoing a very big change. The historic downtown office building, erected in 1904, is being converted into an elegant hotel.

Those who walk past the intersection of Broadway and Fifth Avenue can view the construction now in progress. Surprising graphics along the sidewalk advertising the soon-to-open Granger Hotel really catch one’s attention, however. Why are there old-fashioned images of a monkey, tiger and giraffe?

Because the basement of the Granger Building once held zoo animals!

Before I get to the unusual explanation, you might wonder: why is it called the Granger Building?

This web page explains how Ralph Granger made his initial fortune from the Last Chance Silver Mine in Colorado. When he came to San Diego in 1891, he settled in National City, where, in a addition to a mansion, he built the architecturally important Granger Music Hall. (Those who drive down Interstate 805 can easily see the notable but dilapidated building. I once blogged about the Granger Music Hall here.)

Granger would then hire renowned architect William Quayle to design an office building in downtown San Diego: the Granger Building. The Romanesque style structure, built for $125,000, was steel framed and constructed of pressed bricks. It is five stories high and features embossed metal ceilings, gas lights and a manually operated elevator. The first floor would be home to the Merchant’s National Bank, with the son of President U.S. Grant the initial Director. In 1924, the bank became the Bank of Italy, the forerunner of the Bank of America.

But what about those zoo animals in the building’s basement?

Well, Dr. Harry Wegeforth was a physician who happened to have his practice in the Granger Building. He was also founder of the Zoological Society of San Diego and the San Diego Zoo. You might recall how he was inspired to start the zoo when he passed animals that had been displayed during the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park and heard a lion roar.

In the early days of the expanding San Diego Zoo, as Dr. Harry Wegeforth acquired new animals, he kept some of them in the basement of the Granger Building!

Guests of the new Granger Hotel will be staying in a property that is full of surprising history. Past tenants of the old office building have also included C. Arnholt Smith, owner of the Pacific Coast minor league Padres, and Joseph Jessop, our city’s most famous jeweler.

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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.

Murals at Lemon Grove Academy Middle School.

Several awesome murals can be viewed at the Lemon Grove Academy Middle School, also known as the Lemon Grove Academy for the Sciences and Humanities. They’re located just around the corner from the Lemon Grove Library, whose new mural I blogged about yesterday.

The school’s mascot is the Wolf, and their core values are: Persistent, Authentic, Courageous and Kind. Get it? Wolf Pack.

I was told by the librarian about these school murals so I had to walk over to check them out. She indicated they are also by ArtReach–the folks responsible for the new library mural.

I really love that blue howling wolf!

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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.

Ghirardelli’s marquee and Gaslamp history.

Have you ever wondered why the Ghirardelli Ice Cream & Chocolate Shop in San Diego’s historic Gaslamp Quarter has an old-fashioned theater marquee? That’s because the building, erected in 1912, was originally a movie theater!

The Casino Theatre at 643 Fifth Avenue opened in 1913 and was one of several movie theaters in the Gaslamp that provided entertainment for ever-changing audiences over the decades. In the 1930s it was remodeled into the Art Deco style. Here’s an image from the 40s, with the Casino Café “Lunch” restaurant located next door, offering breakfast, waffles and steaks.

In the 1950s and 60s, The Casino and its movie theater neighbors at Fifth and G Street–The Aztec and The Savoy–would be open all night and show 3 big features, according to a comment here. Slowly these old theaters would fall as television’s popularity rose.

In the 1970s, while the Gaslamp neighborhood experienced urban decay, The Casino Theatre began to show X-rated movies, along with the other nearby theaters. I’ve been told sailors made up much of the clientele.

Here’s a gallery of photos of the The Casino Theatre over many years. Some of the titles you’ll read in the marquee are a bit salacious!

I hadn’t realized the marquee was seen in Marty Feldman’s 1980 movie In God We Tru$t. That image can be viewed here.

Today you’ll find a plaque near the historic building’s front entrance:

The Casino Theatre, 1912

The first theatre to be built with the new building ordinance for fire safety. It had two doors near the stage for fire escape and a five-foot-wide exterior passage on both sides and the rear for the protection of other buildings in case of fire. However, two years after construction, the northern passage was occupied by a food stand, and the southern passage contained a shoe shining establishment.

Temptation of a different sort! In a historic Gaslamp Quarter that now attracts loads of tourists, the colorfully lit old marquee teases you with ice cream, chocolate and hot fudge sundaes!

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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.

Colorful art at Sherman Heights Community Center!

The residents of Sherman Heights are very fortunate. They have a community center that radiates positive energy with loads of incredible art!

The Sherman Heights Community Center welcomes visitors with its many colorful outdoor murals and mosaics. Low walls, planters, columns . . . even an electrical box has been decorated! Yesterday, when I walked up Island Avenue and saw all the artwork, my camera became very busy!

The center’s website explains: The community we serve is predominantly Mexican- American with many families facing economic hardship. This community has preserved itself by using art as an avenue towards empowerment & collaboration. For many years the community has supported and participated in creating, preserving, and cultivating a culture of rich history through the arts here at our center.

Sherman Heights, just east of downtown San Diego, is famous for its Día de los Muertos celebrations. That’s reflected in some of the artwork.

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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.