Check out this cool photo! I captured some more dazzling street art in downtown San Diego, just west of the trolley tracks on Park Boulevard. I like the glassy shine of the eyes and the abundance of color. These fantastic characters seem to have emerged from a little girl’s dream. The right portion was painted by muralist Gloria Muriel, the Bunny Kitty character on the left is by Dave Persue.
If you’re ever in the Little Italy neighborhood in downtown San Diego, you might want to check out the small but jam-packed Firehouse Museum.
Shiny red fire trucks, interesting historical photos, old fire fighting apparatus, memorabilia and even Smokey Bear are on display. And excited kids can climb into one of the cool fire engines!
This sign by the sidewalk invites tourists and passersby to take a peek into the firehouse.
I took a photo from outside, aiming left.
And then the above photo aiming right.
The next pic was taken on a later day, in the early morning when the museum was still closed…
A plaque appeared on the museum’s exterior in mid to late 2015!
The plaque includes this fascinating information:
In the workshop on this site some of America’s most significant fire service innovations were created by the specialty trade-skilled firefighters who worked here, including the world’s first gas engine powered fireboat, the Bill Kettner. In 1963 the National Fire Protection Association declared the national standard thread the official fire hose thread of the United States of America. The machine which enabled this federal legislation was invented here six years earlier by inventor and battalion chief Robert Ely. The common thread allowed thousands of American firefighters to connect their fire hoses together, allowing them to work as one. As a result, countless lives and priceless amounts of property and the environment have been saved.
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This unmistakable landmark has been photographed a million times. Now make it a million and one.
Yes, it’s the San Diego County Administration Center.
Finished in 1938, designed by several renowned local architects including William Templeton Johnson, Richard Requa and Louis John Gill, the historic building is Spanish Revival/Streamline Moderne in style with Beaux-Arts classical touches.
It stands overlooking the Embarcadero, just across Harbor Drive, not far from the Star of India.
For several decades it also served as the Civic Center of San Diego. Today, a large public park is being developed on either side of the building, where parking lots recently existed. I considered posting a photo of the construction, but all you’d see is dirt and bulldozers.
The first two pics are of the building’s east side, which faces downtown’s Little Italy. The other pics from the very similar west side I took during a walk along the Embarcadero on a later day…
UPDATE!
Here are a couple more pics. I took these with a newer camera many years later. These are on the east side of the building, where there is a plaza, shady benches and two fountains. Domes featuring a beautiful tile mosaic in the American Southwest style attract the eye at either end of the building. I’m looking north in the next photo…
Another interesting photograph taken during a walk. The sign on the north side of this old building is extremely faded. It informs the observer of an earlier time. Years ago this location was San Diego’s In Spot!
The nine story building stands right next to San Diego’s City Hall and is sadly abandoned. It has been that way since 1990. In 1927 this was the center of an historic grand opening. The California Theater, which was a movie palace, was so elegant and elaborate that it came to be called the “cathedral” of the motion picture.
The now dilapidated old building also has a large weathered advertisement for Tijuana’s Agua Caliente race track painted in the 1960s on its west side. I took photos of that here.
UPDATE!
I took a closer, better photo on a much later date…
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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!
This cool graphic appears on the front of downtown San Diego’s popular restaurant and concert venue House of Blues, not far from the ticket window. It consists of a famous quote made by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
The quote reads:
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
I enjoyed checking out lots of cool cars at the Fifth Avenue Auto Showcase on Sunday morning. The event filled several blocks of downtown San Diego’s historic Gaslamp District.
High-performance and rare vintage automobiles were all over the place. I saw a row of Ferraris, some Porsches, a DeLorean, Vipers, Corvettes, Camaros, Mustangs, Thunderbirds and even a group of mint condition Model A antique cars. Many of the exhibits were courtesy of the Mopar Club of San Diego.
Here’s a wide shot that shows some cool buildings along Fifth Avenue.
This Isetta 300 is a tiny bubble-like Italian-designed car that was once was produced throughout Europe. The front of the car swings up, serving as the driver’s door!
Here’s a Ford Mustang identical to the car used in Bullitt, that Steve McQueen movie with the classic chase scene.
Auto enthusiasts were in heaven!
A stickball tournament was held Sunday in San Diego’s Little Italy, one block from the Festa event! The playing field was a city street in front of the Firehouse Museum. Lots of people watched from the sidewalk, sitting on lawn chairs and the curb.
Here’s a team wearing spiffy uniforms, getting ready to begin a game. A player practices his swing while the lineup is written with chalk on the street.
Here’s a player from the opposing team swinging. If I recall correctly, he hit the rubber ball into a treetop, and it dropped for a single. Another player hit the ball onto the porch of a condo down the street. That guy was called out.
When I departed, the team in the spiffy uniforms was losing badly.
UPDATE!
Here are a couple more photos from a different Saturday morning in late summer…
Okay, here come some pics from my stroll through Festa today. This popular festival featured food, entertainment and lots of art. It took place in Little Italy, a neighborhood in the north part of downtown San Diego, once populated largely by Italian fisherman who worked in the local tuna fleet. But that was decades ago. The streets today are lined mostly with condos, restaurants and shops.
Thousands of San Diegans turned out for the celebration. There were plenty of tents filled with crafts, clothing, toys, jewelry–just about anything you could imagine. Almost all of it was Italian-themed.
Musical performers could be heard everywhere, entertaining the crowd from several stages. There was much romantic Italian music–and I even heard a bit of opera!
This lady is setting up some paintings behind a Little Italy fountain.
I saw this really cool sculpture (and a number of others) beside the same fountain. All sorts of interesting elements are in this photograph!
Italian food could be found (and smelled) wherever one turned! I enjoyed a slice of pizza!
Smilin’ Jack performed with his accordion! That’s just a small taste of Festa!
Horton Plaza, San Diego’s colorful downtown shopping mall, was inspired by a concept put forth by famous science fiction and fantasy writer Ray Bradbury. The crazy, jumbled design was based on Ray Bradbury’s essay “The Aesthetics of Lostness” which took joy in the notion of becoming safely lost on the side streets of Paris, London or New York.
While walking about Horton Plaza, you’ll see ramps, escalators, bridges and stairs that go every which way–up, down, across–leading you to new unexpected vistas. One mysterious escalator will take you up one level, but there’s no immediate way to return from where you came. You must let your eyes rove to discover another route. It’s really a fun idea!
I believe I took these pics on a Sunday morning, and few people had yet arrived.
Horton Plaza, located in downtown San Diego, is a fun and interesting place for shoppers to visit. The unique mall’s crazy, whimsical design makes an interesting contrast to the restored old buildings in the adjacent Gaslamp Quarter. Many bright colors and types of architecture have been cleverly integrated into a visual feast. Horton Plaza was designed so that people intentionally get a bit lost, to provide a feeling of adventure and the unexpected.
Here are some random pics for you to enjoy…
Cool San Diego Sights! 