Chess and checkers games can include a small workout!
Here are three fun photos! I stood for a moment on an upper level at Horton Plaza, watching two guys play a game with giant chess pieces.
San Diego’s downtown Horton Plaza shopping mall is more than just typical retail stores and a food court. It’s a wonderland of colorful, whimsical, unexpected architecture, with cool discoveries around almost every corner, including this shady nook where you’ll find giant-sized chessboards and checker boards.
The Horton Plaza shopping mall contains fun surprises around almost every corner.People enjoy a leisurely game of chess with gigantic chessboard and pieces at Horton Plaza.
Here are a couple more photos I took during another visit…
Horton Plaza visitor watches two people playing chess on an ordinary-size chessboard.People congregate in a Horton Plaza nook where giant chess pieces beckon.
Walking recently through San Diego’s Civic Center Plaza, I enjoyed a variety of historical images and colorful designs inlaid in the central courtyard.
Check out Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo’s galleon the San Salvador. In 1542, the Portuguese explorer discovered San Diego Bay on behalf of Spain while searching for a mythical water route across North America.
An actual working replica of the San Salvador is being built by the San Diego Maritime Museum. One of these days I’ll walk north along the bay to Spanish Landing in order to take some pics!
Should you ever walk through Civic Center Plaza, you’ll probably see this unusual group of signs. These are a few of San Diego’s sister cities. Pointing in almost every direction, the signs indicate distances in miles and kilometers.
Another similar group of fun signs can be found directly across the plaza.
San Diego’s 16 sister cities are:
Alcala de Henares, Spain
Campinas, Brazil
Cavite, Philippines
Edinburgh, Scotland
Jalalabad, Afghanistan
Jeonju, South Korea
Leon, Mexico
Perth, Australia
Quanzhou, China
Taichung City, Taiwan
Tema, Ghana
Tijuana, Mexico
Vladivostok, Russia
Warsaw, Poland
Yantai, China
Yokohama, Japan
UPDATE! I walked through Civic Center Plaza about half a year later and I noticed brand new signs!
New sister city signs at the Civic Center!More San Diego sister cities around the world.
This red trolley belongs to the blue line. Makes sense, right? It’s waiting for passengers at the America Plaza station, across the street from the Santa Fe Depot. The blue line stretches from downtown San Diego all the way down to the Mexican border.
In this photo you can see both domes of the historic train station.
Old black-and-white photos of the Santa Fe Depot pretty much show nothing around it. It just sits there in the middle of nowhere, seemingly. Today the city rises and surges all about it, and it can almost seem lost among the many bright tall buildings.
San Diego Trolley pulls into Santa Fe Depot from the south.
The Santa Fe Depot is downtown San Diego’s train station. Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner, the Coaster, and the San Diego Trolley’s orange and green lines all stop at the historic building.
The Santa Fe Depot, built in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, was opened in 1915 to serve thousands of visitors to Balboa Park’s Panama-California Exposition.
This photo shows one of the Santa Fe Depot’s two colorful domes and some palm trees against a backdrop of high-rise condos. The architects a hundred years ago probably didn’t imagine that glassy skyscrapers would tower nearby!
Birds fly over one of the distinctive tiled domes.Looking up through palm trees toward one dome.
Here are some more photos taken at a later time. Black material now covers up part of the two domes. I learned that the terracotta columns are cracking.
The east side of the Santa Fe Depot in downtown San Diego.Buildings rise behind the domes of the Santa Fe Depot.The two domes of San Diego’s Santa Fe Depot.Amtrak train parked by historic Santa Fe Depot.
This photo shows sailboats on San Diego Bay passing the Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel, those two tall, sandy tan buildings.
Tour guides and pedicab drivers often joke that the downtown skyline resembles a set of tools. The Hyatt buildings resemble straight-edge screwdrivers; America Plaza, which you can see, resembles a phillips screwdriver; and another skyscraper, Emerald Plaza (not visible in this pic) resembles a set of socket wrenches!
Here’s a pic of a non-sailboat taken on a later occasion…
Lord Hornblower passes Hyatt hotel buildings on San Diego Bay.
Here are some photographs of the historic Keating Building, which over a century ago was the most prominent high-rise building in downtown San Diego!
The five-story Romanesque Revival style office building, located in the Gaslamp, was built in 1890. Back in those days, its wire cage elevator and steam heating were amazing new modern conveniences. The elevator was the very first in San Diego, and remains the longest running elevator downtown!
This visually pleasing landmark was designed by the Reid Brothers, the architects responsible for the incredible Hotel Del Coronado.
For several decades the Keating Building has been home to Croce’s Restaurant and Jazz Bar, established by singer Jim Croce’s surviving wife, Ingrid. At year’s end, Croce’s will be moving to a new, more intimate location on Banker’s Hill.
Keating Building seen from across Fifth Avenue, after Croce’s moved to a new location.
A plaque on the historic building provides a little more description…
This office building in the 1890’s contained the San Diego Savings Bank, the Public Library and the Humane Society!Keating Building is an important landmark in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter.
UPDATE!
I revisited the Keating Building during the San Diego Architectural Foundation’s OPEN HOUSE 2017. Here are some photos I took just outside and inside the building’s front entrance.
432 F Street is the address of the Gaslamp Quarter’s beautiful Keating Building, today the location of a 35-room luxury hotel.Elevator in the small lobby to what is now a boutique hotel.The original wooden banister leads up from the entrance of the Keating Building.Historical photos on wall beside the lobby’s stairs.A segment of a timeline that shows San Diego history around the time of the Keating Building’s construction.Entrance to The Keating hotel, seen from F Street.
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Front desk and spacious entrance of new downtown San Diego Central Library.
Here are some interior pics of San Diego’s brand new downtown public library! It’s been open for only one week!
The first photo is what you’ll likely see upon entering the new building. It’s the front desk and lobby area, containing escalators, a view of three floors, helpful librarians and lots of library patrons!
The beautiful library shop is just steps from the main entrance. It’s full of great library-related gifts!
As I meandered about the first floor, I discovered this historical exhibit in the middle of rows of bookshelves. It explains how women, after a hard fight, earned the right to vote in California in 1911.
On the first floor you’ll find the children’s section of the library. The walls are painted with characters and scenes taken from Dr. Seuss’s popular picture books. Check out the Cat in the Hat! As many San Diego residents know, Dr. Seuss’s real name was Theodor Geisel, and he was a resident of La Jolla just up the coast.
Check out the reading room on the eighth floor of the new Central Library! It’s roomy, filled with light and lots of comfy chairs. The immense view toward South Bay is awesome!
Here we’re looking upward toward the ceiling of the big reading room. That’s the interior of the Central Library’s iconic steel lattice dome!
There’s a cool baseball history archive and exhibit right next to the reading room. Check out the silvery statue of a baseball player, and all the nostalgic photos on the wall! The exhibit is made possible by the San Diego Ted Williams chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research.
A couple more pics I took during a later visit…
Outside view of upper dome structure and nearby building from 9th floor of San Diego downtown library.Library patron in reading room creates cool graffiti art with the aid of research materials.
This colorful street art dazzles the eye on a downtown parking lot wall. It contains elements from many different cultures. You can find the cool art on the west side of Ninth Avenue just south of C Street.
I took a closer, more complete pic about half a year later. The bold black graffiti has obliterated part of the old artwork.
Street mural has been altered months later with graffiti.
Three more pics! The fence around the parking lot was open one morning, so I could walk up close to the mural!
Close look at very cool mural on 9th Avenue.Beautiful spray painted face behind some fencing.A great face in a striking example of street art in San Diego.
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