Tag: downtown

Chalk art at Galbani Bella Vita Fest in Little Italy!

Artist team Brianna Cunha.

Check out this collection of photos! My camera was aimed at amazing chalk art at this weekend’s Galbani Bella Vita Fest in Little Italy!

The festival, produced by the ArtWalk San Diego team, is similar to the old Festa events held in San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood years ago. In addition to chalk artists decorating several blocks of India Street, there’s plenty of Italian culture, including food, live music and wine tasting.

The public can stroll through the festival for free, which many people were doing this Saturday afternoon!

Dozens of chalk artists have arrived from all over, including from out-of-state. Most are friendly and welcome a few words from admirers.

The event continues Sunday, October 19, 2025 from 11 am to 5 pm. Consequently, many of the artists when I walked by were still at work on their colorful chalk masterpieces!

Here are some of the Italy-themed chalk art creations, most of which are works in progress. I’ve included artist team names in the photo captions…

Artist team Graceful Meadow.
Artist team Cecelia Linayao Fine Art.
Artist team Madonnara.
Artist team The Kim Sisters.
Artist team Kimberly Canilang.
Artist team Shawdell Smith Art.
Artist team Team Arcala.
Artist team MDFerrera Fine Art.
Artist team Tonie Garza.
Artist team Meg Beverly Canilang.
Artist team Gutierrez Family.
Artist team Steele Canyon High School.
Artist team Maddalena & Rogalski.
Artist team Kat Brown.

Look who else was present at the festival. Friendly people representing KPBS!

They told me they could use a little extra help now that federal government funding has ended. Check out their website if you’d like to help.

And a few tables down India Street I found ArtReach! They engage youth with art education and paint beautiful murals all over San Diego. You’ve seen many on my blog.

People passing by had created small works of art at their table, too!

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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.

Feel free to share!

Scary signs Halloween approaches San Diego!

Attention! Beware! Halloween is creeping ever closer! It’s steadily drawing nearer, nearer…

Halloween is destined to arrive in San Diego in merely two weeks!

Are you ready to encounter spooky ghosts, crafty witches, thirsty vampires and undead zombies? Have you stocked up on candy?

Looking around, it seems the entire city is preparing for Halloween. Ominous signs are everywhere. You see omens of the approaching day in shop windows, front yards, public spaces…

For the past couple weeks I’ve been photographing Halloween stuff that I’ve encountered.

Can you identify a few of the places where I took these photos?

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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.

Feel free to share!

Borrego Springs artist’s sculptures in San Diego!

People in downtown San Diego have a special treat this weekend! Four metal sculptures by Ricardo Breceda (whose famous landmark sculptures can be seen around Borrego Springs) are on display in front of the San Diego County Administration Building!

Check it out!

There are two bighorn sheep about to butt horns, a giant coiling rattlesnake, and a fierce dinosaur on a flatbed! They’re on display in the sunshine on the grass near Harbor Drive. You can’t miss them!

Ricardo Breceda’s sculptures in Borrego Springs have won the artist international renown. He brought these four pieces here so residents of San Diego can enjoy some of his work, and so everyone is hopefully inspired to head out to the desert where over 130 of his incredible sculptures can be viewed. Here’s his website.

(Five years ago I photographed his Wild Horses public art installation in Vista, California. You can see those photos here!)

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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.

Feel free to share!

A San Diego Milestone in Horton Square.

A plaque in downtown San Diego relates a bit of our city’s early history. It’s titled A San Diego Milestone.

You can find the bronze plaque in Horton Square, an outdoor area north of the old Horton Plaza shopping mall. (Not to be confused with larger Horton Plaza Park.)

The plaque states:

San Diego bay is a natural harbor. First sighted in 1542 by Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the bay was originally named San Miguel. Next visited in 1602, Sebastian Vizcaino renamed the bay after a canonized priest, San Diego, from Alcala, Spain. Seldom visited for the next 150 years, Father Junipero Sera came overland from Mexico and founded the first of the California missions in San Diego (Old Town) in 1769. The mission grew and officially became an American town in 1846.

The bay was too shallow for ships to come close in, so passengers were taken to shore by rowboat to the water’s edge and then carried to dry land on the backs of sailors or Indians. Then they were taken by wagon to town…a few miles north to Old Town. In 1867, Alonzo E. Horton first came to San Diego and was immediately convinced that “the town should be down by the wharf.”

This plaque is one of several in Horton Square. Two bronze statues stand among them.

Apparently, according to one corner of the plaque, all together these make up the Horton Walk.

Twelve years ago, back when Cool San Diego Sight was brand new, I photographed the other statues and plaques. See those by clicking here.

The old statue of Ernest Hahn has since been moved–I don’t know where. If you know, please leave a comment!

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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.

Feel free to share!

Fun characters root for Padres at watch party!

Is that Fernando Tatís Jr. in my above photo?

The big crowd of fans gathered in Gallagher Square for today’s Padres watch party did their best. Closely watching the giant videoboard, they cheered their team, whirled rally towels, and some fans (and the Padres mascot Swinging Friar) excited the crowd as costumed characters. Alas, it wasn’t enough.

The Padres were eliminated this evening from the 2025 MLB Postseason. The Chicago Cubs took the Wild Card series, 2 games to 1. Ouch.

Our team: pitching good enough to win, but sketchy offense. Failure to make clutch hits. Like certain periods during the regular season.

It would’ve been a thousand times more fun if the Padres had won and advanced in the playoffs. The young kids running about and playing catch in Gallagher Square didn’t seem to mind, however. They were simply having a good time.

Of course, Dude Vader was present!

Two Manny Machados are better than one!

This awesome, masked lucha libre Padres fan brought his big swag chain!

I loved this Día de Muertos costumed Catrina!

Well, as they say, there’s always next year.

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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.

Feel free to share!

Words of San Diego Poet Laureate at Civic Center.

In San Diego’s Civic Center Plaza, near the Civic Theatre Ticket Office, you’ll find these words:

Blooming is the wild body unmarred by the limits of this world

Its petals temporary but you’d never know it

The two lines were written by Paola Capó-García, San Diego Poet Laureate 2025-2027. A special City of San Diego webpage provides her biography.

Paola Capó-García lives in North Park. Her accomplishments and accolades as educator, author and journalist are numerous.

The thought-provoking words in Civic Center Plaza are actually the conclusion of her poem Wild, which you can read here. Her poem explains the difference between blooming and blossoming.

Are you blooming?

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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.

Feel free to share!

As playoffs begin, downtown roots for Padres!

Hard to believe it’s almost October. Major League Baseball Postseason 2025 begins tomorrow!

The San Diego Padres will be playing in Chicago against the Cubs in their MLB Wild Card Series matchup. Our hometown team ended up with another 90 win season. Let’s go Pads!

I walked around the Gaslamp Quarter, Petco Park and East Village this afternoon, and found indications that small businesses, restaurants and many others in downtown are rooting for the Padres!

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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.

Feel free to share!

Tour of San Diego Civic Theatre renovations!

Special tours were enjoyed by the public today of San Diego’s newly renovated Civic Theatre.

The tours were part of the Civic Theatre’s 60th Anniversary Open House Event, which also featured live music, food and more good stuff outside the building in Civic Center Plaza.

I enjoyed a tour and took photos as our group went along.

The renovation concentrated on the theater’s front of house areas. I was told no substantial changes were made in the auditorium.

The work was accomplished during two 4-week periods, and has filled the gleaming Civic Theatre with new tile, new carpeting, new concession areas, new furniture, even new trashcans! The old very red interior is now brighter with sunny, beachy colors that better reflect San Diego.

Even the vertical “bars” on the building’s exterior have been painted in a way that makes its appearance more distinctive.

You can see photos of the Civic Theatre taken five years ago during an architectural tour here.

The old interior, with its lavish reds, made the place seem like a satiny European palace, or that last room in Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death. Yes, this is an improvement!

We’ve entered the remodeled lobby. The island that used to be the ticket booth is now an inviting place where theatre-goers can order food and drink. (Tickets are now purchased at the outdoor box office in Civic Center Plaza.)

Now we’re heading upstairs toward the Mezzanine level. Those white onyx columns were wrapped with beautiful gold-colored metalwork during the renovation.

This handsome concession nook has brand new tiles, inside and out.

That’s the amazing Grand Salon with its enormous chandelier ahead. The display on the left (also in my very first photo) shows how things appeared before the renovation. Yes, it was very red!

Beautiful new tables and chairs match the new carpeting. The place even smells new!

Looking down into the Grand Salon. Grand is the appropriate word!

Now we’ve headed up to the Balcony level.

You can learn more about this absolutely amazing chandelier here.

Fashionable new “sconce” lights are evident, too, as we head down stairs to the Dress Circle level.

And here we are at the Dress Circle level, entering the Grand Salon. Beadwork above that smaller chandelier is new, created by a local artist. All the ottomans are new, too.

Beautiful new ornamental touches above the elevator.

More amazing than ever…

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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.

Feel free to share!

Ideas needed for new Civic Center mural design!

San Diego Theatres and ArtReach are partnering to create a new community-driven mural in Civic Center Plaza. And they want to hear from you!

Do you have any ideas?

I noticed the above sign in a window of San Diego’s City Administration Building.

The mural will be on three Concourse exit doors facing Civic Center Plaza. The plaza’s overall architecture is mid-century modern. (I once blogged about how sculptor and architectural designer Malcolm Leland created modernist elements of the plaza and nearby parking garage. See that here.)

If you’d like to provide your own input on the future Civic Center Plaza mural, here’s the form where you can make suggestions. The link also leads to more information about this project.

Once the design is finalized, members of the community will help paint the mural!

UPDATE!

The following day, during a San Diego Civic Theatre open house event, I met Isabel Halpern, ArtReach’s Mural Program Manager. She had a display concerning the Civic Center murals.

Included was a graphic showing early mural design concepts. The leading artists are Regan Russell and Donald Gould.

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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.

Feel free to share!

100 Scrolls and artist James Watts!

San Diego artist James Watts (@jewattso), whose fantastic studio is located downtown, is a creative dynamo. Even as he continues to work on his 100 Paintings project, he has begun to produce 100 Scrolls!

His scrolls are painted on fabric and utilize wood sticks he’s found, cut to size and sanded smooth. Unroll the scrolls and you’ll likely find something mysterious, symbolic, humorous or wise. (Possibly all four!) The art of James Watts often concerns aspects of mythology, religion or literature.

The scroll in my first photograph refers to two other works he has created, the Portal to Heaven and the Gates of Hell. Apple and cloud are accompanied by the words: It was not always like this. Seems everything changed with one bite of the forbidden fruit.

The next scroll in unrolled:

If only they knew.

The next scroll, filled with writing, was used by the artist for practice:

…we laughed and cried Oh what a night Who is to know the reason, the whys, the whats, the meaning of it all. To Love is to Love well…

As you can see, some images are created using sumi-e, which is Japanese ink painting.

We are all Broken. We must mend Ourselves.

What is understood Does not need to Be Explained.

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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.

Feel free to share!