Today I noticed that two more SDG&E utility boxes are being painted for the San Diego Museum of Art’s cool project Young Art: Outside the Frame!
These two boxes can be found on Park Boulevard, just north of the City College trolley station. They are located in front of several large colorful murals by @ladieswhopaint that I blogged about here.
These are two boxes of 25 total that will be painted. To see five other boxes that I’ve already spied, and to learn more about Young Art: Outside the Frame, check out two recent blog posts here and here!
The box you see in the first few photos is being painted by professional artist Alyssa Stewart. She showed me a copy of the original artwork that was selected from many pieces in the San Diego Museum of Art’s upcoming Young Art exhibition.
The second utility box is being painted by artist Lucy Helle. Check out her Instagram page here. She also showed me a copy of the original youth art she is working from.
I plan to post more photos as I discover more boxes, and update as boxes are completed! Stay tuned!
UPDATE!
I swung by a few days later and these two boxes appear to be finished!
…
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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
Call me crazy, but I never tire of taking photographs of downtown San Diego right after sunrise. The early light and the reflections are truly magical!
These shining images were captured during my walk to catch the trolley yesterday morning.
…
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!
I was walking down Broadway in downtown San Diego a few days ago when, looking up, I suddenly realized there are four different faces adorning the 1912 Spreckels Theater Building!
Two of the face types, which can be found at intervals around the building, look like dramatic golden masks. The other two belong to musicians holding a lyre and harp, directly above the marquee.
I took these photographs!
If you’d like to see the elegant inside of the building, check out a blog post I published several years ago. Back then I enjoyed a special tour of the amazing theatre, where I and a few others learned all about its history. And we got to go backstage!
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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
I captured these photographs this morning as the sun was rising. I stood in downtown San Diego, at one magical spot on Broadway.
As I walked past the Edward J. Schwartz United States Courthouse, I had to freeze in my tracks. Because my eyes were spellbound.
The first photos below are of the San Diego Central Courthouse, whose fascinating architecture rises nearby. Light, shadow, beautiful glass windows and soaring gulls combined to cast their spell…
Then I turned my camera east to capture the magical early morning light along Broadway…
…
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!
You might remember a few photographs I took of buildings reflected in puddles. I posted those last month, after downtown San Diego had experienced a night of rain.
Looking into those silver puddles was almost like peering into a strange, bright world just beyond our own. To see those photos again, you can click here.
Well, during my walk among those magic puddles a seed was planted.
That seed germinated, grew, broke through, has blossomed.
If you’d like to read my newly completed short story, which I titled The Shining World, click here.
What do you see when you ride the ferry across San Diego Bay, from Coronado to downtown’s Broadway Pier? Well, come along and I’ll show you!
Early this afternoon I stepped aboard Flagship’s venerable ship Cabrillo, which for many years has served as a Coronado ferry. We got underway from the Coronado Ferry Landing at 12:30. (The ferry that goes to the Broadway Pier departs every bottom of the hour.)
It’s winter. Even though it was mostly overcast today, and a bit chilly, this is San Diego after all, so of course the trip was pleasant. But I’m glad I wore a jacket out on the bay in the brisk sea breeze.
Passengers begin to board Cabrillo from the pier at the Coronado Ferry Landing. My one way ticket was only five dollars. Slowly crossing San Diego Bay is like a scenic harbor tour, without the narration.Lots of passengers bring bicycles. Coronado is a fine place for biking. Many enjoy the dedicated bike lane which leads down the Silver Strand to Imperial Beach. It’s part of the 24-mile Bayshore Bikeway, which loops around the South Bay.The pier at the Coronado Ferry Landing is a perfect place for fishing or simply relaxing. You don’t need a saltwater fishing license when you’re on a pier in San Diego!A couple leans against the rail and looks toward the small beach by the Coronado Ferry Landing.Here we go!Across the bay you can see downtown San Diego’s beautiful skyline. This photo shows the Embarcadero, from the USS Midway Museum to the San Diego Convention Center!I was surprised at all the boating activity today. The COVID-19 pandemic has been going on for about a year, and I think more and more people want to be outside in the fresh air enjoying life.There they go.I see three very different sets of white sails. The sails of a passing sailboat, the sails of The Shell–the San Diego Symphony’s new outdoor concert venue, and the distinctive sails of the San Diego Convention Center.Here comes the ferry that runs between the convention center and Coronado. That small vessel is the Silvergate, which I love to ride!This guy was out on the water on a stand up paddle board.Here comes Pilot, one of the many historic vessels in the collection of the Maritime Museum of San Diego. If you want a great narrated tour of San Diego Bay, I definitely recommend buying a ticket. Better yet, become a member of the Maritime Museum and you get a couple complimentary tickets for their harbor tour!A wave as they pass by!That blue building over the water is the San Diego Pier Cafe at Seaport Village.Here come two small U.S. Navy patrol boats at a high rate of speed!Guarding naval ships and bases in San Diego Bay.A couple passes by in a little boat. I believe that’s the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier docked at North Island in the distance.She steers as he prepares the fishing gear.If the Pier Cafe appears odd to you, that’s probably because it was brown for decades. Many of Seaport Village’s buildings have recently been repainted under new ownership.What’s all that activity on the pier by Seaport Village? People are eyeing fresh fish at the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market. That means today must be Saturday. Meanwhile, a couple of kayakers paddle by…I see four blue seiners docked at the G Street Pier. These vessels use nets to catch live bait for boats heading out to the Pacific Ocean on sportfishing trips.Beyond the seiners and the pier I see the USS Midway aircraft carrier, a very popular museum and San Diego attraction.On the G Street Pier you can see stacked lobster traps. I love to photograph them from time to time.A tiny yellow boat zips past a very, very large boat! An absolutely immense boat with numerous aircraft on its flight deck!Here comes a whole line of tiny boats! Looks like a fun, guided harbor tour.As we pass by the horns of the USS Midway aircraft carrier, museum visitors look down at us from the flight deck.A zoom photo of more sailboats out on San Diego Bay. I see Harbor Island in the distance. We’re almost to the Broadway Pier now.Downtown straight ahead!Our ferry trip across San Diego Bay is almost over. It’s always a lot of fun.Tying up at the dock.Disembarking.A line of people is waiting to catch the ferry back to Coronado!
…
This blog now features thousands of photos around San Diego! Are you curious? There’s lots of cool stuff to check out!
Here’s the Cool San Diego Sights main page, where you can read the most current blog posts. If you’re using a phone or small mobile device, click those three parallel lines up at the top–that opens up my website’s sidebar, where you’ll see the most popular posts, a search box, and more!
To enjoy future posts, you can also “like” Cool San Diego Sights on Facebook or follow me on Twitter.
The Tom Ah Quin Building stands at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Island Avenue in San Diego’s Asian Pacific Thematic Historic District. It was built in 1930 by Thomas A. Quin, the son of Ah Quin, Chinatown’s founder and unofficial mayor.
The Quin Building is in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, an architectural style that became popular in San Diego and Southern California after the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park. According to the Historic Building plaque by its entrance, the top part of the Quin Building had two apartments, and the street level contained a storefront and storage space.
A larger structure directly attached to the north side of the building, which was also built in 1930 by Thomas Quin, is called the Casa de Thomas Addition. It has been used by various businesses over the years, including the Empire Garage and Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Company (Convair). I’ve included a photo of that plaque for you to read as well.
Today both the Quin Building and the Casa de Thomas Addition are home to downtown San Diego’s popular FLUXX Nightclub.
You can see a portrait of the Ah Quin family and learn more about San Diego’s old Chinatown by clicking here!
(If you’re curious about that very fancy looking building to the left in the above photo, that’s the Horton Grand Hotel. I blogged about it over seven years ago, when Cool San Diego Sights was just getting started. Learn about how the Horton Grand Hotel is supposedly haunted here!)
…
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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
If you wonder why so many Cool San Diego Sights photographs are taken downtown, it’s because that’s where I live! And where I do most of my walking.
Even on an ordinary day, there’s so much activity and so many interesting things to see downtown that my small camera is constantly aiming this way or that.
The first three photos you see here were taken on ordinary days in the past few months. The images have been sitting idle in my computer.
The remaining photos were taken this morning as I walked from Cortez Hill down Seventh Avenue, then meandered a bit through the Gaslamp Quarter.
Looks like the above photo was taken around the holidays–I see a red ribbon. While I love City Pizzeria, I believe I captured this image in front of Valentine’s Mexican Food as I waited for combo number one.
Okay, here come the photos from this morning…
A second photograph that includes pizza in neon! Apparently it’s a word that grabs my attention.
The interesting combination above also caught my eye!
Every walk is different.
…
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!
Some of these photographs are disturbing. They show a few of the many contrasts curious eyes will observe in a city. A city that is forever evolving.
People come and go. Businesses come and go. Buildings come and go. Dreams come and go. And we are always right here in the present, trying to recall what was.
These photos were taken during a walk on Saturday. I started up Fifth Avenue from downtown, climbed north through Bankers Hill, and finally entered Hillcrest.
I observed new high-rise and bike lane construction. Striking contrasts appear in photos that include St. Paul’s Cathedral and The Abbey.
I observed new signs and fresh ambitions, and dreams that were shattered.
I glimpsed a complex world, and now even those small glimpses are a fading memory.
…
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!
Cool San Diego Sights! 