Early this evening I found myself in downtown San Diego, in an area that is sometimes called the Financial District.
As I stood at the corner of Seventh Avenue and B Street, I looked up at the skyscrapers around me.
Sunset light was reflecting from building tops, windows.
I felt inspired to look for interesting photographs!
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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!
It’s hard to believe, but today is New Year’s Eve. 2020 has been a year for the history books, to say the least!
What better time to share interesting photos from San Diego’s history?
A year ago I blogged about downtown electrical boxes along Fifth Avenue that feature old photographs from the Gaslamp Quarter. See them here.
During subsequent walks I’ve observed that more boxes on nearby streets have been decorated with similar photographs.
These examples were discovered on sidewalks throughout the Gaslamp!
If you’d like to see photos of Horton Plaza Park’s redevelopment in 2015, including the fountain and the park’s many historical monuments, click here.
If you’d like to see a sculpture of Bum, San Diego’s famous town dog, and learn more about his history, click here!
To learn more about Chinatown’s history, see my blog post concerning the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum here.
To see photos of the 2014 All-American Soap Box Derby, which was held in nearby Sherman Heights, click here!
To see photos of a 2016 Bonita Museum exhibit titled My Animal World concerning Joan Embery, which highlights her many guest appearances with Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, click here!
Happy New Year!
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Here’s another batch of fascinating door photographs!
I have a little extra time indoors this wintry morning, so I’m going through some old photos in my computer. These images were collected in the past month or so during walks all around San Diego.
You might notice many of the ornate wooden doors are in a Mexican style that is popular in Southern California.
If you want to learn more about the above building, which sort of resembles a castle, click here.
The next four doors were all observed on Congress Street in Old Town. I really like these…
Finally, the last two doors can be found among the International Cottages in Balboa Park…
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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!
If you’ve followed Cool San Diego Sights for a few years, you probably know I love to walk out on the G Street Pier. One can take fantastic photos of downtown San Diego, Coronado, and sailboats passing across the sparkling water. But my favorite thing to photograph is the pier’s crazy clutter!
Along one edge of the G Street Pier one can always find stacked lobster traps, colorful floats, tangled ropes, and piles of weathered objects used on commercial fishing boats.
Today as I walked along the Embarcadero I noticed the G Street Pier was open. So I walked out on it.
Look at all the squares, circles and rectangles my camera found! (Some triangles and a starfish, too!)
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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!
Horton Plaza, the innovative outdoor shopping mall that was once a downtown San Diego attraction, has been stripped and gutted! Its redevelopment continues!
Six months ago I noted that demolition of parts of the old shopping mall had begun. I posted those photos and some information concerning the project here.
Well, take a look now!
UPDATE!
Several months later I took these photos. The southwest corner of Horton Plaza has risen and now appears quite different!
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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!
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 swung by the world-famous Donut Bar in downtown San Diego this morning to grab some fun Christmas-themed donuts!
I found Santa Claus, Gingerbread Woman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Grinch!
They all were very sweet–the Donut Bar people I mean!
Wishing all my readers Happy Holidays!
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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!
See that tiny, tiny dot in the night sky directly above the photographer’s knuckles? People are calling it the Christmas Star. Astronomers call it a great conjunction, when the two largest planets in our solar system–Jupiter and Saturn– appear very close together to eyes viewing from Earth.
Today is December 21, 2020, the Winter Solstice. I took this photograph with my little camera from the Cabrillo Bridge in Balboa Park shortly after dark. That’s downtown San Diego you see on the left.
The last time Jupiter and Saturn were in conjunction this closely (and could be seen in most of the Northern Hemisphere) was the year 1226. You’ll have to wait sixty years to see it again. I suppose I won’t be around.
I’ve read and heard conjecture that the biblical Magi were guided to Bethlehem by the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on the year of Christ’s birth. Some believers claim the timing would have been about right.
Can you make out that miniscule dot? Is that the same “star” the Wise Men saw?
Another good question might be: Is a light from far away what the wise see?
Jupiter and Saturn will continue their orbits around the sun, as will the Earth, long after you and I and every worldly thing we have done and hold dear has vanished, turned to dust, to be swirled by an unseen finger, transformed into something else.
Great conjunctions will continue hundreds, thousands, millions of years into the future. A billion years from this moment–give or take a century–there will be another Christmas Star.
At the south end of Pacific Highway, a short distance from Seaport Village, an historical marker can be observed by the sidewalk. In 1954 it was placed adjacent to the old San Diego Police Headquarters, which today is home to the shops and eateries of The Headquarters.
The marker reads:
LA PUNTA
DE LOS MUERTOS
(DEAD MEN’S POINT)
BURIAL SITE OF SAILORS AND MARINES IN 1782
WHEN SAN DIEGO BAY WAS SURVEYED & CHARTED
BY DON JUAN PANTOJA Y ARRIAGA, PILOT, AND
DON JOSE TOVAR, MATE, OF THE ROYAL FRIGATES
“LA PRINCESA” AND “LA FAVORITA” UNDER
COMMAND OF DON AGUSTIN DE ECHEVERRIA.
STATE REGISTERED LANDMARK NO. 57
MARKER PLACED BY SAN DIEGO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
AND THE HISTORICAL MARKERS COMMITTEE
ERECTED 1954
But according to The Journal of San Diego History’s article A Monument to an Event that Never Happened, this marker is wildly inaccurate! There is no burial site and no one died on the Pantoja voyage. And “dead men” probably refers to pine logs! Huh?
To read the article, click here!
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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!
There’s a new live webcam that features a stunning view of the Maritime Museum’s beautiful tall ship Star of India and the Embarcadero!
The downtown skyline rises behind historic Star of India, as it appears from the city’s waterfront.
The cool EarthCam camera is mounted on the smokestack of the Maritime Museum of San Diego’s historic steam ferry Berkeley.
To view the live webcam, click here!
Then, while your at it, cruise around the museum’s website and learn more about one of the top three maritime museums in the world, which is located right here in San Diego!
Today has been a pleasant Saturday in early December. I walked through Little Italy this evening after dark and looked about in wonder at the many holiday lights.
Crowds filled India Street. Diners sat at tables outside. Beautiful Christmas trees illuminated the night at Piazza della Famiglia and Piazza Basilone.
I took these photographs!
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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!
Cool San Diego Sights! 