Yesterday morning, as I walked down from the top of Cortez Hill, I had to pause at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Cedar Street. I noticed that the now vacant old San Diego Superior Court Family Court Building is finally being demolished!
I’ve read that an 8-story affordable housing building called “Kindred” will be built where the past courthouse stood.
When I took a little detour to walk around the block, I observed those colorful murals on the rooftop that I photographed earlier this year here are vanishing, 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!
The Padres faithful have converged around Petco Park for the second game of the playoffs–a Wild Card game versus the St. Louis Cardinals!
I watched part of the game late this afternoon from a spot beside Gallagher Square. When I walked home through East Village and the Gaslamp, I saw many people at bars and restaurants watching the game.
As I write this, the Pads have come back by scoring 5 runs, making it 7-6, giving us the lead! Fernando Tatís Jr. contributed with a huge 3 run homer. Will we win?
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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 been an unusual year in Major League Baseball. A shortened season and unusual rules because of the COVID-19 pandemic . . . and the San Diego Padres are in the playoffs! For the first time since 2006! And the Friars are widely considered one of the favorite, most exciting teams, too!
Restaurants, bars and shops in downtown San Diego have begun to put out signs, banners and merchandise in anticipation of the first playoff series against the St. Louis Cardinals, which begins at Petco Park with Game 1 tomorrow afternoon. And I noticed Padres employees and team players are getting ready at the ballpark, too!
I walked around Petco Park and the Gaslamp Quarter this afternoon to see what I might see. Check it out!
Big video screens have been erected in the Lexus Premier Lot next to Petco Park. Fans who’ve purchased special Padres Postseason Watch Party tickets will be able to enjoy playoff games together from the safety of their cars.
I noticed a couple of buses were parked next to Petco Park where visiting teams arrive.
Padres employees round a corner of Petco Park in San Diego’s East Village getting everything ready for the start of the MLB postseason.
Fans were enjoying a nice afternoon at Gallagher Square, watching Padres batting practice from a distance.
National League Wild Card graphic splashed on the video screen that faces Gallagher Square.
A photographer captures images of the Padres during batting practice.
My small camera caught a pitch on the way, with the batter ready to swing!
Banner on high balcony overlooking Petco Park’s outfield proclaims: Let’s Go Padres.
Bub’s At The Ballpark has several banners out. Go Padres!
UNION Kitchen & Tap Gaslamp has a SLAMDIEGO Special: The Padre Burger with a pint of Ballast Point Friar Ale!
Several shops in the Gaslamp have Padres apparel out on display.
Another example!
Okay, here’s something really cool. I’d left the Gaslamp and was walking up Sixth Avenue toward home when I noticed the door of Centre City Sports Collectibles was open. So I stepped inside.
Wow! My eyes almost popped out of my head! If you’re a sports collector or enthusiast and you haven’t checked this place out, you need to pay a visit! The place is jammed floor to ceiling with so many collectibles that I don’t know how Henry, the proprietor, keeps track of it all. And by the way, he’s a really nice guy!
He called the stacks and stacks of stuff in every direction a mess, but I’m not sure why. The place is like sports fan heaven!
He let me take a few photos…
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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!
Occasionally, over the years, I’ve shared photographs of colorful banners hung from street lamps in Little Italy. Many can be found along India Street. Most celebrate famous Italian Americans.
The face you see might be of a popular musician, or an Oscar winner, or an inventor, or a Major League Baseball player, or a religious leader, or a powerful politician or businessman . . . you get the idea.
During walks through Little Italy in the past few weeks I noticed many banners that I hadn’t photographed yet.
In no particular order, here they are:
Mother Cabrini.
Bruce Springsteen.
Jerry Lewis and Frank Busalacchi (San Diego restauranteur).
Vito Marcantonio.
Fiorello La Guardia.
Louis Prima.
Dana Reeve.
Al Pacino.
Francis Ford Coppola.
Jimmy Durante.
Giada De Laurentiis.
Joe Pass.
Russ Columbo.
Robert Mondavi.
Jennifer Capriati.
Roger Enrico.
Ernest and Julio Gallo.
Frank Capra.
Carlo Vinci.
Dean Martin.
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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!
People walk and jog along San Diego’s Embarcadero near Tuna Harbor.
I did a lot of walking last Saturday! Downtown, Barrio Logan, San Ysidro… If I’m a little less active this weekend, it’s because my poor old legs are still sore!
Please enjoy some photos I took Saturday morning as I headed from Tuna Harbor on San Diego’s Embarcadero to 13th Street in East Village. I passed through Ruocco Park, walked a short stretch down Harbor Drive past Kansas City Barbeque, then turned east on Market Street.
Many of these sights you might have seen in the past on my blog. I did photograph a few new things, however, including the whale street art by Nicholas Danger, some Gaslamp Quarter historical artwork, and a very colorful mural by Pandr Design Co. Read the captions!
The photos you will see are the last I’ve taken with the old Canon Powershot that launched Cool San Diego Sights. Over the course of seven years my trusty friend must have recorded hundreds of thousands of images. But alas, its shutter began to stick and there have been other problems (which you might have already noticed), so I finally bought a shiny, much newer version Powershot, which I already love!
I hope my new camera successfully documents many more walks!
A couple hangs out by the Fish Tree, by artists Zbigniew Pingot and Toby Flores.
A vendor on the boardwalk was selling lots of colorfully decorated Día de los Muertos skulls.
Whenever I hear this friendly street musician playing beautiful music, I rest for a bit on a nearby bench to listen.
Ruocco Park on a late summer’s day is very green and inviting.
I’m about to walk through some unique public art titled The Riparium, by artist Roman de Salvo.
Historical marker indicates the location of the San Diego Barracks from 1850 to 1921.
Kansas City Barbeque is where a couple of great scenes from Top Gun were filmed.
Street art by Mindful Murals, cool people I once met. I saw how they painted positive messages on handball backboards at Edison Elementary School’s playground.
Looks like these sunlit leaves along Market Street are turning, anticipating autumn.
Geometric street art near scooters parked in a straight line.
Someone walks past this fun street art by Nicholas Danger, another cool local artist!
Plaque in the sidewalk on Market Street recalls major renovations that were made in the once-seedy Gaslamp Quarter in 1981.
A mixture of Gaslamp history and present day entertainment in one photo.
As I passed Fifth Avenue, the hub of San Diego’s historic Gaslamp Quarter, I turned my old camera south to take a picture.
The I.O.O.F. Building was built by the Masonic and Odd Fellows Lodges in 1882. Its cornerstone contains a stone recovered from Solomon’s Temple!
Eating on the street during the coronavirus pandemic.
Artwork on a Gaslamp Quarter utility box shows historical photo of the San Diego Mercantile Co.
Here’s a relatively new mural on Market Street that I noticed before but failed to photograph.
This colorful WOW mural is by the artists of Pandr Design Co., who’ve done work all over San Diego. Their artwork can also be found at various Major League Baseball stadiums!
Sculpted dog holds open a shop door.
There’s some construction along Market Street as I approach 13th Street.
I’m greeted by this face on the construction site fence!
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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!
Cool face of an East Village mural by Carly Ealey and Christopher Konecki.
I spotted a very cool face during my walk through East Village last weekend! It was spray painted in a nook that might be easy to miss.
The mural was created in 2019 by Carly Ealey and Christopher Konecki of Cohort Collective. If those names seem familiar, their fantastic art can be enjoyed all over the city. (They have another mural with a similar vibe and palette of colors on nearby Park Boulevard. See photos of that one here.)
You can find this cool face near the corner of 15th Street and K Street, not far from the entrance to the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition.
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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!
On Saturday morning I walked through downtown San Diego’s East Village.
As I headed along Market Street and approached Tenth Avenue, I noticed something interesting on a wall next to the Grocery Outlet parking lot. I had discovered a flock of birds gathering ballots!
The graphic pasted to the wall, which promotes voting in the upcoming general election, was created by Ramzy Masri, a New York based graphic designer, photographer and artist. Click the photograph below and you can more easily read what is written. In a nutshell, the mural is “part of a series inspired by the idea that ‘voting is voice.’ It’s one of five designs for fifty murals currently on view in ten cities across the country…”
The mural is sponsored by the non-partisan Voting Information Center on Facebook, which is found 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!
The sun was newly risen this morning as I walked through downtown. I meandered through East Village and the Gaslamp Quarter, and eventually ended up at the Convention Center trolley station.
Slanting rays of early sunlight reflected from the windows of surrounding buildings. Warm light slipped down sleepy streets and alleys, painting a golden morning.
Early morning light illuminates face inside a window of the Sparks Gallery.
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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!
A segment of Fifth Avenue in downtown San Diego will soon have a dedicated bike lane. I paused to watch work on the separate new lane as I walked to a trolley station this morning.
This particular project is on the north edge of downtown. The segment you see in my photos will connect with the already finished bike lane in Bankers Hill, which is a short distance farther north.
Once everything is completed, bicyclists will be able to safely head up Fifth Avenue, from downtown through Bankers Hill to Hillcrest.
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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!
A neighbor in San Diego’s Cortez Hill community has released butterflies in a city park. She accomplished this with a paintbrush and stencils!
Take a look!
I learned from Joe Ciavarella of Friends of Tweet Street Park that the beautiful butterflies–and birds, flowers and dragonflies–you see in my photos were painted on planters and stones recently by Victoria Villavicencio, who periodically visits Cortez Hill.
Tweet Street Linear Park at the top of Cortez Hill becomes ever more inviting over time, thanks not only to the friendly workers of San Diego’s Parks and Recreation Department, but to unselfish community volunteers who devotedly plant, tend and clean the garden-like park.
From one who lives a few steps away: Thank You!
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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!
Cool San Diego Sights! 