New street lamp banners have recently popped up throughout San Diego’s downtown Cortez neighborhood. They celebrate the outdoors!
Cortez Hill might be considered the sunny “summit” of downtown San Diego, where the historic El Cortez rises and jacaranda trees flourish. As the banners suggest, Cortez is a fine place for outdoor activities, too, like bicycling, walking or running!
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Walking down from the top of Cortez Hill a couple days ago, I noticed a brand new landmark sign that welcomes people to the neighborhood!
The metal, ribbon-like sculpture greets those driving into downtown San Diego via California State Route 163 and Ash Street. It’s located at the corner of Eighth Avenue and Ash Street, near the southeast corner of the historic El Cortez building.
(Did you know the El Cortez had the world’s first outdoor glass elevator? See photos and a video by clicking here!)
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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 (formerly known as Twitter)!
New trashcans are being rolled out by the Downtown San Diego Partnership’s Clean and Safe program. And these cans celebrate the neighborhoods in which they’re placed!
I saw the first such trashcan a few weeks ago on the corner of C Street and Sixth Avenue, next to the Clean and Safe headquarters. Today, as I walked down from the top of Cortez Hill, I noticed multiple cans have recently been installed that celebrate the Cortez neighborhood, with images of the landmark El Cortez building.
The next two images are different sides of the above trashcan. I love the fact they are relatively mess proof and foot activated. No touching a dirty, germy handle!
The next two photos are of that first can by the Clean and Safe headquarters. It celebrates the “Business District”–an area of downtown sometimes referred to as the City Center or Core–with images of skyscrapers and the interior of historic Symphony Hall.
I’ll keep my eyes open for new cans in additional neighborhoods. Watch for updates here!
UPDATE!
I took photos of new East Village and Columbia District trashcans a couple weeks later and posted them 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!
If you’re familiar with the history of the El Cortez in downtown San Diego, you probably know it featured the world’s very first outdoor glass elevator. (Although I’ve also seen information that says it was the first such elevator in the United States, second in the world.)
Based on an idea suggested by a hotel bellboy, an outdoor glass elevator, called the Starlight Express, was installed in 1956 on the side of the El Cortez Hotel, then the highest building in San Diego. People from all around Southern California would converge on the elegant hotel to be swept dizzily skyward to the chic Starlight Room restaurant on the twelfth floor.
Today I came across a black and white 1956 newsreel that has been released by Universal City Studios into the public domain. It shows thrilled passengers going up and down what was then the brand new, incredible, jaw-dropping Starlight Express!
Check out the “futuristic” costume (uniform?) of the smiling elevator operator! And check out how downtown San Diego appeared in the 1950s. A bit different than today, right?
I snipped sequential images from the old newsreel so you can enjoy a fun look!
By the way, the El Cortez Hotel also featured the world’s first moving sidewalk! You know–the sort of thing you might stand on in an airport terminal or at an amusement park. It was called the Travolator. Both the Starlight Express and Travolator were removed many years ago.
Read much more about the El Cortez and its extraordinary history in this detailed Wikipedia article. Among other things, you’ll learn how this Spanish Colonial Revival architectural style landmark was built on property once owned by a son of President Ulysses S. Grant, how a third of San Diego’s population showed up for the hotel’s opening day, and how it had an anti-aircraft battery on its roof during World War II!
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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!
As I walked through downtown San Diego early this morning, my eyes climbed up the sides of walls and buildings. They found unexpected splashes of light.
Another adventure in the city!
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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!
As I headed off to work early this morning, I felt compelled to walk down Seventh Avenue past the El Cortez.
This morning I walked down from Cortez Hill to catch a trolley for work. I had no set plan. I had ample time. Any downtown trolley station would be just fine.
My feet followed my wandering eyes.
The San Diego Symphony has a brand new banner on the west side of Symphony Towers. Find Your Music.
Almost to B Street. Some cool reflections produced by the early sunlight.
This reflection of a tree on windows seems dreamlike, unreal.
The old Centre City Building might have peeling paint, but it still rises handsomely into the San Diego sky. One edge is touched by the morning sun.
The cool old Caliente ad remains on the rear of the abandoned California Theatre building. I don’t know if it will be preserved when the historic building makes way for a new 40-story The Overture high-rise.
Shall I catch a trolley at the Civic Center station? Nah. I still have plenty of time.
Workers were cleaning awnings over the ground floor windows of the U.S. Grant Hotel.
As I walked along Broadway past some construction, it looks like I frightened a couple of people!
The brand new San Diego Central Courthouse behind the Hall of Justice provides an interesting photographic opportunity.
Almost to Santa Fe Depot. Just missed a Green Line trolley. I’ll wait for the next one.
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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!
Amazing, brightly glowing clouds filled the sky this morning above San Diego’s beautiful Cortez Hill neighborhood.
The first thing I noticed upon stepping outside this morning was the amazing sky above Cortez Hill. The clouds were glowing and so beautiful and complex that I almost got a kink in my neck.
I took lots of photos as I walked. As it turns out, my most incredible images all seem to include the handsome El Cortez building–so the subject of this blog post became obvious!
A crescent moon is just visible to the left of the landmark El Cortez sign.
A street lamp is still on. Another fantastic morning in downtown San Diego for a pleasant walk.
Amazing clouds paint the blue sky above the historic El Cortez and other nearby, more modern high-rises!
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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!
Flags, palm trees and early morning fog on Cortez Hill in San Diego.
My walk early this morning was a real treat. Magical, mysterious fog had crept during the night into the very heart of downtown San Diego, where I live. High skyscrapers disappeared into the gray. Please enjoy a few photos…
The historic El Cortez Hotel building seems to vanish into the gray morning fog.
Many seagulls were enjoying the fog, and were circling over the city streets everywhere I walked.
Skyscrapers aren’t scraping so much this morning. They are being softly engulfed by the elements!
Looking up into the unusually thick fog past a San Diego Symphony banner downtown.
An Orange Line trolley heads down a quiet C Street.
Cranes and construction next to several high towers, in a San Diego fog.
The magical, mysterious fog made the forms of buildings appear like abstract shapes emerging from some other world.
Looking down Kettner Boulevard past Santa Fe Depot and America Plaza into the distant fog.
An unusual fog made downtown San Diego appear very atmospheric and mysterious this morning. I loved walking through it!
Blazing sunrise seen from Tweet Street park in San Diego.
Check out these photographs! I captured these three amazing images early this morning. Sunrises over San Diego are often beautiful, but today the brightly painted clouds were absolutely stunning!
Fiery sunrise over Cortez Hill in downtown San Diego.
Beautiful sunrise colors clouds above El Cortez Hotel.
Just for fun, here are a couple more photos! I took these in March of 2015…
El Cortez seen from a couple blocks away early one morning at sunrise.
The sun begins to rise as I take a picture on Cortez Hill.
Cool San Diego Sights! 