A huge craft sale with over 50 vendors will take place tomorrow, Saturday, November 5th, in San Diego’s beautiful Balboa Park! I saw a huge canopy set up this afternoon in one of the Casa del Prado’s outdoor courtyards!
The sale supports local senior crafters and artists who are over 55 years old.
Yes, the City of San Diego’s annual AgeWell Services Craft Sale has finally returned after a couple of missed years due to COVID.
The big event tomorrow takes place from 9 am to 4 pm and is free to the public. Simply head through Balboa Park and watch for the many signs.
Bring the family! There will be a fun Kids Corner, too!
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John D. Spreckels and his family owned the Hotel del Coronado during the first half of the 20th century.
In 1906 Spreckels began construction of a palatial home in Coronado. His mansion would stand at 1630 Glorietta Boulevard, across from his extraordinarily elegant Hotel del Coronado.
The Italian Renaissance style Spreckels Mansion, designed by renowned architect Harrison Albright (who also designed the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park), would be completed in 1908.
The above photograph was taken in 1915. The description of this public domain photo on Wikimedia Commons is: Promotional image of John D. Spreckels’ home on Coronado for marketing the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park, San Diego, California.
If the building appears familiar, that’s because much of it was incorporated into today’s Glorietta Bay Inn…
When I visited Coronado a couple months ago, the friendly Glorietta Bay Inn receptionists behind the front counter allowed me to take a few interior photos. What I found most interesting was one framed image on a wall.
The following is described as: a photograph of an original 1911 postcard of the Spreckels home, just after completion and before the addition of the music room in 1913…
Here are two more outside photos taken by my camera for comparison…
To learn more about John D. Spreckels, one of early San Diego’s most influential entrepreneurs, developers and philanthropists, read his Wikipedia article here.
You’ll learn his Coronado mansion included six bedrooms, three baths, a parlor, dining room and library at the cost of $35,000. At that time, Spreckels’ Mansion featured a brass cage elevator, a marble staircase with leather-padded handrails, skylights, marble floors and some of the Island’s most spectacular gardens. The home was built with reinforced steel and concrete, an earthquake precaution Spreckels insisted upon after living through the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Spreckels lived in the Glorietta Boulevard mansion until his death in 1926.
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Last Saturday I enjoyed a tour inside the new Design and Innovation Building at UC San Diego. The special tour, part of the San Diego Architectural Foundation’s annual Open House event, was one of many opportunities for the public to go “behind the scenes” at fascinating places around the city.
The Design and Innovation Building opened late last year. This great article describes the building as “A place where disruptive ideas come together to spark learning, technology, collaboration and new ventures.”
Inside the building it feels very spacious. Hallways are lined with large inside windows, allowing one to see activity in classrooms and labs and practically everywhere you turn. From the third floor you can look up through part of the ceiling to see the fourth floor. Even during the tour when the building was quiet, I had the feeling that I was moving freely through an incredible, connected, creative space.
The floors, from first to fourth, are called: The Basement, Maker Space, The Design Lab and the Entrepreneurship Center. Our student tour guide described how ideas proceed upward through the building, forming in The Basement, undergoing design and testing in the Maker Space, then rising to the Entrepreneurship Center where products can be brought to market. The Design Lab is where “faculty from the arts, humanities, engineering and the sciences join forces to solve complex issues related to education, health, mobility, communication and urban planning.”
The building will eventually include a good old restaurant on the first floor, but above all it was designed to inspire innovation.
I was excited to discover a museum-like room on the fourth floor of the building, with a gallery full of inventions! The exhibit is titled Patent Models: A Celebration of American Invention. It was so cool, I think I’ll post a separate blog concerning it!
Now, to give you a taste of what our tour group saw, on with the photos…
Looking into a classroom on the first floor of the Design and Innovation Building.Bits of stimulating art on the first floor.Looking down from the second floor.A room where there are seminars open to the public. At the conclusion of the building tour, our group heard a talk here about the selection of San Diego-Tijuana as 2024 World Design Capital.We walk out onto the second floor terrace, with great views across UCSD, including the nearby trolley station.Walking through the Maker Space on the second floor.Display includes rapid prototyping.I took this quick pic as we moved along.Windows into the future.A metalworking shop, if I recall correctly.Tables where people with unique ideas can freely interact.Gazing up from the third to the fourth floor.One fascinating room at the Design Lab: Speculative Ecology and Bioarchitecture.A room on the fourth floor where students can speak to entrepreneurs.Social Contract on a fourth floor wall. I am joining an inclusive, collaborative community of partners. Together we will extend and expand the innovation economy in San Diego…Nearby post-it dreams. Seeing beyond the horizon…Curating your knowledge and influence to create or envision something new…Solve problem in a new way…Opportunity and solutions with flare…
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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!
Back in 2014, I took photos of rusty old industrial machinery displayed on sidewalks around the Wheel Works and Broom Works buildings in East Village. I didn’t really know what I was looking at.
I now realize these were artifacts collected over many years by visionary local businessman Bob Sinclair.
A new park, located on 14th Street between G Street and Market Street, features some of these industrial artifacts, as well as historical photographs of San Diego’s East Village when the now mostly residential neighborhood was a center of industry.
This new linear park, which includes a walking path near downtown’s Albertsons grocery store, is part of a much larger 14th Street Promenade project that when completed will be eleven blocks long!
Four big steel artifacts from the Sinclair Collection are on display. See my photo captions.
Part of one sign I photographed reads: “…Entrepreneur and businessman Bob Sinclair valued the history and architecture of the East Village. During the 1970’s through the 1990’s he acquired historic buildings and collected industrial artifacts from the old workshops…His businesses were often located in historic buildings, and he filled the warehouses he bought with new industries. The Hazard, Gould, and Company Buildings at 7th Avenue and G Street, Wonder Bread Warehouse at 14th and L Streets, Rosario Hall at 13th and J Streets, and the Broom Works Factory and Wheelworks Building on J Street between Park Boulevard and 13th Street are examples of historic properties owned by Bob Sinclair…”
To learn much more about Bob Sinclair and how he worked to preserve East Village’s fascinating history, check out this great article!
Traction wheel.Disc grinder.Pulley wheel.Historical photos include Fred C. Silverthorn and Sons at 15th and Market Streets, circa 1930; and Standard Iron Works.From the time that Alonzo Horton purchased 800 acres of languishing downtown harbor front property for 30 cents an acre in the late 1800’s and laid out his “New Town,” the neighborhood now known as East Village became the economic engine for San Diego through the 1950s…Bob Sinclair on the roof of the Wonder Bread building, 2010. (Petco Park can be seen behind him.)Drill press.
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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 very unique historic building stands at the southwest corner of Sixth Avenue and Broadway in downtown San Diego.
The Samuel I. Fox Building, built in 1929, always attracts my attention when I walk by. It’s earthy colors seem to change depending on the time of day, due to shifting sunlight and shadow.
The Samuel I. Fox Building was designed by renowned architect William Templeton Johnson, who also masterminded the San Diego Museum of Art and Natural History Museum buildings in Balboa Park, the Serra Museum in Presidio Park, and the La Jolla Athenaeum. He is one of several architects responsible for the San Diego County Administration Building.
He also designed the extraordinary San Diego Trust and Savings Bank Building, which stands directly to the north across Broadway. You can see photos of that building, where William Templeton Johnson kept his office, here.
A Gaslamp Quarter plaque near the Samuel I. Fox Building’s entrance describes its history:
Entrepreneur Samuel Fox built this four-story structure for a half of a million dollars. It was intended to accommodate his Lion Clothing Company, which was the sole tenant until 1984. It boasts 16-foot ceilings, antique oak wood paneling, heraldic lions in full relief, and an over-hanging tile roof. The building was recognized as an artistic masterpiece and a merchandising success.
A few days ago I took these exterior 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!
If you need face coverings during the present coronavirus pandemic, today I discovered that handmade face masks are for sale downtown! They are being produced at Sante’s Tailoring located at 1150 7th Avenue, #1.
As I walked up Seventh Avenue, I saw a table covered with all sorts of colorful face coverings for sale, and met Luzney, who works in another of the building’s suites. Luzney’s Flowers and Gifts at 1150 7th Avenue, #2 has seen a sharp downturn in flower sales, as hotels are empty and weddings are put off during the COVID-19 crisis, so she’s helping to sew these cloth masks, too!
I learned from Luzney that the cotton, washable face masks will be for sale at this location Mondays through Fridays, from 9 am to 2 pm. If you live or work downtown, or just need some cool face masks once the countywide May 1 public face covering rules come into effect, either swing on by, or you can call their phone at 619-231-9898.
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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!
Today I enjoyed walking through the San Diego Pin and Patch Con! This relatively new annual event–billed as the world’s first wearable art convention–was held in Montezuma Hall at San Diego State University.
I love visual art and its infinite potential. As I strolled about the convention floor, my eyes were intrigued by all sorts of cool designs–and I was pleased to find far more than pins and patches! I saw shirts and hats and stickers and greeting cards and bookmarks and colorful prints and much more . . . even crocheted voodoo dolls!
The theme of the 2019 San Diego Pin and Patch Con was cartoon classic Popeye. Much of the inspiration for these unique collectibles, created by entrepreneurial artists, is drawn from the popular culture.
As I walked about, I saw that convention attendees had the opportunity to trade pins with other collectors. I also enjoyed watching a group of Platt College digital media design students as they created their own original artwork.
If you love to collect pins or patches, or would like to join a legion of people who are passionate about creativity, make sure to attend the San Diego Pin and Patch Con next year!
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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!
Your most wonderful dreams can turn into reality . . . with effort, optimism and dogged persistence. And patience. And unwavering vision.
Over the years I’ve recorded many instances of extraordinary–even improbable–dreams coming true. I’ve learned about or have met people who raise their eyes toward a distant, shimmering dream, then reach up to grab it.
All of these individuals are motivated by an undying passion.
Here are a few instances that I happen to remember. I’ve blogged about athletes who achieve the pinnacle of success; artists, inventors and visionaries who create astonishing new wonders; students who step confidently into the future…
Thao Huynh and Kolten French of Mindful Murals encourage school kids to #CREATE with a super colorful interactive mural!
Yesterday during my mural walking adventure I was introduced by Love City Heights to two people who are doing something that is brilliant and inspiring. Thao Huynh and Kolten French have together created Mindful Murals, an enterprise that’s all about engaging young students at schools with large, affirming, fun graphics!
Check out these six interactive murals that were recently completed at Edison Elementary School. They decorate the backstops of outdoor handball courts. Big splashes of color feature short positive messages like BELIEVE IN YOURSELF, BE LOVING, and NEVER GIVE UP. The murals not only encourage positive thoughts and behavior, but they become a motivating part of a student’s outdoor physical activity.
In addition to interactive murals, Mindful Murals creates sensory paths for schools. These pathways invite kids to walk, twist and turn all about, as they head down a colorful path to discover happy emojis and surprises. It’s a cool idea that engages a growing body, mind and spirit!
To learn more about Mindful Murals, check out their Instagram page here!
Several of the Mindful Murals recently painted in the playground of Edison Elementary School, located in San Diego’s City Heights neighborhood.
PERSEVERE
BELIEVE IN YOURSELF
EMPATHY
BE LOVING
I love how this bold message faces the school’s soccer field. NEVER GIVE UP
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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!
I just learned a cool kids entrepreneur fair will be held on Saturday, January 19 in Kearny Mesa! Enterprising youth who’d like to participate, and families and community members who’d like to support them are all invited!
The Kids Entrepreneur Fair is hosted by Girl Scout Troop 4207 and will take place from 10 am to 2 pm in the Go-Staff parking lot at 8798 Complex Drive.
To learn more about the event, and how you can participate click here!
Optimistic kids who dream and move forward with a positive outlook shape our world’s future!
Best wishes to those who have bright shining dreams!
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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! 
