I was exploring the neighborhood near Balderrama Park in Oceanside when I spied this quaint old structure at 1510 Lemon Street. I had stumbled upon the historical 1893 St. Mary’s Chapel.
The location of today’s much larger St. Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church, near the Oceanside Civic Center, is where this old chapel was originally built. The wooden chapel, affectionately called the Capillita, was completed in 1896.
The city of Oceanside was incorporated a few years earlier, in 1888, when its population was only 1000.
After the city had grown and a larger church was built in 1927, the chapel served as Parish Hall. The small chapel was later moved to its present location. It was restored in 1977.
2024 has been an amazing season for the San Diego Padres. 93 wins. 3,314,593 fans at Petco Park. 56 home sellouts.
This afternoon fans learned the Padres will be playing a home Wild Card Series against the Atlanta Braves, beginning tomorrow evening. Downtown San Diego and the Gaslamp will be going crazy.
Two themes are helping to motivate our team to victory in 2024. Fighting for the ever-patient, ever-hopeful, loudly cheering Friar Faithful. Winning for Peter Seidler.
You can see and feel it everywhere.
I walked around Petco Park late this afternoon with my camera. I noticed that anticipation is growing for the Padres Postseason at the ballpark and on the streets around it.
Do it for Seidler.
Let me share this downtown mural of Peter Seidler one more time. Fans can find it north of Santa Fe Depot…
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Motionless figures confront pedestrians on a downtown San Diego sidewalk. Three life-size transparent “silhouettes” stand beside UC San Diego Park & Market. For those who pause and wish to understand, the figures will freely speak, telling true stories of people in our city who are homeless.
What Does Home Mean to You is the name of this public art installation. It’s just one temporary installation of many along the Bay to Park Paseo. The Bay to Park Paseo is a unique walking experience that leads from San Diego Bay to Balboa Park. Learn all about it by clicking here.
Earlier this year I participated in the inaugural walk up the Bay to Park Paseo. One of these three silhouettes was on display. Last weekend, when I walked up Park Boulevard again, all three were arranged on the sidewalk.
The UC San Diego Design Lab created this thought-provoking installation. An explanation of the public art includes: Visitors will see life-size silhouettes of people who will share their perspectives on housing at the push of a button. Throughout the installation, passersby can use their mobile devices to scan QR codes to dive deeper into other housing experiences from the greater San Diego community or share their own stories through voice or text.
I noticed words by the feet of these silhouettes. The stories are real, but names have been changed.
I took photos for you to see…
“Like my dad said, ‘It’s not over till it’s over.’ That’s his motto. I gotta live by that, no matter what.” A foster youth shares his family story, hopes and dreams with maturity and grit…“Don’t wait for things to come to you. Chase it.” A single mother of three was unhoused, despite having a steady job…“I…turned toward survival mode–a mode that most of society isn’t aware of in themselves, but, you know, I think is in all of us.” During his darkest days, he found resurrection through his community, who gave him a hand when he was at his worst…
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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.
As it rained in San Diego yesterday, children played hide and seek on a sidewalk near Father Joe’s Villages. The bronze sculptures of small children caught my eye as I rode a bus past the Saint Teresa of Calcutta Villa, where homeless people transition into permanent housing.
I had discovered the Father Joe Memorial Promenade.
The promenade was completed two years ago. It honors Father Joe Carroll, who during his life helped thousands of unsheltered people in San Diego. His footprints are in the sidewalk. A memorial plaque remembers his unselfish love. There are words to be read on several planters. More plaques can be read near the Saint Teresa of Calcutta Villa entrance.
The Father Joe Memorial Promenade and its hopeful sculptures were designed by architect Jowaan Lee from J2 Ventures.
Would you like to follow Father Joe’s footsteps? Will you touch many in San Diego who feel hopeless, and provide hope?
Learn more, and perhaps provide a donation to Father Joe’s Villages on their website here.
THE FATHER JOE CARROLL MEMORIAL PROMENADE
During his 40 years of service in downtown, Father Joe Carroll taught the San Diego community to see those living on the streets as neighbors. Through the eyes of grace, he looked beyond the difficulties of the past and thechallenges of the present to believe in a better future for each person he met, and taught others to do the same.
As they beckon us to join in their game of hide and seek, the carefree children playing along this path–Faith, Grace, Hope and Peace–remind us that everyone we encounter was once a child whose life was full of possibility…
Faith sees the light in your heart when all your eyes see is darkness.Grace silences the past and opens you to the opportunities of a brighter future.Peace hears the calm within you amid the noise of life.Father Joe’s Villages has always been about neighbors helping neighbors. This is a place where people from all walks of life–rich and poor, educated and not, needy and well-off–come together as equals to change peoples’ lives. –Father Joe CarrollIn 2013 the Congressional Medal of Honor Society honored Father Joe Carroll as a Citizen Hero for his selfless service and dedication to all…
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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)!
The 64th Annual Las Posadas procession was held this evening at Heritage County Park, in San Diego’s Old Town neighborhood.
At seven o’clock, Mary astride a donkey and Joseph began to slowly move up Heritage Park Row, followed by members of the public who held simulated candles.
It was the traditional Mexican reenactment of Mary and Joseph’s search for lodging in Bethlehem, shortly before the birth of Jesus.
There was a brief narration followed by short call–and–response verses at six stations, representing different inns in Bethlehem. The stations were located in front of the historic houses that stand preserved in Heritage County Park.
I had never experienced a Las Posadas procession before. I was surprised to see so many participants–young and old–on a very chilly December evening.
In the darkness my camera managed to capture these photos.
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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 Twitter!
The holidays must be near in San Diego, with Balboa Park’s December Nights right around the corner. Because look what I saw today!
San Diego Community Christmas Center volunteers were at work in the Spreckels Organ Pavilion erecting their annual Nativity Display and Gingerbread House!
I was told Santa and his reindeer will be showing up soon, too! (With a little help from City of San Diego Parks and Recreation.)
It was a bit odd to see life-size Biblical figures wrapped up in plastic. A shepherd was lying down nearby, after having “surgery” on his hand. It had been broken last year when some member of the public tore away his staff. Whatever your beliefs might be, that’s pretty sad.
The San Diego Community Christmas Center is a non-profit committee that maintains an over half century old tradition. According to their website, the Chamber of Commerce first initiated the project after World War II. Horton Plaza was first to display the Biblical figures. The next home for the Nativity Scene was the Civic Center on Pacific Highway. Finally, in 1953, the location was moved to its present home in the Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park…
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Is it possible for perfect strangers to come together spontaneously and sing as one? It happened this afternoon in San Diego in Balboa Park!
Audience members from today’s free Sunday concert were summoned to the stage of the Spreckels Organ Pavilion. A smiling Civic Organist Raúl Prieto Ramírez and local singer and songwriter Lauren Leigh Martin led one and all through many joyful Christmas carols!
Is a single picture worth a thousand words? Here’s a many thousands of words story…
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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!
This weekend I passed by a couple of old churches in San Diego’s South Bay.
I was walking along Coronado Avenue, just west of Interstate 5, when I saw a white church with an old-fashioned steeple up a low hill. My feet turned toward it for a closer look.
What I discovered was the Nestor United Methodist Church, built in 1896. A friendly gentleman who I believe might belong to the church showed me the building’s brick cornerstone, which I photographed.
Nestor is a community that lies between Imperial Beach and Otay Mesa West. I tried to do a little internet searching to find out more about this historic church, and came upon this South Bay Historical Society Bulletin from 2016, which states:
1896 – Nestor United Methodist Church at Coronado and Hollister was built on land donated by Captain John Folks. The first Methodist organization in the South Bay area was the Tia Juana Valley Methodist Sunday School in Oneonta, beginning in 1888.
Services were conducted in the upstairs room of the Oneonta School. The cornerstone of the present structure at 1120 22nd Street was laid on July 23, 1896. The National City and Otay Railway ran special trains to the ceremony from San Diego.
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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!
Perhaps you remember a past blog post where I shared photos of a UFO mural outside the Unarius Academy of Science in El Cajon. Or another post that included a photo of a large flying saucer on the roof of an unusual automobile that I spotted in Coronado.
Well, during my weekend walk through El Cajon, I paused outside the Unarius New World Teaching Center to read various displays in their windows.
The first thing that caught my attention was their Map of the Interplanetary Confederation, with its 33 planets that form a spiraling vortex emanating from a spiritual sun. And how in 1973 Uriel contacted the leaders of these planets, learning of their Master Plan.
Another display concerned the lost civilization of Atlantis, and the coming arrival of the Space Brothers, advanced scientists who will teach humankind interdimensional physics.
Fascinating, to say the least!
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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.
Cool San Diego Sights! 