Tag: history

Summer of Sports at San Diego History Center.

Are you a lover of sports or history? Planning a visit to Balboa Park? If you’ve answered Yes and Yes, make sure you head over to the free San Diego History Center in Balboa Park!

Their current Inside/Out exhibit is titled Summer of Sports. A large display case contains fascinating sports artifacts and ephemera from the San Diego History Center Collections.

The Olympic Games return this summer, and the display takes this into account. But it mostly focuses on local sports and San Diego history.

There’s also a great video that you can watch concerning San Diego’s own skateboarding legend Tony Hawk!

The Inside/Out display case contains all sorts of San Diego sports pins and patches. Do you recognize some of these?

Alice “Lefty” Hohlmayer was a Hall of Fame player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. In her later life she resided in San Diego.

The next photo is from an old ZLAC program. ZLAC was founded in San Diego in 1892 and is the oldest continuously operating women’s rowing club in the world.

One part of this historical sports exhibit concerns Palisade Gardens, a skating rink that opened in 1946 on University Avenue in North Park. It was the first post-World War II commercial structure completed in San Diego. It closed in July 1985.

The steel and leather roller skates are circa 1930s.

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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

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Independence Day in Old Town San Diego.

Independence Day was celebrated today, the Fourth of July, in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park!

A festival atmosphere drew families to the central plaza, where the public could freely enjoy live music, crafts, old-fashioned outdoor games like sack races and tug of war, and even a simulated telegraph office! The Boosters of Old Town San Diego, raising funds for the park, raffled off a valuable quilt and offered fun handmade gifts for those passing by.

California State Park employees and volunteers wore 19th century attire. With a little imagination, strolling through the grassy plaza would feel like stepping back in time. Lovers of Americana, nostalgia and San Diego’s early history were all smiles.

Red, white and blue could be seen throughout the State Park. The various museums were open and welcoming. Spinners and quilters were demonstrating their craft at Threads of the Past, while several blacksmiths were hammering red hot iron at the Blacksmith Shop. Curious visitors could listen to explanations as they looked on.

It was a special day in a very special place.

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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.

Cool photo memories from July 2019.

Five years ago, during the month of July, there was a whole lot of excitement in San Diego!

The two biggest, most exciting events that Cool San Diego Sights documented back in July 2019 were the 250th Anniversary of San Diego and, of course, San Diego Comic-Con!

I shared hundreds of photographs that month. Please enjoy links to just a few of those past blog posts.

I’ll be covering Comic-Con again this year. I live in downtown San Diego and will take the week off from work. So stay tuned for more adventures!

Click the following links for loads of fun photographs…

Huge banner celebrates San Diego’s birthday!

A colorful 19th century Fourth of July!

PAWmicon takes over the Comic-Con Museum!

Photos of Tanabata Festival in Balboa Park!

A warm tribute to Stan Lee at Comic-Con.

More cool activity before 2019 Comic-Con!

More fun (and funny) stuff for 2019 Comic-Con!

History of IDW at San Diego Comic Art Gallery.

A new flag is raised for San Diego’s 250th Anniversary!

Starfleet Museum’s future Picard exhibit in San Diego!

Batman takes over the Comic-Con Museum!

A fun, easy walk outside 2019 Comic-Con!

Strange, bizarre cars of Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

More super cool cosplay at Comic-Con!

A quick look inside The Orville Experience.

Amusing photographs from Comic-Con!

Snoopy soars with NASA on Moon Landing Anniversary!

Third grade students create self-portrait quilts!

Flamenco dancing at San Diego Museum of Art!

Action photos from 2019 Supergirl Surf Pro!

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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.

Betty Boop arrives in San Diego!

Betty Boop has arrived in San Diego! The iconic cartoon character is now making her home at the Comic-Con Museum in Balboa Park!

Last week the one-of-a-kind exhibition Becoming Betty Boop opened at the Comic-Con Museum. Thanks to a collaboration with Fleischer Studios, museum visitors can explore a large gallery filled with historic artwork and cultural artifacts found nowhere else.

Visitors can learn about the evolution of strongly independent and flirty, jazzy flapper Betty Boop, from her debut in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes in 1930 to modern characterizations. After nearly a century it seems her popularity has only grown. BOOP! The Musical will debut on Broadway in 2025!

Those who are curious about the history of cartoons will see how animators created the Betty Boop short films using a rotoscope, which had been invented by the Fleischer brothers using an old film projector, car parts and a wooden plank! They’ll learn that in the early 1930s, the creation of a six or seven minute cartoon involved about 90 artists and took about two months!

Visitors will also learn how Betty Boop was voiced by half a dozen women over the years, and that Lillian Friedman, who worked at Fleischer Studios, was the very first American female commercial animator.

Exhibition visitors can watch several fun cartoons in the museum auditorium, and those with a creative urge can learn how to draw Betty Boop!

Boop–oop–a–doop!

If you plan to attend Comic-Con this year, make time to check out Becoming Betty Boop, one of many great exhibitions now showing at the Comic-Con Museum!

Mae Questel (voice actress) and Max Fleischer (animator), with characters Betty Boop and Bimbo!

Mae Questel has the voice most associated with Betty Boop. She also provided voices for cartoon characters Olive Oyl, Casper the Friendly Ghost–and even Popeye! She voiced Betty Boop in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Betty Boop for President, 1932.

Lillian Friedman made history as the very first female professional animator.

A more modern take on Betty Boop. These two dresses were designed by global fashion designer Zac Posen. Pantone has officially designated Betty Boop Red.

Sparkly costume worn by actress Jasmine Amy Rogers, playing Betty Boop in the musical BOOP! at Chicago’s CIBC Theatre.

An Evening with Betty, by Myron Waldman.

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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.

A new hotel, and zoo animals in the basement!

The Granger Building in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter is undergoing a very big change. The historic downtown office building, erected in 1904, is being converted into an elegant hotel.

Those who walk past the intersection of Broadway and Fifth Avenue can view the construction now in progress. Surprising graphics along the sidewalk advertising the soon-to-open Granger Hotel really catch one’s attention, however. Why are there old-fashioned images of a monkey, tiger and giraffe?

Because the basement of the Granger Building once held zoo animals!

Before I get to the unusual explanation, you might wonder: why is it called the Granger Building?

This web page explains how Ralph Granger made his initial fortune from the Last Chance Silver Mine in Colorado. When he came to San Diego in 1891, he settled in National City, where, in a addition to a mansion, he built the architecturally important Granger Music Hall. (Those who drive down Interstate 805 can easily see the notable but dilapidated building. I once blogged about the Granger Music Hall here.)

Granger would then hire renowned architect William Quayle to design an office building in downtown San Diego: the Granger Building. The Romanesque style structure, built for $125,000, was steel framed and constructed of pressed bricks. It is five stories high and features embossed metal ceilings, gas lights and a manually operated elevator. The first floor would be home to the Merchant’s National Bank, with the son of President U.S. Grant the initial Director. In 1924, the bank became the Bank of Italy, the forerunner of the Bank of America.

But what about those zoo animals in the building’s basement?

Well, Dr. Harry Wegeforth was a physician who happened to have his practice in the Granger Building. He was also founder of the Zoological Society of San Diego and the San Diego Zoo. You might recall how he was inspired to start the zoo when he passed animals that had been displayed during the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park and heard a lion roar.

In the early days of the expanding San Diego Zoo, as Dr. Harry Wegeforth acquired new animals, he kept some of them in the basement of the Granger Building!

Guests of the new Granger Hotel will be staying in a property that is full of surprising history. Past tenants of the old office building have also included C. Arnholt Smith, owner of the Pacific Coast minor league Padres, and Joseph Jessop, our city’s most famous jeweler.

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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.

Ghirardelli’s marquee and Gaslamp history.

Have you ever wondered why the Ghirardelli Ice Cream & Chocolate Shop in San Diego’s historic Gaslamp Quarter has an old-fashioned theater marquee? That’s because the building, erected in 1912, was originally a movie theater!

The Casino Theatre at 643 Fifth Avenue opened in 1913 and was one of several movie theaters in the Gaslamp that provided entertainment for ever-changing audiences over the decades. In the 1930s it was remodeled into the Art Deco style. Here’s an image from the 40s, with the Casino Café “Lunch” restaurant located next door, offering breakfast, waffles and steaks.

In the 1950s and 60s, The Casino and its movie theater neighbors at Fifth and G Street–The Aztec and The Savoy–would be open all night and show 3 big features, according to a comment here. Slowly these old theaters would fall as television’s popularity rose.

In the 1970s, while the Gaslamp neighborhood experienced urban decay, The Casino Theatre began to show X-rated movies, along with the other nearby theaters. I’ve been told sailors made up much of the clientele.

Here’s a gallery of photos of the The Casino Theatre over many years. Some of the titles you’ll read in the marquee are a bit salacious!

I hadn’t realized the marquee was seen in Marty Feldman’s 1980 movie In God We Tru$t. That image can be viewed here.

Today you’ll find a plaque near the historic building’s front entrance:

The Casino Theatre, 1912

The first theatre to be built with the new building ordinance for fire safety. It had two doors near the stage for fire escape and a five-foot-wide exterior passage on both sides and the rear for the protection of other buildings in case of fire. However, two years after construction, the northern passage was occupied by a food stand, and the southern passage contained a shoe shining establishment.

Temptation of a different sort! In a historic Gaslamp Quarter that now attracts loads of tourists, the colorfully lit old marquee teases you with ice cream, chocolate and hot fudge sundaes!

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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.

Win a historic, handmade quilt this Fourth of July!

You can win a valuable and historic handmade quilt in Old Town San Diego this coming Fourth of July!

The beautiful quilt has an antique Churn Dash top that was probably made in the 1890s or early 20th century. It was purchased in 2015 and finished by volunteers at Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, while sitting on the front porch of the Threads of the Past building. Perhaps you saw these ladies dressed in old fashioned garb during a visit. While talking to passersby and explaining their stitching, they carefully applied cotton batting and a reproduction blue cotton backing.

The quilt’s mostly red, white and blue pattern has other fun names: Monkey Wrench, Hole in the Barn Door, and Hens and Chickens! The quilt can presently be seen inside the State Park’s Robinson-Rose House Visitor Center. That’s where you can purchase your opportunity drawing tickets, too!

One dollar purchases one ticket for the Fourth of July quilt raffle; five dollars will get you six tickets. The big jar containing tickets wasn’t terribly full when I saw it today, so your chances might be fairly good at winning!

The proceeds from the raffle will help fund Living History programs at Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. You need not be present to win!

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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.

Cool photo memories from June 2019.

Do you have a curious mind? Five years ago, during the month of June, Cool San Diego Sights featured a whole universe of photographs. Perhaps you might enjoy viewing colorful moments from the past!

From Escondido to La Jolla, from North Park to City Heights, from Barrio Logan to National City to Chula Vista, my camera recorded many places and events. I took so many photos, in fact, that I’ve had a hard time choosing which posts to share!

The upcoming links will take you back to June 2019. It was a fine time to take a walk. Summer events were underway. San Diego Comic-Con was on the way. Human creativity, activity and possibilities could be discovered everywhere!

To see many photographs, click the following links!

Neighbors gather to beautify a city park!

Exhibit shows Kumeyaay history in the South Bay.

Art and history around the Chula Vista Library.

Art by Canyon Crest Academy seniors in Balboa Park!

More cool art seen during a National City walk!

Lots of street art on Logan east of Chicano Park!

Here come the 2019 Comic-Con trolleys!

Dance, food and fun at the Greek Festival!

Cool new bird mural at Red Crow tattoo studio!

Wearable art at San Diego Pin and Patch Con!

Learning to dance on a ferry.

Good times at City Heights’ colorful Fair @ 44.

Walking up the Snake Path at UCSD.

Beautiful complexity at La Jolla’s Athenaeum.

Amazing walk at Scripps Institution of Oceanography!

The gigantic bronze leaves of Kit Carson Park.

Photos of Queen Califia’s Magical Circle!

Naoko creates a flower.

Creativity at a museum helps to mend lives.

A summer whale watching trip in San Diego!

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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.

Fun summer events in Old Town State Park!

A couple of fun, free, family-friendly events are coming up this summer in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park!

On Thursday, June 13, 2024, from 10 am to 4 pm, everyone can enjoy the Pastimes of Old Town San Diego. There will be wheelbarrow races, tug of war, sack races and more 19th century games on the grassy plaza at the center of the park. If you’ve ever been to Old Town State Park and seen these games, you know how fun they are! This particular event is part of California State Parks Week.

Then there’s the Fourth of July! The annual Independence Day event starts at 11 am with a flag raising ceremony in the plaza, and patriotic fun will continue until 3 pm. Visitors can enjoy live music, crafts, and more historical games.

If you love history, Americana or nostalgia, you’ll almost certainly love these events. You might think you’ve stepped back in time to the days of early San Diego.

Here are a few photographs that I took in past years…

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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.

Bum . . . San Diego town dog, celebrity and drunk!

You possibly know about Bum, San Diego’s “town dog” during the late 19th century. He was the free-spirited dog who belonged to no one, but was loved by practically everyone.

An excellent History Talks presentation concerning Bum can be viewed here on YouTube. The video was produced by the Gaslamp Museum at the Davis-Horton House, where a sculpture of Bum can be enjoyed in the museum’s pocket park.

Bum was a stowaway on a ship from San Francisco, and when he arrived in San Diego he took ownership of the city, roaming about and doing whatever he pleased. He befriended a Chinese fisherman, a news reporter, newsboys, shop owners, restaurant owners (and their handouts), and practically everyone he met, particularly children.

Bum would lead parades. He led horse-drawn fire engines to fires. He jumped on the ferry to Coronado. He hopped onto a train at Santa Fe Depot and took a trip to Los Angeles, where he was greeted like a celebrity because a telegraph by his reporter friend told of his coming. When Benjamin Harrison visited San Diego in 1891, the United States President rode a special carriage in a grand procession. And Bum was provided with his own carriage, too!

Less known is that Bum travelled to El Cajon, where he was introduced to alcohol at a political event. And he became a drunk who’d often languish in the middle of the street. Those at San Diego’s downtown Army barracks thought it great fun to give him a drink. I didn’t know this about Bum until I viewed the YouTube presentation.

This great history presentation includes many old newspaper cartoons, photographs and stories concerning loveable but sometimes feisty Bum, San Diego’s famous Town Dog. To watch it, click 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.