Two enormous parrots are now being painted outside downtown’s Solamar hotel. Why? The property will soon become Margaritaville Hotel San Diego Gaslamp Quarter!
I spotted the new artwork this morning, then returned in the afternoon for more photographs. Several painters were on two suspended platforms creating the huge, colorful murals.
The new Margaritaville Hotel will have a Jimmy Buffett theme. Sunny and laid back. Just like San Diego.
According to its website, the converted hotel will debut this July.
Parrotheads rejoice!
UPDATE!
A week and a half later, this is what I saw…
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The world famous US Grant hotel in downtown San Diego is receiving a façade refresh!
I noticed several workers on scaffolding today as I walked down Broadway.
The hotel opened in 1910–over a century ago. The son of President Ulysses S. Grant oversaw the building of the Grant Hotel, which was designed by architect Harrison Albright. Past guests have included Albert Einstein, Charles Lindbergh and twelve United States Presidents!
Did you know San Diego Comic-Con held their very first convention at the U.S .Grant Hotel back in 1970? Back then the nascent convention was called San Diego’s Golden State Comic-Con.
Here’s a page on the hotel’s website providing a bit of the history, including a period when the elegant building had become sadly neglected.
After the current refresh, the hotel should appear simply glorious!
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!
Two small murals decorate the original entrance to the 1927 Riviera Apartment Hotel. When I walk up Park Boulevard from downtown to Balboa Park, I often wonder about them.
The historic Riviera Apartment Hotel exists today as the WorldMark San Diego – Balboa Park, and what originally was the building’s front entrance is now the locked back door. Consequently, these panels are seen by few people.
Here’s a photograph of the building taken circa 1930. It’s hard to determine whether these panels are present inside the original entrance. (The vintage automobiles in the photograph resemble those in the second mural!)
The Riviera Apartment Hotel building has been designated Historical Landmark No. 468 by the City of San Diego.
Do you know anything about these murals? When were they painted? By whom? Leave a comment!
If I happen to learn something more, I’ll post an update 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 Twitter!
Hollywood, Tarzan, Live Wire and Vaudeville… What do these four have in common?
They’re all aspects of a short walk in University Heights!
A few days ago I walked east along the south sidewalk of El Cajon Boulevard, from Park Boulevard to Louisiana Street. My camera was out, aiming at anything that caught my fancy.
I saw street art and the iconic The Boulevard sign. I passed a strange bicycle and a fun window.
When I came to the historic Lafayette Hotel, I noticed huge banners proclaiming its rebirth in June of 2023.
The Lafayette Hotel has undergone many changes since it began as the Imig Manor in 1946. It’s very first guest was Bob Hope. It soon became a favorite playground for Hollywood stars, like Ava Gardner, Katharine Hepburn, Betty Grable, Lana Turner and singer Bing Crosby. It’s rumored Marilyn Monroe and JFK had a secret rendezvous here.
The hotel’s swimming pool was designed by Olympic gold medal winning swimmer and Tarzan movie actor Johnny Weissmuller. It was used by San Diego native Florence Chadwick to train for her record breaking swim across the English Channel. The hotel’s Mississippi Ballroom was used in the filming of Top Gun’s classic You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ scene.
You can learn more about the amazing, elegant features of the Lafayette Hotel here.
Okay! Here are photos from my short walk…
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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!
I was walking recently through Chula Vista’s Bayside Park, and out onto the peaceful Chula Vista Marina fishing pier when I took these photos.
The new resort and convention center is going to be gigantic. According to this article from last year, the total estimated cost for the resort hotel, convention center, parking structure and associated public infrastructure and parks is estimated to be approximately $1.23 billion. The plan is for the project to be completed in 2025. Fortunately, the long, grassy Bayside Park, at the edge of San Diego Bay, will remain open to the public.
About all I could see during my walk were these big cranes, some trucks, excavation machinery and mounds of dirt. The last couple photos were taken from the fishing pier, then from a point next to a sculpture called The Fisherman.
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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!
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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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 might want to swing by the Pendry San Diego hotel to sink your teeth into some Comic-Con inspired donuts!
When I went this morning, I saw a bunch of freshly made superhero donuts and Star Wars donuts. All were created by the folks at the world-famous Donut Bar, so you know they’re tasty good!
Look for the following sign on Fifth Avenue at J Street, and head into the hotel!
If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click 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!
Walk into the lobby of the Omni San Diego Hotel during 2022 Comic-Con and you might, for a moment, think you’ve been transported to ancient Greece. Then, looking around more closely, you’ll see you’ve been transported into the future–of FOX television!
Krapopolis, a new animated series that is coming up, has an unusual cast of characters, from the look of it. I think I see Medusa and the Kraken, too!
The graphics are on columns in the lobby and at the elevators–inside the elevators, too!
You won’t mistake the place for the Parthenon on the Acropolis. Because it’s Krapopolis!
If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click 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!
As we get ever closer to the opening of 2022 Comic-Con, more and more cool stuff is popping up in San Diego, particularly near the convention center!
For the past several days I’ve been documenting Comic-Con preparations downtown. Well, today, Saturday, I walked around again and found more stuff to share!
The distinctive Comic-Con logo now appears all over the San Diego Convention Center!Workers are setting up the outdoor canopies near the convention center. There will be huge crowds for Comic-Con as usual. Fortunately, the weather is forecast to be quite comfortable.That huge Star Trek wrap on the Marriott Marquis is looking really awesome. (I had to add contrast to my hazy zoom photo.)FX continues to set up their large offsite activation by the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. I believe those artificial hedge sections will form the walls of a simple labyrinth.Local artist Shirish Villaseñor works on the Starbucks windows graphics. They show scenes from Shrek. Her painted windows on Sweet Things Frozen Yogurts next door are the Faces of Comic-Con.The rear of the FX offsite for Comic-Con under construction.The big American Horror Stories wrap on the Hilton is getting bigger…Almost done with the cool Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero wrap decorating the Marriott.The other day I was informed correctly! FOX will have a small offsite with a Super Slide and photo opportunity on the grass opposite The New Childrens Museum.Cool trolleys all over!Sand artists have begun carving the three Audible sand sculptures.The big TREK building wrap seen from MLK Promenade across Harbor Drive.Looks like a Beavis and Butt-Head wrap on one side of the Hilton Gaslamp!House of the Dragon offsite looks ominous. I’m now told there won’t be a maze inside, but something. Looks exciting, whatever it might be!More graphics have appeared at the Hilton Gaslamp for The Walking Dead special event.The Krapopolis wrap grows on the Omni hotel. NBC hasn’t begun their offsite construction by the Tin Fish yet, nor is there anything on the grass by the Omni…The cool Severance wrap on the Hard Rock Hotel is nearing completion.That banner on the Gaslamp trolley station fence is left over from the recent ESRI conference at the convention center.Here comes another wrap on the Hilton Gaslamp! This one promotes Interview With The Vampire.Nerdy stuff is popping up all over downtown San Diego with less than a week to go before Comic-Con!
If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click 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!
Cool San Diego Sights! 
