I recently took a stroll around the San Diego Convention Center and took a number of cool pics. I know, I know…millions of photos have been taken of the place already. Well, anyway, here come a few more…
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A very cool building is located in San Diego’s Middletown neighborhood, near the intersection of Washington Street and Interstate 5. Here are a few photos I took the other morning!
The historic building, dating from 1912, was the first brewery in the United States to be built in the Mission Revival Style. Today it remains the only Mission Revival industrial building in San Diego.
Briefly, prior to Prohibition, a non-alcoholic drink called Hopski was produced here. The large building then served as an isolation hospital during the 1918 flu pandemic. Later it was converted into an agar plant. Today the historic landmark is a part of Mission Brewery Plaza, whose buildings contains professional offices and a new craft brewery called Acoustic Ales Brewing Experiment.
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How did this guided missile frigate end up sitting on the ground? Why does it have a tinsel sign that spells out Seasons Greetings? Did Santa drop it like an oversized toy from the sky?
This unusual sight is often glimpsed by San Diegans motoring along Harbor Drive between downtown and Point Loma. Built right there on the ground in 1949 to train Navy recruits, today this two-thirds model of a real warship is situated at the southwest end of the redeveloped NTC Liberty Station. The landlocked “non-ship” is officially named the USS Recruit and was originally modeled after a destroyer, and commissioned as a regular Navy ship!
Nicknamed by sailors the USS Neversail, she’s become something of a San Diego landmark. And every year around Christmas she wishes passersby a happy holiday!
UPDATE!
Here are a few pics taken during a walk in late September of 2014. The USS Recruit appears to be awaiting a new coat of paint!
I walked past the USS Recruit in early March, 2015. The ship has a new paint job! Of course, I had to take more photos…
Now back to our walk in Balboa Park!
You’re looking at the Old Globe Theatre. It’s modeled after the original Globe Theatre in London, where Shakespeare enjoyed watching many plays that he’d penned. This beloved building is a popular San Diego landmark.
The Tudor-style building was originally constructed in 1935, and was first used for the California Pacific International Exposition to stage Shakespearean plays. In 1978 it was burned down by an arsonist. A nearby festival stage was quickly erected so that performances could go on, then the Old Globe was rebuilt with the generous help of many San Diegans.
Since 1949, The Old Globe has hosted an annual summer Shakespeare Festival. During the summer and winter, the theatre puts on about 15 different shows including modern plays, comedies, musicals and classics.
Many productions that originated here have gone on to Broadway. These shows have won nine Tony Awards and almost 60 nominations!
This unmistakable landmark has been photographed a million times. Now make it a million and one.
Yes, it’s the San Diego County Administration Center.
Finished in 1938, designed by several renowned local architects including William Templeton Johnson, Richard Requa and Louis John Gill, the historic building is Spanish Revival/Streamline Moderne in style with Beaux-Arts classical touches.
It stands overlooking the Embarcadero, just across Harbor Drive, not far from the Star of India.
For several decades it also served as the Civic Center of San Diego. Today, a large public park is being developed on either side of the building, where parking lots recently existed. I considered posting a photo of the construction, but all you’d see is dirt and bulldozers.
The first two pics are of the building’s east side, which faces downtown’s Little Italy. The other pics from the very similar west side I took during a walk along the Embarcadero on a later day…
UPDATE!
Here are a couple more pics. I took these with a newer camera many years later. These are on the east side of the building, where there is a plaza, shady benches and two fountains. Domes featuring a beautiful tile mosaic in the American Southwest style attract the eye at either end of the building. I’m looking north in the next photo…
This red trolley belongs to the blue line. Makes sense, right? It’s waiting for passengers at the America Plaza station, across the street from the Santa Fe Depot. The blue line stretches from downtown San Diego all the way down to the Mexican border.
In this photo you can see both domes of the historic train station.
Old black-and-white photos of the Santa Fe Depot pretty much show nothing around it. It just sits there in the middle of nowhere, seemingly. Today the city rises and surges all about it, and it can almost seem lost among the many bright tall buildings.
The Santa Fe Depot is downtown San Diego’s train station. Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner, the Coaster, and the San Diego Trolley’s orange and green lines all stop at the historic building.
The Santa Fe Depot, built in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, was opened in 1915 to serve thousands of visitors to Balboa Park’s Panama-California Exposition.
This photo shows one of the Santa Fe Depot’s two colorful domes and some palm trees against a backdrop of high-rise condos. The architects a hundred years ago probably didn’t imagine that glassy skyscrapers would tower nearby!
Here are some more photos taken at a later time. Black material now covers up part of the two domes. I learned that the terracotta columns are cracking.
The Hotel Del Coronado is one of my favorite places for a stroll. The beautiful architecture, the white sandy beach, the rich history, the sunshine and leisurely vibe, all combine for a wonderful experience.
The Del’s unique appearance makes it an unmistakeable landmark in San Diego. It’s a classic Victorian beach resort, and one of the largest wooden structures in California. In 1888, when it opened, it was the largest resort hotel in the world!
Today, the spacious beach that it overlooks is routinely considered a top beach in the United States.
Sixteen different American presidents have been guests at the Del, as well as numerous celebrities. These include royalty from many nations, Thomas Edison, Babe Ruth, and loads of Hollywood movie stars: Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Vincent Price, James Stewart, Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn, to name just a few.
L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, did much of his writing at the Hotel Del Coronado.
Numerous movies have been filmed at the hotel, most notably Some Like It Hot, which starred Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis.
Many photos and signs throughout the amazing hotel remind visitors of its rich past history!
Here are three more pics that I took on a somewhat more cloudy day!
Here are a few more cool pics of San Diego’s brand new Central Library! I took these photographs today after the ceremony celebrating the grand opening. Check out the modern, inventive architecture of this truly eye-popping downtown landmark! The amazing design is by San Diego architect Rob Wellington Quigley.
The first photo is from 11th Avenue and K Street, in the heart of East Village, facing roughly northeast. This is the way you’d likely go if walking from Petco Park. What you see is just a fraction of the cool sight to come…
Here’s a photograph from almost due south. Wow! Beautiful landscaping and palm trees complement the distinctive building, which features a metal lattice dome and a gigantic, airy reading room. Other features include an auditorium, community meeting rooms, a sculpture garden . . . even a downtown high school occupying two floors!
Now we’re looking toward the northwest. Here comes a red San Diego trolley! Views from the trolley are very cool. You can peer up and into the lower windows of the new library. During the past couple months, riding the trolley, I watched as shelves of books slowly appeared as if by magic throughout the spacious building. Our old downtown library was less than half the size, ugly, and lacked many amenities.
From the trolley and nearby sidewalk you can also see a handful of wise quotes engraved in the library’s concrete exterior. Here’s a pic of the following inscription: WE WILL BE KNOWN FOREVER BY THE TRACKS WE LEAVE.
UPDATE!
I walked around the now “relatively new” library in early November 2014 and took more pics…
