Around noon today there was a unique outdoor celebration of Memorial Day in downtown San Diego. The spectacle could be viewed in San Diego Bay and the sky above the USS Midway Museum!
A small crowd that had gathered by the iconic “Kiss” statue saw a Harbor Police patrol boat water cannon salute and a parade of personal watercraft arriving from across the bay bearing large American flags.
Then, after the patriotic parade had gathered in the water between the USS Midway and The Greatest Generation Walk, four vintage World War II aircraft belonging to Air Group One of the Commemorative Air Force flew twice overhead, and departed with the missing man formation.
Much of the event was at a distance from where I stood, but my small camera managed to get a few good photographs…
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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!
After my visit to La Mesa today, I found myself in Balboa Park for another Sunday afternoon walk.
I kept looking right and left for an indication that this is Memorial Day weekend. I had to go to the Veterans Museum and Memorial Center to find it.
Even though the museum was closed when I walked past, I noticed fresh flowers and a wreath had been placed at its outdoor San Diego Vietnam Veterans Peace Memorial.
Those who fought and died in that terrible war are still remembered.
If you’d like to see photos of an emotional Memorial Day ceremony that was held at the San Diego Peace Memorial four years ago, 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!
It’s Memorial Day weekend. I saw this on the sidewalk today while walking through downtown La Mesa. Somebody created a small tribute with chalk, fresh flowers and green leaves. Spelled inside a heart is Thank You. All gave some and some gave all.
I thought I’d share the photo. And add my own Thank You to all those who’ve sacrificed defending the freedoms we might sometimes take for granted.
(Why was I in La Mesa? To climb the Secret Stairs! I’ll blog about that experience sometime later this week!)
Today I watched an amazing demonstration of some hardcore martial arts!
I was walking around the North University Community Branch Library in University City when a flurry of action caught my attention. Several members of the San Diego Korean Karate Club were practicing in a space outside the building!
The super friendly guys got talking to me and when they learned I’m a San Diego blogger, they consented to do a demonstration for my camera!
The fighting style I saw was ridiculously fast, powerful, and absolutely impressive. They were demonstrating Chung Do Kwan, which, according to the San Diego Korean Karate Club website, was “taught to the Korean military by Master Won Kuk Lee and Master Duk Sung Son…” It’s some deadly serious stuff.
Of course, the San Diego Korean Karate Club, which operates at the Nobel Recreation Center and Athletic Fields, doesn’t engage in lethal moves, but they will teach you kicking, sparring and conditioning drills, plus self-defense situations and tactics. They also offer special self-defense classes for women.
I photographed 6th Degree Black Belt Master Joe Montanez sparring with 2nd Degree Black Belt Junior Instructor Santosh Jois and have selected a few pics.
Their moves and counter-moves were so fast I could barely follow the action. In combat I would have succumbed to either one of them in a matter of seconds!
Check it out!
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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!
A plaque that was dedicated on May 30, 1939 can be found in a seldom seen nook in Balboa Park.
At the rear of the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, behind the large bronze tablet that honors Ernestine Schumann-Heink, a small memorial plaque is set in the wall at the rear of a fountain.
The plaque appears to have been placed there by the American Legion and American Legion Auxiliary. But I can find absolutely nothing concerning it on the internet.
The plaque reads:
MEMORIAL FLANDER’S POPPIES DEDICATED TO THOSE WHO REST IN FLANDERS FIELD CITY SERVICE POST AND UNIT 537 MAY 30, 1939 A.D.
Flanders Fields poppies are often associated with May 30, or Memorial Day, which in earlier times was known as Decoration Day. Red poppies that grew over the graves of fallen soldiers in World War I resulted in Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae’s poem In Flanders Fields, and, later, the internationally recognized remembrance poppy.
The American Legion adopted the poppy as their official symbol of remembrance in 1920.
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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!
The demolition of the immense, old Navy Broadway Complex on San Diego’s Embarcadero has resumed!
This morning I happened to notice a good chuck of the large remaining Navy building has vanished!
In 2017 demolition began on an adjacent section of the complex, to make room for the new 17-story U.S. Navy Region Southwest Headquarters, which was completed in September of 2020.
Four years ago I posted photographs of that phase of the demolition, and other construction activity along San Diego’s waterfront, here.
Once the last remnants of the Navy Broadway Complex are finally removed, construction can begin in earnest of the Manchester Pacific Gateway, which will feature a total of six new buildings.
According to the site plan, there will be a 1.9 acre plaza across Harbor Drive from the Broadway Pier and USS Midway Museum, a 34-floor Convention Center hotel with retail on Broadway by Pacific Highway, and office space in the five other, smaller buildings.
If you want to learn more about this project, which has evolved over its many years of planning, click here.
It appears the new bayfront hotel and its outdoor park will be called One Broadway Hotel & Plaza.
UPDATE!
One of my blog’s readers has informed me that I’m not quite up-to-date about this project. An article in the Union Tribune last September relates how “IQHQ real estate investment group…completed its acquisition of around two-thirds — or five city blocks — of the development site known as Manchester Pacific Gateway. The transaction paves the way for what IQHQ is calling the San Diego Research and Development District…”
So it seems the plans for this property have continued to evolve…
ANOTHER UPDATE!
I took more photographs a couple weeks later…
MORE PHOTOS!
And here are a four more pics that I took one morning in early June from Harbor Drive…
…and a couple days later…
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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 discovered this small mural during my most recent walk through Barrio Logan. You can find it on Main Street near 32nd Street, directly north of the entrance to Naval Base San Diego, home to numerous ships of the United States Navy’s Pacific Fleet.
The street art is simple, yet in a quiet way it’s very personal and emotionally stirring. A sailor gazes out across a landscape of flowers, at a pickup truck and Navy ship coming into San Diego Bay near Point Loma.
It appears this painted scene is signed Shannon.
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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!
Several plaques and monuments honoring military veterans can be found around Grape Day Park in Escondido. One tribute, the Wall of Courage, I previously photographed here.
At the east end of the park, between Broadway and Escondido’s City Hall, two marble monuments stand together in the shade of trees.
The four sides of an obelisk display the United States Constitution’s first Ten Amendments, the Bill of Rights, which guarantees our individual rights and liberty. According to a plaque at its base, the obelisk was presented by the Escondido Rotary Club to the City of Escondido on July 4, 1976, during our nation’s Bicentennial.
The second monument honors all veterans who serve to defend that freedom. The memorial was dedicated twenty years later, in 1996 on Veterans Day.
It reads: The eternal gratitude of the citizens of Escondido and the nation is extended to every man and woman, living or dead, who wore the uniform of our military services with honor past, present and future.
A flag flies above both.
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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!
I would like to express my appreciation to all Veterans who have served to defend our Freedom.
Thank you.
I don’t believe there were many Veterans Day events around San Diego this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic situation. So I thought it might be a good idea to link to a few old blog posts that feature photographs from past years.
You will see men and women who made sacrifices for you and me.
To see photographs from past Veterans Day events in San Diego, click the following links:
A pole at south end of Rotary Lane in Vista expresses May Peace Prevail on Earth in many languages. By the World Peace Prayer Society, 2018.
During my adventure in Vista last weekend, I found myself walking down a path through an old linear park. The park is located next to Vista Village Drive, near its intersection with Main Street. A plaque at either end of the park told me I had entered Rotary Lane.
I soon caught sight of two works of art–one honoring peace and the other freedom–and a shining 60 feet long engraved black granite Military Memorial Wall.
I took these photographs. For those who are interested, the images and captions provide a little more information.
Rotary Lane. Established 1966.
Branches of the United States Armed Services on a black marble memorial wall. In honor of all those who serve and protect . . . past, present and future.
Purple Heart City. In honor of U.S. Armed Services men and women killed or wounded in combat. Designated by Vista City Council, June 12, 2013.
Partners who made the Military Memorial Wall possible.
A small plaque opposite the wall reads: Memorial Wall – Dedicated 2015 – Vista Hi Noon Rotary Club.
Sculpture of a patriotic red, white and blue bald eagle high atop a lamp post at Rotary Lane.
Freedom’s Struggle, by artist Winifred Meiser, 2016.
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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!
Cool San Diego Sights! 