Tag: mysterious

Tower of Ten Billion Stars stands in San Diego!

A very unique sculpture can now be approached by the public on San Diego’s waterfront. More construction fences have come down at the new Research and Development District (RaDD) complex!

The Tower of Ten Billion Stars is another work of monumental art on what is called the RaDD Artwalk. You can spy the narrow oblong sculpture standing strangely on one end, by looking south from Broadway, east of Harbor Drive.

The creator of this shimmering “tower” is Lindy Lee, a Chinese-Australian artist. As its official description states here, it stands as both a beacon and wayfinder.

Hundreds of small holes in the sculpture’s side allow the passage of bright daylight. The holes shine like visible stars in a silvery sky. They seem to form constellations. Stars–like the North Star–have been wayfinders since ancient times, right?

I’m not sure why it’s a Tower of Ten Billion Stars. There are 100 to 400 billion stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. And there are between 100 billion and 2 trillion galaxies in the Universe.

Perhaps this curving tower is like a tiny, tiny, infinitesimal sliver of the inconceivably vast and mysterious Cosmos.

I walked around the sculpture this evening and took some photographs. I love those reflections of palm trees and nearby tall buildings!

(I also love how “beyond boundaries” can be read nearby. Astronomers can only theorize. The words are actually in reference to a World Design Capital event being held at RaDD.)

…

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.

Thank you for sharing!

Ghosts on San Diego’s haunted Star of India?

Have you ever had an eerie experience on the Star of India, San Diego’s world-famous tall ship? The old ship does have a long history of ghostly encounters. Are you curious?

Haunted Star Tales is an experience now available at the Maritime Museum of San Diego, in time for Halloween. Several signs posted around Star of India tell how visitors to the historic tall ship have had possible encounters with ghosts from the ship’s past.

For example, people have reported a mysterious cold chill in the boatswain’s locker, just above the chain locker where a death occurred in the year 1909.

And there are those instances when ship caretakers, night watchmen and others have felt a finger in their back when nobody else is present–possibly by the ghost of one John Campbell, a stowaway boy, who, in 1884, working for his passage, fell 100 feet to the ship’s deck.

Wander the decks and darker areas inside 1863 Star of India, oldest active sailing ship in the world, looking for informative signs that tell of possible hauntings. You will find many human stories and so much fascinating history.

Whether you encounter a ghost–who knows?

Souls lost and mysterious sightings… Come aboard and find out for yourself!

The bo’s’un’s locker, where unexplained cold chills have been felt.

The chain locker, where a death occurred.

Visitors come to the ticket taker or volunteer tour guides and ask… Did someone die here?

…

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.

Find the world-famous art in this photograph.

In this photograph and the next two, you can see art created by and artist who has been called “one of his era’s greatest sculptors.” Can you find it?

These photos were taken a couple days ago behind the old luggage terminal of Santa Fe Depot, in downtown San Diego. The historic terminal, needed back in the days when train travel was a very common mode of transportation, would become the downtown home of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. A year or so ago the museum moved entirely up to their beautiful La Jolla location.

What you see here is the patio between the old luggage terminal and a Santa Fe Depot trolley platform.

What are those metal cubes?

Those six large cubes, together weighing 156 tons, is an art installation commissioned by MCASD in 2004 titled Santa Fe Depot. The artist is Richard Serra.

Richard Serra was a giant in the art world. He died earlier this year, March 26, 2024, at the age of 85.

…

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.

Indigenous rock art in Rancho Bernardo!

Surprising as it might be, Rancho Bernardo has some of the most unique and extraordinary rock art in North America!

Five hundred to one thousand years ago, indigenous people created both pictographs (rock paintings) and petroglyphs (rock carvings) in present-day Rancho Bernardo. I didn’t know this until I observed an interesting Rancho Bernardo Historical Society poster at last weekend’s RB Alive! street festival.

If you’d like to learn more about this topic, there’s an informative YouTube video you should watch. A history presentation from 2018 features analysis of Rancho Bernardo’s rock art. Photographs of the badly faded art were enhanced using special software previously used by NASA.

You can view the YouTube video by clicking here.

…

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.

Balboa Park plaque dedicated to Craftsmen of America.

Balboa Park in San Diego is full of surprising history.

Perhaps you’ve seen this plaque. It can be found in a modest brick plaza at the House of Pacific Relations International Cottages, beneath a rusty, flagless flagpole, a few steps from the entrance to the United Nations Building and Gift Shop.

The plaque proudly states:

DEDICATED TO THE CRAFTSMEN OF AMERICA BY THE FIRST NORTH AMERICAN CONFERENCE ON APPRENTICESHIP — AUGUST, 1953 — BUILT BY APPRENTICES OF SAN DIEGO SPONSORED BY JOINT APPRENTICESHIP COMMITTEE ON MASONRY

Internet searches provide very little about this history. Perhaps a knowledgeable reader out there can contribute a comment. The brick wall and circular patio must have been built by local masonry apprentices.

I did find an interesting old article in the August 26, 1953 edition of CONVAIRIETY, a newspaper for employees of the Convair Division of General Dynamics. It begins by explaining how Two Convair San Diego men who formerly were apprentices at SD were singled out for honors during the first North American Conference on Apprenticeship held in San Diego Aug. 2-9.

You can see the full CONVARIETY article by clicking here, or read the text more easily by clicking here and scrolling down.

…

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.

Mysterious public art in Lemon Grove!

Take a look at this mysterious public art. You can find it by wandering around Treganza Heritage Park in Lemon Grove.

Three simple structures (that I found) seem to have been constructed for seating. Each resembles a fruit packing crate made of marble, and each features a unique lemon growers brand label. Two brands that are recognizable are On Honor Brand and Temptation Brand.

I asked a docent at the nearby Lemon Grove Historical Society & Parsonage Museum about these “marble crates” but he didn’t know they existed. I can find nothing on the internet about them.

Somebody out there must know the history of these very unique seats! If you do, please leave a comment.

The three different label images are faded, and, as you can see, one is now unreadable. I’ve added a lot of contrast to my photographs to bring out as much detail as possible.

This beautiful park was established in 2003 as Civic Center Park. It was renamed Treganza Heritage Park in 2020.

…

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 (formerly known as Twitter)!

Flaming woman: hidden art in Middletown!

Extraordinarily beautiful public art can be found in a seldom seen corner of San Diego’s Middletown neighborhood. A tile mosaic appears to depict a fiery, spiritual woman, rising above surging waves of colorful artwork composed of individually made tiles.

The mosaic is mostly hidden in a cranny by Kettner Boulevard, east of the Middletown trolley station, near the bottom of stairs that climb to the pedestrian bridge over Interstate 5. Few people use these stairs.

I can find no information about this mysterious public art. I took these photos today. The last time I observed it, about four years ago, the mosaic hadn’t been completed. You can see those images here.

If you know who created this stunning, very complex mural (perhaps a community project?) please leave a comment below!

…

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 (formerly known as Twitter)!

Is this America’s most haunted Christmas tree?

The historic Whaley House in Old Town San Diego is widely considered to be the most haunted house in America. So it’s possible that what you see in these photographs (which I took today) is America’s most haunted Christmas tree!

When you think of Christmas ghosts you probably conjure up Ebenezer Scrooge’s visitation by Jacob Marley and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. While those are literary creations, ghosts believed to have been observed at the Whaley House have many real life witnesses.

Over the years, I’ve been told about ghostly presences in the Whaley House’s small upstairs theater. The theater is located behind those balcony windows.

I spoke to several Whaley House Museum tour guides today and asked if there have been any strange incidents concerning their Christmas tree. They did say that the ornaments are securely fashioned, but one was found on the ground beside the street below.

Did a Christmas tree hating Scrooge-like ghost utter bah humbug and toss the ornament from the balcony?

You decide!

…

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 (formerly known as Twitter)!

A mysterious old plaque in Balboa Park.

I often look down at this old plaque in Balboa Park as I walk from the Spreckels Organ Pavilion into the International Cottages. It’s situated next to the walkway after you cross Pan American Road.

To me this little plaque is a mystery.

The name Peggy Angus is probably known by some who are knowledgeable about our city’s history. When I perform a Google search, I see she was an active member of the Kiwanis Club of San Diego. She’s mentioned in two different San Diego Kiwanis Tidings newsletters back in 1955.

The plaque celebrates Peggy’s birthday in 1983. Why was it placed in Balboa Park?

Please leave a comment if you know anything about the history. Other readers might be interested to learn more about Peggy Angus and her birthday plaque, too!

…

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 (formerly known as Twitter)!

Rising sun and fog on Broadway Pier.

These three photographs were taken early this morning.

I walked very slowly along downtown’s Broadway Pier as the sun rose–and as a bank of fog rolled in from San Diego Bay.

The sun, clearing the horizon somewhere behind downtown’s high buildings, magically turned the fog orange. Then the gray creeping fog made those buildings vanish.

…

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 (formerly known as Twitter)!