During last Sunday’s Festa event in San Diego’s Little Italy, an exciting bocce tournament was held at Amici Park, right next to all the glorious Gesso Italiano chalk art.
Bocce is similar to lawn bowling and dates back to the ancient Roman Empire. According to a plaque set in the concrete near one of Amici Park’s bocce courts, it’s the world’s oldest sport!
I captured a few pics of the action!
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Every day for the past six years I’ve been watching for rare birds.
As you might have read on this blog, I live at the top of Cortez Hill in downtown San Diego. One cool feature of my neighborhood is a modest but well-loved park that awaits a few steps from my front door. Cortez Hill Park, more commonly called Tweet Street, is an extremely narrow urban park that stretches for several blocks along Date Street and Tenth Avenue. Completed in 2008, it includes a small playground, dog rest areas, and benches where visitors can rest and enjoy the San Diego sunshine. But Tweet Street’s unique purpose is to provide an inviting refuge of trees, shrubs and birdhouses that encourages birds to take up residence!
I remember when Tweet Street first opened, and my excitement. The artistic, brightly painted birdhouses were simply fun to walk past, and the idea that the park would soon be full of birds put a spring in my step.
Years later, I’m still watching for birds. Occasionally one can be glimpsed or heard in the deeper parts of the trees, or down on the hillside above Interstate 5. But to see a bird near the sidewalk is a rare thing. I’ve never seen a single birdhouse being used.
I suppose the lesson is that birdhouses shouldn’t be erected 5 or 6 feet from a popular walkway, where many people pass throughout the day, often with dogs. And that birds need a little more cover than what an extremely narrow park provides. Don’t get me wrong, I love Tweet Street! I love how the trees have grown out. I love walking along the park and gazing out at different vistas. The idea of attracting birds was terrific. But birds have their own notions about where to live. It seems they prefer a little more privacy.
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There are many gardens in San Diego’s vast Balboa Park. One of the best known–and one of my favorites–is the Alcazar Garden.
Located on the south side of El Prado between the Museum of Man and the Mingei Museum, a visit to the spacious garden is like walking through an elegant painting of towers, arches and sunlit flowers. Thousands of blooming annuals, long green hedges and colorfully tiled fountains make this the perfect place to slow down and absorb the quiet beauty. A shady pergola is ideal for rest and reflection. The Alcazar Garden is so named because it was created to resemble the formal gardens of Alcazar Castle in Seville, Spain.
Here are two pics I took the following spring…
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One of San Diego’s most famous celebrities had four legs and a tail. His name was Bum.
Bum the dog made San Diego his home in the late 19th century. He arrived in town in 1886 by stowing away on the Santa Rosa, a steamship from San Francisco. Soon thereafter, he became the well known town mascot.
Everyone was proud to be Bum’s pal. San Diegans young and old gladly provided food, friendship and their front porches for his sleeping place. Bum helped firemen hurry to fires, led parades, and protected the town’s children. We know this today because James Edward Friend, a journalist, wrote about Bum’s life and famous exploits.
Bum was so popular that one local restaurant put up a sign that read Bum Eats Here. When the city of San Diego passed a law requiring dog licenses, Bum’s picture was featured on the license.
Bum was a free spirit. Nobody owned him. But he had a claim on everybody’s heart. He was given free fare on trains, whenever he decided to come or go. He was given special medical attention when one foreleg became badly mangled in a train accident. He was even given a home at the County Hospital by the Board of Supervisors when his arthritis made it hard to get around. Bum was buried on the hospital grounds after his death in 1898.
Bum’s life has come to represent a small chapter of San Diego’s history, back when today’s downtown competed with Old Town and was called New Town. A bronze sculpture of the famous town dog now occupies a shady pocket park in downtown’s Gaslamp District. You can find the exact likeness of the St. Bernard-Spaniel mix lying on the grass not far from the William Heath Davis House, which is a small museum and the oldest wooden structure in the Gaslamp.
The nearby plaque reads:
Bum
San Diego’s Official Town Dog
Died November 10, 1898 – Aged 12 Years
Loved by everyone – owned by no one. His name suited him because he arrived as a town stowaway, befriended everyone and “bummed” quality food from the local eateries. As a young dog he survived a scuffle with another dog on the Santa Fe train tracks. Though he lost a foreleg and part of his tail, his spirit was unbroken. He guarded the children, led the parades and fire trucks, and had many adventures. So admired was Bum that the City Council awarded him a lifetime dog license. When he died, children collected pennies for a proper burial.
Another dog sculpture perched on a nearby bench is of Greyfriars Bobby, the official town dog of Edinburgh, Scotland. The love and loyalty of both legendary dogs is the reason San Diego and Edinburgh are sister cities.
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When I recently went on a special tour at the San Diego Museum of Art, my new docent friend expressed concern about an upcoming construction project. We were standing at a window that overlooks Old Globe Way, a short, winding access road that follows the edge of Jungle Trail Canyon directly behind the museum. The road starts behind the San Diego Junior Theatre, passes the rear of the Botanical Building, and finally leads to the back of the Old Globe Theatre. We gazed out the window at many colorful hummingbird feeders dangling from a nearby tree, at trees by the road that were marked with green paint, then beyond the narrow canyon to the back of the famous San Diego Zoo. The small canyon, I learned, was to be converted to parking!
After doing a bit of research for news on the internet, I learned the canyon would be the location of a six level parking garage for zoo employees. The idea is to free up a large amount of space from the zoo’s main parking lot on Park Boulevard. Employees arriving by car usually start their shifts in the early morning, and depart at different times, so traffic problems in the park would be kept to a minimum. The new structure has been in the planning stage for a long time.
Yesterday my journey through Balboa Park included a stroll down Old Globe Way. I saw that the work had already been started. Fortunately, those green markings on larger trees indicated they were to be saved.
Here’s one of several identical signs that appeared nearby in November…
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Today a special event was held in Coronado’s Spreckels Park celebrating The Wizard of Oz and L. Frank Baum’s other popular children’s novels. The family festival was put on to coincide with the 50th annual Winkie Con, a convention for fans of the Land of Oz.
Winkie Con, now also called Oz Con International (I suspect to sound like Comic-Con International), is growing in popularity and will be held next week for the first time in San Diego. This year also marks the 75th anniversary of the classic Wizard of Oz movie, starring Judy Garland!
I strolled through the happy, colorful Coronado festival and got a few pics. According to what I’ve read, there were all sorts of activities during the day, including a children’s parade.
I then sauntered across Orange Avenue and took several photos of the famous Wizard of Oz stained glass wall inside the Coronado Public Library!
I assume these were part of a fun kids activity.
Now I’m visiting the Coronado Library which is located across the street from Spreckels Park.
Author L. Frank Baum spent a good deal of time in Coronado, writing many of his novels in a rented house not far from the Hotel del Coronado. (You might check out my earlier blog post on this subject!) He modeled the Emerald City of Oz after the fantastic, world famous Victorian beach resort hotel.
Because of its strong connection with L. Frank Baum, Coronado today is often referred to as the Emerald City!
These fun Wizard of Oz glass panels in the library were created by artist Brenda Smith.
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Mosey along Orange Avenue on the island of Coronado and you’ll be confronted by extraordinary things. You’ll probably run into a large cow. Or Elvis standing on the sidewalk, or a scaly, fantastic dragon. Or colorful ribbons of music. Or beautifully painted canvases by local artists in a public park.
Here are random pics of fun art that I’ve spotted…
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Today a very cool new public park opened. It’s called Pocket Park. You’ll find it near the corner of 13th Avenue and J Street in East Village, which is a booming neighborhood in the east part of downtown San Diego. Tucked between buildings on either side, the clever little park will make a great gathering place for the neighborhood.
Large letters on the ground and stacked pallets form a gigantic word find. The puzzle contains words like PADRES and PETCO, which are associated with East Village. The Downtown San Diego Partnership helped to make this new park a reality.
Looks like a great place to relax and read a book!
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The large new waterfront park around San Diego’s County Administration Building contains an important memorial in a prominent location. The San Diego County Law Enforcement Memorial is a glass wall etched with the names of fallen officers. It used to be situated on a patch of lawn a bit south of where it now stands. The beautiful memorial was created by the San Diego County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, the San Diego County Law Enforcement Memorial Foundation, and the County of San Diego.
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The brand new, very awesome County Administration Center Waterfront Park opened today! This spectacular city park stretches several blocks both north and south of the historic County Administration Building, replacing two ugly parking lots. It’s impossible to miss this expansive 12-acre park, located just across Harbor Drive from beautiful San Diego Bay.
You might have read my recent blog post about waterfront improvements, and seen some photos of this new park under construction. It’s now finished and it’s really fantastic!
I attended the grand opening this morning and got tons of cool pics!
Here we go…
President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the County Administration Building in 1938.
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Cool San Diego Sights! 