Japanese drummers add rhythm to the San Diego Multicultural Festival.
Today I directed my feet toward the Embarcadero, where the 17th Annual San Diego Sheila Hardin Multicultural Festival took place.
In partnership with the Port of San Diego, the World Beat Cultural Center, and other community organizations, the Multicultural Festival featured lots of diverse music, culture and perfect Southern California sunshine.
This annual festival used to take place along the narrow Martin Luther King Jr. Promenade, which is dedicated to the great civil rights leader. This year it was moved to Ruocco Park to provide more space. The relatively new park, just north of Seaport Village, seems like an ideal location, with lots of grass for kids to play on, throw a ball and just have fun. Personally, I love this park and often sit on one of the benches near the water to read and watch people.
Here are a few photos that I captured…
The annual festival took place this year in Ruocco Park, just north of Seaport Village.Lots of local organizations and vendors had cool stuff on display and for sale.Young lady with awesome smiling painted face was decorating other folks!A bubble blower floated globes of color across the grass, all the way to the stage!This nice lady from nearby USS Midway Museum helped me sit in this ejection seat!Among cool things on display were two gravity cars from the Soap Box Derby.A big pile of drums wait to make music in the waterfront park!Serviceman with child enjoys a sunny day at the Multicultural Festival in San Diego.
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Sea Passage sculpture and fountain between Coronado City Hall and Community Center.
Whenever I walk around Coronado, or bike down the Silver Strand, I like to pass by this graceful work of art. Sea Passage, created by James T. Hubbell, adds gentle sound and sparkling color to a long park which stretches beside Glorietta Bay. The popular linear park can be found between the Hotel del Coronado’s old boathouse and Naval Amphibious Base Coronado.
The fountain contains a sinuous mosaic of many small tiles. They appear to me like silvery blue scales, glittering and swimming in the flowing water. The organic form artistically connects two somewhat ordinary-looking buildings: Coronado City Hall and the Community Center.
James T. Hubbell also designed two striking works of public art on Shelter Island, which is located just north of Coronado across San Diego Bay. I’ve already blogged about Pacific Portal. One of these days I’ll write about Pearl of the Pacific.
Sea Passage was created in 2005 by sculptor James T. Hubbell.Artwork adds gentle beauty to Coronado’s park along Glorietta Bay.Seagulls like getting a drink of water from the top of this colorful fountain!
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Lights come on inside Casa del Prado in Balboa Park as another day ends.
Balboa Park in San Diego’s bright sunshine is wonderful. At night it becomes magical.
As darkness seeps in and night gentles the world, Balboa Park transforms into an entirely different place. Take a look…
Plaster statues of Spanish painters become shadowy in courtyard of Casa del Prado.Faces above blue-lit fountain by Botanical Building.Ornate building facades on El Prado take on new, amazing depth at dusk.Walking down an elegant, golden corridor as night descends.Passage along El Prado becomes mellow and mysterious.The sky becomes dark blue after sunset and faint stars slowly emerge.Balboa Park after dark transforms into a fantastic, fairy tale world.Foliate capitals on the columns of the Spreckels Organ Pavilion colonnade.Illuminated fountain beside patio beneath The Prado restaurant in Balboa Park.One last juggle by the slowly darkening fountain near Reuben H. Fleet Science Center.
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Four sculptures depict tables of tasty food in Amici Park.
People love to congregate in Little Italy’s Amici Park, just north of downtown San Diego. There’s a big grassy area for dogs, a couple bocce ball courts, and some tables and chairs where neighbors can just sit and relax. Or eat.
Honestly, who wouldn’t be hungry in this park? There’s food all over the place! Metal sculptures in the shape of food, to be exact!
The red and white checkered tablecloths you see are actually glass mosaics. The recipes beside the plates are designed so that inquisitive gourmets can take a rubbing, and bring the recipe home. The various round plaques are sprinkled about the park, set in concrete where people might walk. The entire installation is called “A Recipe For Friendship” and was created by Nina Karavasiles in 2001. The public art was commissioned by the City of San Diego Commission For Arts and Culture.
Now, what’s for dinner?
Metal sculpture of blackened fish taco plate in Little Italy’s unique Amici Park.Blackened fish taco recipe from Debra Scott.Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing. –Walt KellyYou’d need some powerful teeth to eat these stuffed artichokes!Stuffed artichokes recipe from Rose Cresci.Round plaque at Amici Park shows many popular spices.Marinara sauce on plate of tasty pasta makes fun public art!Marinara sauce recipe from local restaurateurs Lisa and Joe Busalacchi.Only the pure in heart can make a good soup. –Beethoven.A plate of fava beans served up on a checkered tablecloth makes for cool artwork.Fava bean spread recipe from Nina Karavasiles.A Recipe For Friendship celebrates food, created by Nina Karvasiles in 2001.
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Participants in Little Italy’s Festa Bocce Ball Tournament at practice.
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!
Two bocce courts are open to the public in Amici Park near sculptures of Italian food!Man prepares to strategically send bocce ball down the long court.Watching the action on a lazy, perfect San Diego weekend.I saw a lot of stylish hats and calculating, cunning players.Gentleman leans against checkered tablecloth set with a plate of metal artichokes.Rules of bocce on a plaque. The right way to play bocce is the way your dad plays!
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Looking west along the narrow linear Cortez Hill Park, also called Tweet Street.
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.
Metal artwork resembles a bird perched atop trees in the downtown community.Houses for birds are creative works of imagination, built by local artists in 2008.Birds might choose to live in this traffic light.Display near center of park shows how to build a birdhouse.Bees have taken over this empty wooden birdhouse.The eyes of this colorful, weather-beaten cat invite courageous birds to enter.Human condos and apartments are across the street from vacant bird housing.House finches are among the birds that occasionally visit the Tweet Street park.Another fanciful but unused birdhouse in the downtown San Diego park.Stylish birdhouse, palm tree and downtown buildings.Squirrel perched on fence above Interstate 5 at edge of Tweet Street park.
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Visitors walk through Balboa Park’s Alcazar Garden on a summer day.
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.
Yellow blooms beneath museum tower. The Spanish Colonial architecture adds elegance.Moorish tiles on a fountain, colorful benches and an archway.The California Tower and palm trees rise into blue sky.The formal garden can sometimes appear a bit ragged.The garden is not easily seen from El Prado, but many people find and enjoy it.Rotary Club plaque reveals that the garden underwent a restoration.A picture I took while sitting in the cool, shady pergola at the west end.
Here are two pics I took the following spring…
Beautiful flowers in Balboa Park.Sunshine sprouting from the Earth.
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Sculpture of Bum, San Diego’s town dog, in a grassy Gaslamp pocket park.
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.
Plaque remembers history of Bum in early San Diego and his legendary exploits.
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.
Bum waits faithfully downtown next to the William Heath Davis House museum.Historical photograph shows Bum among his many San Diegan human friends.Greyfriars Bobby, town dog of Edinburgh, Scotland.
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.
Bum sculpture recalls another rich chapter of San Diego’s history.
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Canyon in Balboa Park to be site of San Diego Zoo employee parking structure.
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.
A tree at canyon’s edge is mercifully saved.Canyon between Old Globe, art museum and zoo has been mostly unused.San Diego Zoo amphitheater where exotic birds and other animals perform.Trees cut down, making way for new road to a long-planned parking area.Hummingbird feeders in a tree directly behind the San Diego Museum of Art.
Here’s one of several identical signs that appeared nearby in November…
Sign posted in Balboa Park explains the Old Globe Way Renovation.
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Festival celebrates all things Oz at Spreckels Park in Coronado.
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!
Dorothy and a Wicked Witch walk along checking out some art.Art along Orange Avenue sidewalk includes images from the Oz books.Wizard of Oz characters were all over Spreckels Park today!People enjoy music at the bandstand on a warm summer day.Kids could follow the yellow brick road and spin a prize wheel.These signs and balloons were all over the green grass.
I assume these were part of a fun kids activity.
The Cowardly Lion on stained glass at Coronado Public Library.
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.
The Scarecrow greets two crows and library visitors.Dorothy, Toto and Munchkins are a permanent feature of the library!
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Cool San Diego Sights! 