Memories preserved at Coronado’s history museum.

A wall inside the Coronado Historical Association’s fascinating museum features the stories of many Island Icons. Natives and long-time residents of Coronado have been interviewed by volunteers of the historical association, to preserve important oral histories for posterity.

I discovered this wall during my recent visit to the Coronado Historical Association’s museum on Orange Avenue. If you’d like to see it, too, venture into their auditorium, where an hour-long documentary film regarding the history of Coronado is shown on a continuous loop. (The film is outstanding and well worth viewing.)

The Island Icons archival project began in 2020. Every month, a new addition to these recorded memories is featured in the Coronado Eagle & Journal’s Coronado Magazine, and added to this wall in the museum.

Reading these words, you’ll be magically transported back in time. You’ll visit the Hotel Del Coronado and ride the ferry many decades ago, when the town was smaller and more intimate.

You’ll ride the old Coronado Beach Railroad streetcars, have fun at one of the two long-vanished bowling alleys, or perhaps at the long-vanished miniature golf course. You’ll walk and ride bikes and play on streets with no traffic lights, before the bridge to San Diego opened in 1969, changing everything.

You’ll read stories about life during the Great Depression and World War II.

If you know someone who has interesting stories about their life in Coronado, you can nominate them for an interview here!

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Padres fans go crazy outside Petco Park!

Minutes before the start of the 2022 National League Championship Series, Padres fans were going crazy outside Petco Park!

The rally goose seemed to appear from around every corner, as did the rallying cry LFGSD!

There were smiles, excited kids, clever signs, thumbs up, and people watching the pre-game broadcast and partying in every sports bar.

Let’s go Padres!

Let’s trounce the Philadelphia Phillies and win the pennant!

Thank you for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often, so you might want to bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and check back from time to time.

You can explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!

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!

The only constant in a city is . . . change.

In San Diego, as in any city, the only true constant is change.

Trucks load and unload. Buildings fall and rise. Cars turn corners. People from every walk of life funnel through crosswalks. Lives intersect.

We travel down countless paths to futures unknown.

To curious eyes, the city reveals infinite complexity. And infinite mystery.

I took most of these photographs very recently.

In East Village, a new high-rise is being built above the old façade of the Farkas Store Fixtures building. A 2020 Carly Ealey mural still smiles.

People walking very different paths cross the same street.

Tearing down to build up.

Millions of Dole bananas show up on schedule at the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal. Some changes are predictable.

Other changes aren’t quite so predictable. San Diego Padres make the Major League Baseball Playoffs in 2022!

Old friends. New friends. Soon to be friends. TwitchCon at the San Diego Convention Center.

I was told another track is coming by the Green Line platform at the 12th and Imperial trolley station.

Heading toward the border. A life in progress.

Pesos, Euros, Dollars and a bicycle. Where to?

What change is coming to this corner of the Plaza de Panama in Balboa Park?

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 legacy honored at Mission Bay.

A plaque by the Mission Bay boardwalk honors the legacy of a man who was an inspiration to many.

Ken “SAWMAN” Sawyer III is remembered as one who lived life to the fullest and left us a legacy of laughter, love and compassion…

I noticed this memorial plaque last weekend while walking near the boat rental dock of the San Diego Mission Bay Resort.

May we all be remembered for having such a positive influence.

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!

Ocean Beach memorial to Shoeshine Willie.

A memorial to a beloved Ocean Beach man now appears on the small building where he repaired and polished shoes for decades. William L. Washington “Shoeshine Willie” passed away early this year. The memorial contains two short poems written by Aaron Bryant.

Years ago I remember seeing Shoeshine Willie working in his modest shed next a parking lot and Ocean Beach bus stop. At the time I thought it was unusual for a shoeshiner to be active in a day and age when the profession has all but disappeared. I now wish I had spoken to him.

If you’d like to see this touching memorial, head over to the corner of Newport Avenue and Cable Street. I noticed it during my last walk in OB.

Here’s an article concerning William Washington and what he meant to the community.

…He was Ocean Beach’s bright Shining light…He’s still here in spirit…

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!

Pandemic art: Paintings from the Confinement.

The COVID-19 pandemic was difficult for all of us. Tragically, many would not live through it.

We all remember the long days of uncertainty, fear, loneliness, forced isolation.

If you head to Balboa Park today, you need to stop by the San Diego Museum of Art to experience Paintings from the Confinement. Today is the final day of this emotionally moving exhibition.

I viewed the small egg tempera paintings, created by San Diego artist Marianela de la Hoz, at the urging of my museum docent friend Catherine.

The images are symbolic, spare, often grim. There is darkness. There are claustrophobic spaces. There is flat human life on small cold screens. But there are a few rays of hope beyond the confining walls. Thank goodness those walls have now mostly come down.

The artist found it hard to honestly paint her many feelings. In particular, it was very hard to portray death.

In her statement, Marianela de la Hoz explains the only treasures I have are my loved ones, family, friends, and art; everything else remained as non-essential.

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!

Transplant Games come to San Diego!

The 2022 Transplant Games are being held this week in San Diego!

A big parade was held for participants this morning along Harbor Drive. (Which I just missed!)

This evening the Opening Ceremony will be held at the San Diego Convention Center.

As their website explains: Every two years the Transplant Games of America gathers together thousands of transplant recipients, living donors, donor families, individuals on the waiting list, caregivers, transplant professionals, supporters and spectators for the world’s largest celebration of life.

Transplant recipients and donors will compete in many different sporting events through this Wednesday. Most of the competition will be at the Convention Center. It will also be the location of the Transplant Games of America Village, and according to the Schedule of Events, the public is welcome!

I think I’ll go tomorrow. I’d like to watch a bicycling competition that will be held Sunday morning at Embarcadero Marina Park South, just behind the Convention Center.

Would you like to become involved–perhaps by becoming an organ donor yourself? Check out the 2022 Transplant Games web page here.

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!

Encountering life up close at MOPA.

An extremely powerful exhibition of portrait photography is now on view at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park.

Encounter: Photographs by Jed Fielding features numerous street portraits that make you feel the strangers you see have somehow become your friends. Because that’s the very personal way Jed Fielding approaches his subjects.

The photographs are full of life, smiles, eye contact, playfulness, emotion, sincerity, vulnerability, pride, sadness, freedom. Kids at play in Naples, Italy are pleased to stop for a moment and shyly grin. A mixture of more subtle emotions appear openly in the faces of those who’ve grown older.

I was particularly moved by photos Jed Fielding took of blind children in Mexico City. As his camera shutter clicked, small hands were doing their own seeing. In one photograph fingers reached up to feel the lens.

In those portraits of blind children, more than the others, not a soul wears a mask. Every expression is unaffected, absolutely genuine.

It’s an authentic connection between people that makes these photos so powerful. So alive.

Encounter: Photographs by Jed Fielding is on display at MOPA through September 25, 2022.

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!

Black history celebrated on San Diego’s Market Street.

John Franklin Ritchey. First Black player for the San Diego Padres.

A series of street lamp banners celebrating Black History in San Diego can be observed on Market Street, between Sixth Avenue and Tenth Avenue. Depicted are eight notable pioneers of downtown!

If you’d like to learn about many of our city’s Black pioneers, entrepreneurs, sports heroes and others who’ve contributed to our city’s rich history, here’s a good page to visit!

To see a timeline of Black history in San Diego, check this page out!

Sylura Barron. Civic leader and women’s rights activist.
Jasper Davis. Second Black police officer in San Diego.
Blossom Lorraine Van Lowe. First Black teacher in San Diego.
Dr. Robert Matthews. Educator and civil rights activist.
Rebecca Craft. Founder of Black Women’s Civic League.
George A. Ramsey. Entrepreneur and business owner.
Dr. Jack Kimbrough. President of NAACP, San Diego, 1947.

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Many hands raised at Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon!

Hundreds of hands rose skyward in triumph at the San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon this morning!

At the downtown finish line, a huge crowd of spectators and supporters encouraged the runners as they approached the end of their successful race!

Arms waved, hands shot up victoriously, fists were raised, feet danced. Friends and family shouted, took photos, celebrated, hugged.

Watching the spectacle, one felt a rush of joy and elation. Before your very eyes, you could see limitless human possibility.

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!