One cool thing about the San Diego Model Railroad Museum in Balboa Park is how several train layouts loosely recreate parts of San Diego, from downtown’s Santa Fe Depot and surrounding buildings to the scenic backcountry.
The museum’s San Diego and Arizona Eastern HO scale layout depicts parts of downtown San Diego in 1949, including the harbor, airport, and the old police headquarters. The model of the Old Police Headquarters is quite detailed and realistic!
Today, the historical building with its large courtyard is The Headquarters at Seaport, a dining and shopping destination. The Headquarters retains a very cool exhibit concerning its days as San Diego’s main police station.
I walked through The Headquarters yesterday and noticed an additional police exhibit is being created! I’ll visit again later to see what’s happening!
Meanwhile, check out the cool model of the historical building at the San Diego Model Railroad Museum…
A complete range of old vehicles is on display. I enjoyed a close look at a very unique 1968 Ford Country Squire Police Ambulance, a 1953 Ford Mainline police car, a 1948 Ford Traffic Supervisor’s Car, and even a 1926 Buick Police “Paddy Wagon.” There are police cars from the 70s, 80s and 90s, too.
Perhaps you’ve seen some of these vehicles in parades or at special events. The San Diego Police Museum boasts a large collection of restored police vehicles. All are in working order. They can be rented out for special occasions. To learn more, visit this webpage.
A few photos taken at the San Diego Automotive Museum…
…
To follow my blog, find the “Follow” box in this website’s sidebar. Or bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
(If you’re viewing this on a phone, open my website’s sidebar by tapping those three parallel lines at the top of the page.)
As their website explains: The USPFC is an Olympic-style competition for athletes representing Law Enforcement, Firefighters, and officers from Corrections, Probation, U.S. Customs and Border Protection from across the country.
There are 38 different sports in which participants can compete. There’s everything from tennis to soccer to bowling to cornhole, and, as I discovered this afternoon, basketball!
Walking through Balboa Park, I noticed spirited basketball play inside the Municipal Gymnasium. The athletes I observed are skilled and very serious about winning!
To learn more about the United States Police & Fire Championships and the various sports being played in venues around San Diego, check out this webpage.
…
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.
For the past 25 years, this very unique public art has decorated the exterior of the San Diego Police Department Central Division building in Logan Heights.
During a walk through Logan Heights today, I went around the building to check out the Tribal Shields For Common Ground. I failed to photograph all of the artwork on the building, but these photos provide a good example of what you’d see.
Tribal Shields for Common Ground – Alber de Matteis – January 2000
Commissioned for the citizens of San Diego through the City of San Diego Police Department, Engineering and Capitol Projects, and Commission for Arts and Culture.
About the artwork: Each shield is inspired by traditional cultural designs from around the world. Ancient geometric design used in basket weaving, rock painting, rug weaving and wood carving are used to celebrate the ethnic diversity of our city. The choices made here represent the four corners of the world…
If the artist name is familiar, I’ve covered other Alber de Matteis artwork around San Diego. I’ve spotted his sculptures at Shelter Island, National City and Liberty Station. Click here and here and here and here.
…
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.
Walk along the north side of the Oceanside Civic Center and you might spy the door of the Oceanside Historical Society. The unobtrusive glass door is a portal to Oceanside’s past!
Inside Oceanside’s small history center you’ll find dozens of old photographs on several walls. A glass display case contains historical artifacts. One corner of the room is occupied by a model of Oceanside’s famous Top Gun House. Just inside the front door, stairs wind upward and end mysteriously at a wall.
The space occupied by the history center was originally the home of Oceanside’s police department. Those stairs that end in a wall once climbed to a jail on the second floor. Where the jail was located is now part of Fire Station 1, which occupies the same building. The building was designed by famed architect Irving Gill, who apparently didn’t take into account that drunks and belligerents headed for jail would be ascending those steep, winding stairs! And there was a skylight in the jail, too, very convenient for escape!
During my visit earlier this week, I learned the nearby Oceanside Museum of Art will be expanding into both the fire station and history center, and the latter two will be relocated to Civic Center Drive.
Kristi Hawthorne, Director of the Oceanside Historical Society, also told me a little about the police and firefighter artifacts in the display case, including material confiscated from bootleggers during Prohibition. She maintains a great blog called Histories and Mysteries, where you’ll discover all sort of fascinating photos and little known stories from Oceanside’s history.
She explained that the society maintains a huge archive of historical photographs, and is presently digitizing tens of thousands of documents.
I also learned the Oceanside Historical Society leads downtown history walks!
The free walks are held the second Saturday of each month, April through September. If you’d like to participate, check out this web page. (You can also download a guide for a self-guided tour.)
…
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)!
There’s a fascinating museum in San Diego that seemingly few know about. Occupying a modest, easily missed building near the intersection of El Cajon Boulevard and College Avenue, the San Diego Police Museum is packed wall-to-wall with displays that lovers of history shouldn’t miss!
I visited the museum for my very first time a while ago and was amazed at the quality and variety of exhibits.
Photographs, documents, equipment and artifacts trace the earliest days of the San Diego Police Department right up to the present.
There’s a mid-20th century police Communication Center. There’s a simulated jail cell, and a real police motorcycle. There are different uniforms from the past.
There are old newspapers with headlines about crime in San Diego. There are memories of past police chiefs. There is standard law enforcement gear dating back to the 1800s, and even a Tommy Gun, like those that were once used by gangsters.
There are displays concerning horse mounted officers, bike teams that were established in the early 1920s, and four-legged K-9 officers. There’s recognition of how diversity has played a more and more important role in the San Diego Police Department through the years.
There are old police badges and hundreds of patches. There are even artifacts from charity football COP’er Bowls and sports trophies won by officer athletes and bodybuilders.
And there are medals won by police heroes. They ran toward danger in the service of others.
And covering one wall: a memorial to fallen officers.
For more details about the museum, including its hours of operation, check out the SDPD Museum website.
…
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 Twitter!
Two markers in Balboa Park, not far from the entrance to the Veterans Museum and Memorial Center, remember and honor members of the San Diego Police Department who died in combat.
I knew nothing about these markers until I visited the San Diego Police Museum recently. A display on one wall included an old photograph and an explanation of the older marker and its plaque’s history.
Veterans War Museum Balboa Park
In 1953, a stone marker was dedicated to members of the San Diego Police Department who died in combat. Located at the base of a flag pole at the entrance to the San Diego Zoo, the marker eventually became overgrown and forgotten. The monument was relocated to the Balboa Park Veterans Museum. On May 14, 2014, it was rededicated. The master of ceremonies was former SDPD officer, now Brigadier General Paul K. Lebidine, USMC.
Other monuments in and around San Diego memorialize fallen law enforcement officers.
Those monuments that I’ve observed and photographed can be found here and here and 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 Twitter!
A memorial to fallen San Diego County law enforcement officers stands across an outdoor plaza at the City of Chula Vista Police Department.
When Heroes Fall…We Remember was created by Chula Vista artist Mark Martensen in 2004. A central bronze sculpture depicts two bowed officers facing a curved wall.
Beneath fluttering flags, the black marble wall is engraved with the names of heroes from different law enforcement agencies throughout the San Diego region who’ve given their lives in the line of duty.
Flowers and messages of condolence and gratitude now surround the memorial for fallen officers by the downtown headquarters of the San Diego Police Department.
These heartfelt expressions were placed at the memorial by residents of San Diego after the tragic deaths of two married detectives in a wrong way car collision last Friday. Detectives Ryan Park and Jamie Huntley-Park attended the police academy together, and both were promoted to detective at the same time. A fund for their families has been set up here.
I was walking down Broadway early this morning to check out a mural in East Village when I saw the flowers. I had to stop and read one large message which you can see in my final photograph.
I’m certain many in San Diego share the same feelings.
…
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!
