Tag: port of san diego

How to improve César Chávez Park in Barrio Logan?

The Port of San Diego is seeking public feedback concerning César Chávez Park in Barrio Logan. Port representatives were at the Day at the Park event today held in the bayside public park.

Have you ever visited César Chávez Park? What ideas for improvement might you have? Click here to take a community input survey being conducted by the Port of San Diego.

Would it be great to have a beach? Pier improvements? More community events? More shade trees? A water feature? An expanded playground? Exercise equipment? More signage? More interactive art? More security features? Something else?

Let the Port of San Diego know! Click 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.

Feel free to share!

Day at the Park to be held on San Diego Bay!

This coming Saturday, May 31, 2025, from 11 am to 3 pm, the Port of San Diego is hosting a free event at César Chávez Park (in Barrio Logan next to San Diego Bay). A Day at the Park will feature multicultural entertainment, fun kids activities and food trucks!

I see performers include Soaring Eagles Native American Indian Cultural Dance Group, Polynesian Dancers, Mariachi Victoria de San Diego, and Ballet Folklorico Ti Pa.

Sounds like a great lineup! I put it on my calendar!

In addition, the Port of San Diego will be gathering public input at the event concerning improvements to the southeastern, waterfront area of the park.

If you want to learn about this event hosted by the Port of San Diego, check out their website by clicking 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.

Feel free to share!

Unusual sight: two Dole banana ships in port!

Two enormous Dole container ships are in San Diego today: Dole Caribbean and Dole Chile. I don’t recall ever seeing two of these banana transporting ships in our port at the same time.

The two yellow ships are in my above photograph, plus a bunch of stacked Dole containers at the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal.

I suspect the Dole Chile came in on Sunday–that’s the usual ship arrival schedule. The Dole Caribbean has been docked in the same spot for many days now without any discernable activity. I’m not sure why. People I’ve spoken to surmise the ship is in disrepair. I can find nothing on the internet.

There’s an old Port of San Diego sign on the boardwalk between the Hilton San Diego Bayfront and the water. It describes the typical Dole operations…

Some interesting but possibly dated facts from the weather-beaten sign:

Dole is the 5th largest importer of containerized cargo into the U.S. after WalMart, Target, Home Depot and K-Mart/Sears. (You can see how old this sign is!)

Bananas and pineapples are packed in farms in Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Guatemala... After arriving in San Diego, the fruit is distributed throughout the western U.S. and Canada.

Each vessel holds 762 refrigerated containers… Each 40′ container holds close to 1000 boxes of bananas… 2.5 billion bananas and 40 million pineapples arrive at the Port of San Diego each year.

…

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.

Feel free to share!

Billowing Bait comes alive on Shelter Island!

Billowing Bait is a kinetic sculpture on Shelter Island, mounted near the entrance of Nielson Beaumont Marine. I spotted it during a recent walk in Point Loma.

The sculptor is Jon Koehler. His shimmering work of art features over 300 small stainless steel elements that move together but independently with the wind. Created in 2013 according to its webpage (2012 according to the nearby plaque), the sculpture is part of the Port of San Diego Public Art Collection.

The shining sculpture is meant to resemble a school of small bait fish . . . or a billowing spinnaker sail. You can learn more about it here.

If you ever walk past 2420 Shelter Island Drive on a breezy day, pause to watch Billowing Bait come alive!

…

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.

Feel free to share!

Operation Clean Sweep beautifies the waterfront!

The cities of San Diego, National City, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and Coronado were all made more beautiful this morning! Volunteers with Operation Clean Sweep fanned out to pick up litter on each city’s waterfront!

I happened to stumble upon the above group this morning as I walked along downtown San Diego’s Embarcadero. They posed for a photo!

I learned there are numerous sponsors for the big annual clean up event, which is organized by the San Diego Working Waterfront. You can see all of the sponsors by checking out the Operation Clean Sweep website here. Some of the smiling volunteers I encountered are with Old Town Trolley Tours.

As a resident of downtown San Diego, lover of the city and avid walker, I want to thank everyone involved!

…

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.

Demolition begins on San Diego’s Navy Pier.

Demolition has begun of the crumbling structure on the east end of Navy Pier. The old building is the last remnant of San Diego’s historic Naval Supply Depot, which grew over the years into a major complex. You can read the fascinating history here.

Over the next few years, the surface of Navy Pier, including the large parking lot next to the USS Midway, will be converted into beautiful Freedom Park! The project is a partnership between the Port of San Diego and the USS Midway Museum.

Today I learned from a museum employee that before the walls of the old headhouse are torn down, workers are busy removing asbestos and doing the preliminary things that are necessary.

You can visualize how Freedom Park at Navy Pier will appear when completed by visiting this web page. I was told the park, which will honor “ordinary” heroes, will likely be finished in 2027.

When I was a young man I observed dozens of Army tanks parked inside this building and lined up along the pier. I wish I’d taken photographs. I believe that was back in the 1980s.

UPDATE!

The exterior demolition had begun in August…

…

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.

Port of San Diego’s new environmental signs.

The Port of San Diego has installed two brand new information signs on the Embarcadero next to the Maritime Museum. They concern Port and U.S. Navy efforts to protect the environment in San Diego Bay.

I took these photos yesterday…

The U.S. Navy and the Port of San Diego – A collaborative partnership to manage and protect natural resources in San Diego Bay… The Navy and the Port work collaboratively with the goal to ensure the long-term health, restoration, and protection of San Diego Bay’s ecosystem along with the bay’s economic, naval, navigational, recreational, and fisheries needs.
Navy ships based in San Diego – San Diego is home to roughly one quarter of all U.S. Navy vessels. There are more than 50 Navy ships stationed at Naval Base San Diego alone. Across San Diego Bay, aircraft carriers are stationed at Naval Air Station North Island and submarines are stationed a Naval Base Point Loma.
Hospital Ship, USNS Mercy, docked at North Island across San Diego Bay.
Visible behind a new Port of San Diego information sign are HMS Surprise and Berkeley of the Maritime Museum.
Expanding Eelgrass – Eelgrass provides important ecosystem functions, including shelter for fish, food for sea turtles, and foraging areas for invertebrates… The Port and Navy seek to expand the acreage of eelgrass…
Studying Fish and Protecting Birds, including the endangered California least tern. Fish health can be affected by water quality conditions, such as urban runoff and warming temperatures… To protect sensitive bird species, the Navy and the Port have several measures in place, including maintaining nesting sites, relocating nests, managing predators, marking and avoiding areas where nests may be present, and monitoring least terns and snowy plovers during breeding season.
Monitoring Sea Turtles – The Port and the Navy monitor federally listed endangered Pacific green sea turtles by affixing satellite tags to the top of their shells and track their movements through San Diego Bay…

…

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)!

Trees cut down by Seaport Village, kites fly.

Many of those big, beautiful old coral trees at Embarcadero Marina Park North near Seaport Village have been cut down. I was startled to see this development today during a sunny afternoon walk.

According to Rockman, the street performer who stacks rocks near Seaport Village, the Port of San Diego cut them down on February 25th.

According to this article, coral trees are not well-suited for the marine environment. That’s because the soil in the area around the bayfront is high in salt content, which causes the trees to dry out and potentially fall… The article also states new trees will be planted in the Fall.

Well, if there’s any positive side to be found, perhaps it’s that kite-flyers no longer have large hungry kite-eating trees to deal with. I saw many colorful kites today flying above the grass and the sad, strange sawdusty stumps.

…

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!

Helicoid III quietly turns in National City.

Several interesting sculptures can be found at the Pier 32 Marina in National City. Two sculptures I documented six years ago here. A third I hadn’t noticed until a couple days ago. It stands among trees by a parking lot at the south end of Marina Way, near the entrance to the Bayshore Bikeway.

The kinetic sculpture is called Helicoid III. Created by Robert Pietruszewski in 2007, it was once part of an Urban Trees outdoor exhibition along San Diego’s Embarcadero.

Helicoid III silently moves about in the sea breeze, its metal arms turning in different directions like a complex three-dimensional clock marking time. A timely analogy when you consider today is New Year’s Day. We continue to quietly swing into the future.

As I continued my walk and approached Pepper Park, I noticed another sculpture from an old Urban Trees exhibition. It’s the Sea Dragon, by Deana Mando in 2006.

Sea Dragon once stood on the boardwalk between the USS Midway and Seaport Village. Today it makes its home between the National City Aquatic Center and the Pepper Park Boat Launch Ramp. You can see photos I took of Sea Dragon seven years ago here!

Both of these outdoor sculptures are now part of the Port of San Diego Tidelands Collection of public art.

…

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!

Ruocco Park plaque memorializes Deborah Hoffman.

Today I sat on one of the benches in Ruocco Park reading a book. As I stood up and looked around, I discovered a plaque in nearby greenery that I’d never noticed before. It reads:

In loving memory of Deborah Hoffman, of The San Diego Foundation.

Instrumental in bringing together private philanthropy and the public sector to create a park for future generations.

Here’s an article that explains how the idea of Ruocco Park originated in the minds of architect Lloyd Ruocco and his wife, Ilse, art professor at San Diego State University. It then explains how Deborah Hoffman, senior vice president for the San Diego Foundation, worked continuously for five years to meld the Ruocco fund with assistance from local governments, particularly the Unified Port of San Diego, which controls the land.

I’ve spent many hours over many years sitting in this fine park, reading, writing, listening to street musicians, gazing at people walking down the boardwalk past Tuna Harbor and its picturesque fishing boats.

All I can say is thank you.

…

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!