Tag: skyline

AI images: San Diego 100 years in the future!

What will the city of San Diego look like 100 years in the future? I was curious how today’s generative AI might picture it.

I used the prompt “San Diego 100 years in the future” with the AI Drawing Assist on a Samsung Galaxy phone. The images that were produced were rather startling!

Futuristic buildings, exotic elevated walkways and new modes of transportation…but how realistic is it to believe such radical transformations could be made in only one hundred years? (Um…anti-gravity?)

Nevertheless, this is pretty cool!

I see identifiable aspects of the present city skyline are incorporated into images, as well as San Diego Bay. Notice how certain recognizable buildings are arbitrarily positioned or weirdly altered by the artificial intelligence?

I love how lush green vegetation sprouts everywhere including the roofs and sides of many buildings. I love how curvy and absurdly complicated some of the conjectured architecture is!

(Earlier this year, I performed a similar experiment. I used the term “Balboa Park at sunset” to produce generative AI images in the same way. The results were bizarre. This is what I got!)

Okay–now for today’s experiment. AI draws the future of San Diego…

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Cool mural in Hillcrest celebrates San Diego!

Have you seen this very cool mural in Hillcrest? It’s painted around a corner of the California Bank & Trust building at 3737 5th Avenue, a bit away from the street. I hadn’t noticed it until my most recent walk through the neighborhood, about a week ago.

The artwork celebrates San Diego!

Images in the mural include the downtown San Diego skyline (including the El Cortez and Coronado Bay Bridge), Balboa Park’s iconic California Tower and Cabrillo Bridge, the San Diego Zoo, Mission San Diego de Alcala, and the Hillcrest landmark sign!

The art was created by @AustinGosswiller and @JackStrickerArt. Looking at the latter’s Instagram page, it appears to have been painted in 2023.

Awesome!

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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.

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Forgotten mural atop Horton Plaza garage.

In 2011, a large mural was installed on the top level of Horton Plaza mall’s parking garage in downtown San Diego. Today that mural can still be seen, although it is badly damaged from its long exposure to sun and weather.

The Circle (on 7 Lemon) is named after the mural’s circular design and its location: the seventh level of the large parking garage in a section that is designated “lemon.”

As you can see from these photographs taken yesterday, the top of the garage was completely empty. Horton Plaza mall and its shoppers have vanished–the property is being redeveloped. The mural is all but forgotten.

A plaque still can be found by the old mural. It explains that the art was created by Chor Boogie and Writerzblok. Mural commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and Horton Plaza in conjunction with the exhibition Viva la Revolución: A Dialogue with the Urban Landscape…

Here’s on old web page that describes that exhibition, which featured works both in the Museum’s galleries as well as at public sites throughout downtown San Diego.

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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.

Photos of first light over downtown San Diego.

Enjoy half a dozen photographs taken this morning around sunrise.

It’s early September, still summer, and the weather has been unusually warm. A bit after 6 o’clock, the sky to the east brightened and broken clouds became even more beautiful above downtown San Diego.

My camera and I moved slowly west down Broadway from the vicinity of Santa Fe Depot. You can see in these photos how obelisk-like America Plaza with its colorfully lit trolley station is prominent in the foreground.

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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.

Evening’s golden hour on the Embarcadero.

This series of photographs attempts to capture the magic of the “golden hour” along San Diego’s Embarcadero. This evening, about an hour before sunset, I walked south from the Maritime Museum of San Diego to Tuna Harbor.

As the sun approached the horizon across San Diego Bay, its light reflected from downtown’s many windows, creating a magical scene.

When San Diego’s blue sky contains big fluffy clouds, the drama is heightened! The weather experts say a small storm is approaching–showers late tonight.

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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)!

The risen RaDD seen from San Diego Bay.

For well over a year, the Research and Development District (RaDD) has been rising on downtown San Diego’s waterfront. I’ve been watching the ongoing construction of this project and have posted photographs from time to time. In June I posted these.

I rode the Coronado ferry last weekend and got a good look at how San Diego’s skyline has been altered by RaDD, as seen from across the bay. (The above photo shows the long Tuna Harbor pier in the foreground.)

RaDD is a project of IQHQ. It’s described as a life science district–five new buildings occupying six city blocks–the largest urban commercial waterfront site on the West Coast. It appears to be nearing completion.

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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)!

The rise of RaDD on San Diego’s waterfront.

The five buildings of RaDD (Research And Development District) have risen on San Diego’s waterfront. I walked along the Embarcadero yesterday and could now visualize how our city’s skyline will appear once these buildings are completed.

I photographed this project of IQHQ about a year ago when the construction was in a much earlier stage. See those photos here.

RaDD will include retail and office space, dining, green space, destination event space, public art, and, most importantly, research facilities that focus on biotech and life sciences.

I see new walkways are being created so that pedestrians may safely cross Harbor Drive. Crosswalks will connect the 10 acre development to the Embarcadero’s bayside boardwalk.

During my walk I also noted that Manchester Financial Group’s One Broadway Hotel and Plaza project, which will occupy property between RaDD and Broadway, is now in the early stages of construction. You can get a glimpse of that in my final photograph.

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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!

I Love My Park Day coming this Saturday!

I Love My Park Day is coming up this Saturday, May 13, 2023!

The City of San Diego Parks & Recreation Department invites one and all to enjoy entertainment, inflatables, crafts, games, music, community resources, food, and lots of other fun stuff! The free event is organized by the San Diego Parks Foundation.

I Love My Park Day can be enjoyed at these four locations in San Diego, between 3 pm and 6 pm:

City Heights at the City Heights Recreation Center, 4380 Landis Street.

Linda Vista at the Linda Vista Recreation Center, 7064 Levant Street.

Logan Heights at the Dolores Magdaleno Memorial Recreation Center, 2902 Marcy Avenue.

Skyline at the Skyline Hills Recreation Center, 8285 Skyline Drive.

Also, this same coming Saturday, May 13th, bring the entire family out to Teralta Park in City Heights between 2 pm and 3:30 pm and experience San Diego’s favorite Fern Street Circus!

It’s all free!

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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!

Fantastic fish on a building in Skyline!

Driving through San Diego’s Skyline neighborhood, have you noticed an enormous, fantastic fish?

I’ve seen this amazing fish mural the past few years while riding the Orange Line trolley. I finally walked over to the corner of Imperial Avenue and 69th Street to have a closer look and take photos.

The abstract fish is by San Diego artist Maxx Moses. You’ve probably seen his wildly creative murals around the city and at several trolley stations. Often cultural, technological, and organic imagery are fused together to create eye-popping art.

You can see other examples of distinctive Maxx Moses work by clicking here.

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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!

Balancing high in the sky above San Diego!

I never tire of tall ships.

When crew members are working aloft, I have to stop and stare.

That was the case this afternoon at the Maritime Museum of San Diego.

Up in the rigging of visiting tall ship Exy Johnson, members of her crew balanced high in the sky, like circus performers, unfurling sails.

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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!