Two weeks to go until 2015 San Diego Comic-Con! Signs and omens of the super popular event’s coming are popping up around downtown, especially in the Gaslamp Quarter. Here’s what I spotted in the past couple days…
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I was walking around today when I noticed a large banner hanging above the entrance of downtown’s Santa Fe Depot. This year the historic train station and San Diego landmark turns one hundred years old!
A friendly gentleman inside the waiting room at the information booth gave me a flyer about a special event tomorrow. The public is invited to attend a celebration of the historic depot’s centennial! The festivities take place between 11 am and 1 pm. The address of the Santa Fe Depot Union Station is 1050 Kettner Boulevard, just north of Broadway in downtown San Diego. I will be working, so I’ll probably miss it.
In the past I’d thought about posting cool old photos of the depot, but now seems the appropriate time! Check out the following photographs that I found on Wikimedia Commons.
First, a little background on the depot, with a few details taken from an informative handout…
A fine example of the classic Spanish Mission-Colonial Revival style of architecture, including Moorish influences, the Santa Fe Depot is on the National Register of Historic Places. Today it lies at the southern terminus of the nation’s second-busiest Amtrak rail corridor. In addition to the Pacific Surfliner trains, it also serves as an important station for Coaster commuter trains and the San Diego Trolley.
Built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, it opened on March 7, 1915. It replaced the California Southern Railway’s smaller 1887 Victorian depot. The beautiful new depot was designed to welcome rail travelers visiting the 1915 Panama-California International Exposition, which was staged in expansive Balboa Park, just northeast of downtown. You can see dozens of fantastic photos of Balboa Park from a century ago here.
The huge Santa Fe Depot waiting room is 170 feet long and 55 feet wide. The varnished oak benches are lit by 16 bronze and glass chandeliers. You can see pics of today’s interior here.
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Early this morning, shortly after sunrise, as I waited for the San Diego Trolley at the Little Italy station, I was confronted by a momentary mystery. A very odd spidery shadow was climbing up the wall on the other side of the tracks.
I walked toward the shadow and turned about. A few photos show the mystery solved!
The rising parking garage, at the corner of Cedar Street and Kettner Boulevard, will provide 645 spaces for those who work at the nearby County Administration Center, in addition to paid public parking for visitors to Little Italy. The project is supposed to be finished this summer.
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Do you love riding on trains? I do! Please take a ride with me on a cool restored streetcar that runs in a circle through downtown San Diego!
Here comes PCC 529 now, coming down the track toward the America Plaza trolley station! This beautiful President’s Conference Committee car was built in 1945 and is an example of the sort of transportation common throughout San Diego during that era. Streetcars have run through San Diego’s history since the 1890’s. Today they’re making a bit of a comeback with this Vintage Trolley, which runs on a downtown loop called the Silver Line.
PCC 529, before it was lovingly restored by volunteers, sat rusting under some pine trees in South Lake Tahoe. How it got there, I don’t know. But here it comes now, getting closer to the station, so lets tap our Compass cards on the ticket reader and hurry up to hop aboard!
We immediately head up to the front seat to watch the friendly MTS driver pilot this old streetcar down the track. Unlike modern trolleys or light rail, this vehicle really clatters and jerks along and makes you feel like your laboring forward! Whenever the door opens, a bell rings!
Walking down toward the rear of the refurbished car, we check out some old black-and-white photos. It’s cool to envision the streets of San Diego filled with streetcars over half a century ago!
The bells rings, the door opens, and another passenger steps aboard!
You can dangle your arm out a window if you like, I suppose. It’s fun to just sit and watch the buildings and people flash by. This is what I call riding in style!
Our short ride is over!
Thanks for joining me. That was fun!
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Walking into San Diego’s Union Station, more commonly called Santa Fe Depot, is like walking into the past. Or through some airy, sacred, vaulted cathedral.
The old train station seems utterly enormous when contrasted with the actual role that it plays in modern San Diego. Sure, it’s a reasonably important transportation hub, serving two lines of the San Diego trolley, plus the Amtrak Surfliner and Coaster trains. But today it seems to me more like a living memorial to a time long ago, when trains were a central feature of American life.
Here are a few cool photos of the Santa Fe Depot’s somewhat sparse but elegant interior. I love the tile work on the walls, the huge glowing windows, the beams in the arched ceiling…but most of all the classic long polished wooden benches. Whenever I walk through I feel like sitting down with the waiting passengers and pretending I’m off on some exciting transcontinental voyage.
Many years ago the depot held a large model of the USS Midway aircraft carrier under glass; I remember seeing that it was moved over to Petco Park. If memory serves, there was also a small pinball and video game arcade off to one side, by an exit to Kettner Boulevard.
The above plaque is just outside the main entrance.
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There are a few San Diego Trolley stations that are unusual and especially interesting. One is the partially enclosed station at America Plaza. Every busy day, long red trolleys snake through the skirt of the tall, glassy building. One America Plaza is the highest skyscraper downtown, and stands just across Kettner Boulevard from the Santa Fe Depot.
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These photos were taken a few weeks ago in the early morning. I was on the way to work and feeling energized, so I walked about the 12th and Imperial trolley station to enjoy the views.
I got some unusual photos of the clock tower that stands next to the transit center at the 12th and Imperial trolley station downtown. The clock is one cool San Diego sight that can be seen from many points in the city.
You can stand inside the base of the tower and look outward!
