San Ysidro Stories

RSS New story alertsAlerts

Bloody Mess

PolyHeme, that controversial blood substitute deployed in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods during trials conducted by UCSD three years ago, has come a cropper. Evanston, Illinois-based Northfield Laboratories announced on May 23 that of ...

The Hard Way to Cross the Border

Short southbound and long northbound waits are not always the norm at la frontera internacional. During the weekday evening rush hour, the southbound wait at San Ysidro is often more than an hour. This nightly ...

Uniform Agreement

The Colegio de Bachilleres high school sits about five miles east of downtown Tijuana on the Vía Rápida, the highway that straddles the Tijuana River channel. The campus looks like public high schools in San ...

Breakfast with the Birds

"I have the soup every time. That's every week, for ten years!"

Back When

Thirty Years Ago THANK YOU, Ricky, for being yourself in a world lacking spontaneous, natural love. Please never lose my number, or my love. Earl. ROGER BOWMAN, the Renee Richards of the water polo world: ...

A Gritty Dilemma

Around 9:30 p.m., on Friday the 19th of August, 22-year-old David Silverman of Jacumba and two female friends were cruising south on Buckman Springs Road toward Campo when they found themselves stuck behind an 18-wheel ...

Fear Tracer

The 1999 World Trade Organization riots occurred on Norm Stamper's watch as chief of police in Seattle (he retired in 2000). But the homicide he writes "I committed" was the most traumatic event in his ...

R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility (Kairos Prison Ministry)

Tall, barbed-wire fences surround R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility near the San Diego-Mexico border. Approximately 5500 inmates call the blue-and-white cement buildings home. Twice a year Kairos Prison Ministry runs a three-day weekend program for the ...

At Home in San Diego

LA COSTA When I think of La Costa, I remember the wildlife -- the skunk that lived under our house, for instance, a beautiful creature whose size would double when it puffed up its fur ...

Best of 2001: Best Place To Buy New Kids' Clothes Cheap

Kid's Outlet Retail & Wholesale 5971 University Avenue, northeast San Diego 619-582-1676 Other locations in National City, Chula Vista, and San Ysidro The rate at which children outgrow or ruin clothes is startling. At Kid's ...

Best of 2000: Best Place To Study Graffiti

Barrio Logan Some people admire the elaborate mural-sized geometric designs of former guerrilla tagger Saki, others prefer the primitive kinetic power of a simple bathroom-wall limerick. Sponsored graffiti -- wall paintings commissioned by civic groups ...

Bonita's First Blood

When the kids get off the trolley at San Ysidro these spring evenings, you sense the bravado. With so much news about murders, cartels, allegations of government corruption, it's impossible to think about Tijuana the ...

Doing the Mexican Mailbox Jam

'Hi gang! Having a wonderful time in Tijuana. Wish you were here. Write back soon." I address the postcard, a view of the Jai Alai Fronton Palace on Revolución to myself in San Diego. I ...

Mafia Hunter

Loren McCannon stands, faces the frigid autumn wind blowing across the border at Otay Mesa, and sees the ghosts of crimes past. McCannon, now 75, suffering from diabetes, and survivor of a heart attack, can ...