Miracle on 32nd Street

Thirty-Five Years Ago
I saw the Miracle today, the one, that is, at the Israelite Church of God in Christ on 32nd and L Street. I’m not usually one for miracles...the usual stuff like bleeding statues and mysteriously displaced boulders. So, when the newscasters explained that the miracle on 32nd Street, the image of a cross through a bathroom window, would disappear with the flick of a light switch, my mind was put to ease. That is, until I realized this thing has been in the news for three days, people are still streaming to see it, the sidewalks of a typically-avoided neighborhood are overflowing, and four cops have been sent in not to stop the riots but to control the traffic.
— “MIRACLE ON 32ND STREET,” Judith Lin, March 20, 1975

Thirty Years Ago
Like nearly every creative genius before him, Mike Pitzel would like to explain his creation to curious laymen. After all, it really is so simple, this Trimobius. Just imagine a Mobius band constructed in a closed surface. A Mobius band, of course, is that mathematical improbability — a one-sided surface. It ranks alongside that other geometric unicorn, the Klein bottle, which has no inside or outside.
— CITY LIGHTS: “SO THIS IS WHAT THEY THOUGHT OF NEXT,” Mark Orwoll, March 20, 1980

Twenty-Five Years Ago
On the evening of April 15, San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium will officially enter the video age, when the brand-new, instant-reply, full-color Diamond Vision scoreboard blazes to life as part of the Padres home opener against the San Francisco Giants.

It reportedly can do everything to entertain and inform the fan but pour Miller Lite, shell peanuts, and spout Colemanisms.
— SPORTS, Bill Owens, March 21, 1985

Twenty Years Ago
Why does Larry Mendte, the Channel 8 weatherman, show snowflakes with eight points on his weather map? Is this some subliminal message to watch Channel 8?

Those Channel 8 flakes really are eight-sided, defying all laws of nature, which dictates six-sided ice crystals. Channel 10’s flakes have the proper number of points: Channel 39’s have six points plus what appear to be two little knobs where, perhaps, someone has lopped off the extras.

In truth, the graphics for Channel 8’s weather map are part of a package sold by a company in Boston.
— STRAIGHT FROM THE HIP, Matthew Alice, March 22, 1990

Fifteen Years Ago
The controversial Mission Valley trolley extension moved one step closer to completion last week, despite growing concern that the project is a huge waste of money. As it stands, the trolley is nearly $100 million over budget. Critics say it cuts through a dangerous flood plain and will transport only 5000 passengers per day in its first year — all this for a staggering $40 million per mile.
— CITY LIGHTS: “CLANG-CLANG GOES THE TROLLEY LOBBY,” Melinda Powelson, March 16, 1995

Ten Years Ago
I can’t believe you called the FBI after receiving dead fish from John Moores and Larry Lucchino (City Lights, March 9). What were you trying to prove?

If you had done such a hit piece on me, full of innuendo and devoid of facts, I probably would have put a horse’s head in your bed.
— LETTERS: “LISTEN!” William Bradshaw, Pacific Beach, March 16, 2000

Five Years Ago
The City of San Diego has a website that contains a list of 706 local buildings supposedly built out of unreinforced masonry. On this list, you’ll find such prominent structures as the La Jolla Arcade, the venerable complex that lends charm to the intersection of Girard Avenue and Prospect Street. There’s the building at 3325 Adams Avenue that once housed a movie theater (and now contains a discount fabric store). In Ocean Beach, Hodad’s restaurant and The Black inhabit buildings on this list. Dozens of downtown buildings are listed.
— “DEATH TRAPS,” Jeannette De Wyze, March 17, 2005