Peter Jensen and the Reader

Pat Welsh, Cliff May, Russell Forester, pick-up b-ball, San Diego's alleys, libraries, courtyards, bridges, towers, signs, stucco, 100-year-old buildings

Author

By Peter Jensen

Publish Date

May 25, 2019

Marykay Simon in Pacific Beach (Peter Jensen)

A prolific writer for Sunset magazine, Jensen has authored books on San Diego and California. He wrote stories on local architecture for the Reader in the mid-1990s.

Pat Welsh, the Julia Child of Gardening

At lunch she is joined by her husband, Louis Welsh, whose parents, Frances and John Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright), both now deceased, lived next door. Pat and Lou eat in the garden if it’s sunny. (August 17, 1995)

Muni Gym. Playing pickup ball at Muni is like saying you bodysurfed the Wedge in Newport Beach on a big day.

San Diego pick-up basketball - heroes, courts, legends

San Diego is one of the only basketball meccas where beach sand tracked onto the court is part of the game. At South Mission or Crown Point or in North County at Pillbox or Glen Park up in Cardiff. (April 6, 1995)

The secret life of San Diego's alleys

Today in Mission Hills’ neighborhoods a few blocks north and south of Fort Stockton Drive, Sunset Boulevard, and Juan Street, alleys have a different feeling than straight alleys in Pacific Beach. (August 17, 1995)

The look of San Diego branch libraries

“We narrowed the Mira Mesa branch down to a design we liked, one with a roof we thought was very attractive. But the community group didn’t like it: they thought it looked like a Quonset hut.” (May 18, 1995)

Jack in the Box restaurant, c. early 1970s

Russell Forester, the architect of Jack in the Box

McDonald’s, once known for its exuberant golden twin parabolas flanking a glass-and-steel pavilion, is now the most boring recitation of mansardism. Only the Wienerschnitzel chain still clings to its defining, red-roofed mini-A frames (March 30, 1995)

Cliff May, inventor of the ranch house

"One of the county’s most appealing concentrations of ranch houses occurs in an unlikely place, the steep hillsides and winding streets of Del Mar…. several of these May mass-market houses were built in Del Mar as second homes.” (March 2, 1995)

Ed Pollareno: "Mexican plasterers appreciate hand work, but they do it a little different than we do. They don’t use a hod, and they cut the ‘mud’ on a wall with a big stick."

Stucco worked well for the Mayas, built much of Rome, and covers San Diego

Two factors helped bring the artistic use of stucco to a halt: modernism, with its emphasis on simple, unbroken planes, and the invention of the stucco “gun,” a machine process for blowing stucco onto walls. (December 1, 1994)

Are San Diego courtyard solutions too good to be true?

One disturbing element of the Mercado Apartments is its parking facilities. The two lots accommodate 100 cars each, and until shade trees (jacarandas and other flowering species) take over, will invite comparisons to a small Wal-Mart (June 28, 1994)

Bert Bezzone hoists himself into the interior of the Pine Valley Creek Bridge. Pine Valley is famous among bridge engineers as the first prestressed concrete bridge in the U.S. built using cantilever technology.

Bridges of San Diego County: Cabrillo, Scripps pedestrian, San Luis Rey River, Lilac Road, Pine Valley

Pine Valley is famous among bridge engineers. The first pre-stressed concrete bridge in the U.S., built using a particular kind of cantilever technology, it appeared to defy gravity during construction. It is located near two earthquake faults. (September 15, 1994)