The Field, with a view

In the Gaslamp, Fifth Avenue is still closed to traffic five evenings a week, including most of the day Saturday and Sunday. This has been happening since August, part of a bid to keep restaurants in the area busy while their usual source of customers — the convention center — has been repurposed as shelter. First for the homeless, more recently for unaccompanied migrant children.

These days, the Gaslamp as we used to know it appears to be coming back to life. Live music is returning, nightclubs are reopening, and as a Saturday afternoon turned to evening, I saw large groups of young people cruising the blocks, looking for a party. And we were there for a party of sorts — a (mostly) fully vaccinated group, celebrating a spring Saturday by drinking Guinness at The Field Irish Pub.

But to say it felt like old times isn’t quite right. Yes, I ordered a corned beef on rye. And yes, my Irish coffee had a shamrock of chocolate shavings laid into the top of its thick head of cream. However, while several customers were seated at tables and even bellied to the bar inside, enjoying the authentic pub-like interior, we ate and drank outside, seated within The Field’s curbside parklet, which sits on top of Fifth Avenue.

In some ways, the outdoor venue offers an improvement. It was a nice day, so we could sip our drinks in the sun, while wearing shades — not very Irish of us maybe, but definitely quite San Diego. With no car traffic creating noise or exhaust fumes, we were free to breathe easy and had a wide-open view to people watch.

Of course, that means people are free to watch you back. One man, visibly dealing with mental health issues, threatened to accost members of our party. Another approached me where I sat to ask for money.

There are still plenty of boarded-up windows around the Gaslamp: some reflecting businesses that shuttered during the pandemic, others that never took down the plywood mounted in response to last summer’s Black Lives Matters actions (At least we know Do the Right Thing made some kind of lasting impact, huh?).

None of this was enough to ruin our fun, but it speaks to a greater problem that remains in the quarter: whether you’re talking about tourists, workers, or local diners, there aren’t enough people visiting to fully reactivate the area.

Gaslamp closed off this street some days to keep people coming during Covid, but turning Fifth into a pedestrian way, permanently, might prove the best way to build the area back up now that we’re creeping toward the pandemic’s end. It’s never been fun to drive on this street, anyhow, and a pedestrian plaza might encourage storefronts here to become something more than a collection of night clubs, souvenir shops, and tourist-reliant restaurants.

Maybe it’s just a pipe dream. And maybe I just want to eat lamb shepherd’s pie by light of day. But if the most fun I’ve had in the Gaslamp in four years arose from a policy response to a global catastrophe, maybe the old status quo isn’t what we should hope to return